Censorship
Lollapalooza in Chicago is now a source of controversy thanks to AT&T and a “mistake” they made during the Pearl Jam performance. During their performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast by AT&T: “George Bush, leave this world alone.” and “George Bush find yourself another home.”
Waitaminute – this was going out on the net not on TV. Hell, even if was on TV it should play as is. Was this a simple/convenient mistake, an actual honest mistake or was this an actual act of censorship? When AT&T was asked about the missing portion of the performance they stated that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them. AT&T spokesman Michael Coe said “Those lyrics in no way, shape or form, are something that should have been edited, we regret that this happened and we’re upset. We’re working with our vendors to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” Interesting. Was the content monitor one of the twelve people left in the US who still thinks that Bush is doing a great job? If the guy was a content monitor and his job was monitoring the Lollapalooza content and that portion of the show was omitted I’m thinking it probably wasn’t actually a mistake and now they’re just saying it was a mistake because they’ve been called out on it. AT&T donates a lot of money to political campaigns (just like all other giant mega-corporations) and this definitely brings up the question of the continued consolidation of the mass media and corporations pushing agendas – whether political or not – it’s one nation under a giant corporate flag.
Tags: at&t, censorship, george bush, lollapalooza, pearl jam
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