On Mon, 6 May 1996 anonymous-remailer@shell.portal.com wrote:
Financial Times, 6 May 1996
Internet provider to launch censorship
By James Mackintosh in London [...]
Pipex - the UK arm of UUNet of the US - does not expect a backlash from users over the censorship.
Let's see to it that they're wrong. [ObFUCKING-STATIST: while the article is newbiegarbled, as far as I can tell, they're only blocking specific newsgroups, and not any IP routes, which would be worse. IMO, ISPs have the right to block certain newsgroups, as long as they tell customers what they're doing. HOWEVER, if Pipex is as big an uber-ISP and news feeder of ISPs as UUNet is here, then they've clearly gone over the line as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if AOL blocks alt.sex.kiddie-porn, because the kiddie-porners can simply move to a real ISP; but the big players have more of an obligation to act as content-neutral common carriers.] -rich