There's a funny video floating around cyberspace that tackles a serious topic -- the potential loss of even more privacy for Internet users, courtesy of
AT&T and other ISPs.
Joel Johnson, who writes a blog about personal and consumer electronics for the popular web site
BoingBoing, was invited onto
The Hugh Thompson Show, an Internet talk program on AT&T's
Tech Channel, to chat about "gadgets."
Johnson had other plans. After politely ignoring Thompson's hard-hitting opening question ("So I gotta ask you this: You kind of have a different philosophy around gadgets, right?"), Johnson went all subversive:
"Let me ask you a question first, though...What did you think about AT&T's announcement last week..."
At this point Thompson, sensing what was coming, briefly slumps forward behind his desk. You also can hear some murmuring among the video crew.
"...about their plans to filter the Internet?"
This visibly cringing Thompson (sounding like Rob Schneider's Copy Room Guy) replied, "Oh dude, Internet filtering!"
That was followed by two minutes of Johnson making his host squirm before the taping was abruptly terminated. The
footage now on YouTube and elsewhere comes from a camcorder brought into the studio by one of Johnson's friends.
To some this may seem like a petty act of defiance, but thanks to the unfiltered Internets, Johnson's act of corporate civil disobedience has morphed into a viral event that is raising the public's awareness of an important issue.
On the down side, it also may have heightened public awareness of
The Hugh Thompson Show. Is AT&T doing so well that it can afford to spend production money on a talk show hosted by a former network security consultant and permanent geek who apparently has been instructed to say the word "dude" every time he exhales? The show is taped live in a professional studio, there's a house band, and there's an audience of maybe 100. We're talking a few bucks here, people!
Do the shareholders know about this? And how can I get a piece of the action?
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