Time Warner Cable said it will cease to offer customers access to any Usenet newsgroups, a decision that will affect customers nationwide. Sprint said it would no longer offer any of the tens of thousands of alt.* Usenet newsgroups. Verizon's plan is to eliminate some "fairly broad newsgroup areas."
This has to be the largest act of government coerced censorship in United States history. Granted, many of these newsgroups are still available via web interfaces like Google Groups, but the precedent set here is worse than the result. It is inevitable that if allowed to stand other content and protocols will be added to this regime. It is worth noting that the ISPs weren't required to block all of these newsgroups, just filter them with a government hash list. A hash list that would have inevitably expanded to include other verboten content that the government recommends that communications services "voluntarily" censor. Its likely that is not a business these ISPs wish to be in.
More here and here.
I have a feeling that June 10th, 2008 may replace February 8th, 1996 as the most infamous day in the history of the Internet.
As a professional child pornographer, I find this to be alarming to say the least. The term 'lolita teen wonder fishfuck' will never mature into the spring flower that it had the potential to be...
