Apparently, Comcast’s video on demand (VoD) version of ABC’s July 14 “Nightline” did not match the actual show. According to this report, the Comcast version on VoD eliminates a rather embarassing minute of film for Comcast. Was it deliberate censorship or an encoding error from ABC, as Comcast claims? We may never know for sure, but I wish it had happened last week while the FCC was still considering whether our claims that Comcast might censor news to millions if the FCc approved the Adelphia transaction were merely “idle speculation.”
More below . . . .
Last Friday night, ABC’s “Nightline” aired a segment on consumers using the internet to strike back at companies. This segment ended by running the now famous Comcast sleeping repairman video.
But that’s not how it ended on Comcast’s VoD system, apparently. The “Comcastic” version dropped the part critical of Comcast.
Comcast replied through a spokesperson that the problem was on the ABC side. Apparently, the version Comcast received put the encoding for the commercial break too early. By amazing coincidence, the wayward code appeared just when the part of the program critical of Comcast was about to come on. Ha ha ha…those wacky wayward codes! You never know where they will turn up!
But, of course, there’s no reason to think Comcast might have censored the content on its own! That’s just crazy talk! Wild speculation! Why on Earth would Comcast do such a thing? To even suggest that Comcast might play such games is just whacky paranoid progressive foolishness. Next, you’ll be saying that AT&T is secretly working with the NSA to spy on domestic phone calls!
Still, am I the only one who notices this apparent never ending stream of corporate oopsies. Not just from Comcast mind. The times myspace drops the Savetheinternet and anti-Ted Stevens blogs, the time Cox blocks Craigslist, the time AOL blocked the “Dear AOL” campaign emails critical of its “Certified mail” program?
How many “oopsies” before I get off the paranoid speculation list?
Stay tuned . . . .
You’re not just paranoid. Comcast also suppressed a particular AFL-CIO hearing (which they usually repeated ad nauseum) from cable once Comcast workers started complaining about working conditions. See:
http://www.cwacable.org/new…
Even though tapes were usually available for sale, this edition was unavailable because the tape was “broken.”
Is this the kind of “intelligence” that should be built into the middle of the internet?