Has Verizon Forfeited Common Carrier Status?

An anonymous reader writes, "Freedom of speech, the future of the Net, you name it. In October, a U.S. vigilante group asked Verizon to cut off Net access to Epifora, a Canadian ISP that hosts a number of (entirely legal) web sites offering support to minor-attracted adults. Shortly thereafter, Verizon gave 30 days notice to Epifora, ending a 5 year relationship. Telecos have traditionally refrained from censoring legal content, arguing that as 'common carriers' it is outside of their scope to make such decisions. Furthermore, they have refrained because if they did so in some cases, they might be legally liable for other cases where they did not exercise censorship. The questions are: has Verizon forfeited their claim to common-carrier status by selectively censoring legal speech that they do not like? And can the net effectively route around censorship if the trunk carriers are allowed to pick and choose whom they allow to connect?"

Comments

Re:Possibly NSFW?

[fyngyrz]

My Christian coworker might think odd things of me.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your Christian coworker probably already thinks odd things of (with, about, for) you. Things involving superstition, magic bread and wine, reincarnation, turning your wife to a pillar of salt, snake handling, babbling in tongues, angels, demons, water-walking, sea-parting, numerology, geological absurdities, favor begging from deities, incest, life after death, eating Christ's body and drinking his blood, hanging replicas of some carpenter dude nailed to a cross around their neck, and yours too, if they can convince you to buy in...

You really want to watch out for those Christians. They can be pretty wacky.