Censorship
In June 2008, it was announced that Sprint and Verizon would be cutting off access to the alt.* hierarchy to their subscribers, citing child pornography as the number one reason. New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo claimed his office found child porn in 88 of the 100,000 groups that exist on alt.*. Verizon has not blocked alt.* from users, they have simply stopped maintaining the alt.* hierarchy on their own servers. Verizon subscribers can still access the alt.* hierarchy through a third-party Usenet service.
In the same time frame, AT&T's United States-based consumer dial internet service provider decommissioned their NNTP servers entirely, citing a combination of the above concerns and a putative decline in traffic volume which had accelerated beyond a statistical point of no return.
Read more about this topic: Alt.* Hierarchy
Famous quotes containing the word censorship:
“... censorship often boils down to some male judges getting to read a lot of dirty books—with one hand.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)
“Right now I think censorship is necessary; the things they’re doing and saying in films right now just shouldn’t be allowed. There’s no dignity anymore and I think that’s very important.”
—Mae West (1892–1980)
“... a phallocentric culture is more likely to begin its censorship purges with books on pelvic self-examination for women or books containing lyrical paeans to lesbianism than with See Him Tear and Kill Her or similar Mickey-Spillanesque titles.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)