[governance] FW: [IP] T-Mobile Claims Right to Censor Text Messages

[Paul Lehto]

Actually, the headline is not really so misleading.  What T-Mobile
reserves the "discretion" to do is to require pre-approval of every
PROGRAM for short-code text messaging.  This is not a VENDOR approval,
but a right to reject classes or types of messaging from
already-approved short code messaging providers.  Thus, the vendor
mentioned in the article was terminated as a vendor because they
signed up a medical marijuana dispensary for short code services that
can not normally result in any spam.   That's censorship based on
content.

This review of the content of short code advertising campaigns with
the discretion to reject them (without any standards being mentioned
here to constrain the discretion) is worse than blacking out certain
words or sentences--  because such limited deletions are transparent
and at least some communication is allowed.  T-Mobile's policy wipes
out entire classes of speech that it doesn't like, and it is by no
means limited to a claim of "illegal" speech -- T-Mobile claims
"Discretion" to reject whatever it wants, and it's not at all limited
to what may possibly be a legal problem.

Moreover, T-Mobile does NOT review each marketing campaign - it claims
the discretion to Require Pre-APproval, and that is obviously
triggered by the possibility of controversial speech like medical
marijuana even in a medium that when normally functioning with short
codes has no spam in it.

The key paragraph in the article says as follows:

[T-Mobile has been sued by] "a texting service claiming T-Mobile
stopped servicing its "short code" clients after it signed up a
California medical marijuana dispensary. In a court filing, T-Mobile
said it had the right to pre-approve EZ Texting's clientele..."  And
T-Mobile's brief claims that T-Mobile: "has discretion to require
pre-approval for any short-code marketing campaigns run on its
network, and to enforce its guidelines by terminating programs for
which a content provider failed to obtain the necessary approval."

Censorship is a fair word, even if the reasonable opinions of others
may wish for different word choice.  They might be analogous to
T-Mobile wishing for different words in others' text messages.

Paul Lehto, J.D.

On 9/23/10, Rui Correia <correia.rui at gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael
>
> Your headline is extremely misleading. Besides, on the list, we are
> primarily concerned with individuals and how things affect you and me. So,
> before reading the article, most are likely to interpret your heading to
> mean censoring of normal person to person messages. That is not the case.
>
> If you read the article, you will see that T-Mobile is not censoring
> anything - it is opting not to accept a client. It is a commercial decision.
> Any newspaper, magazine, radio or tv station has the right to accept or turn
> down a client seeking an avenue to place its advertising. Naturally T-Mobile
> is concerned about being associated with a client advertising marijuana,
> albeit for medicinal purposes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rui
>
> 2010/9/23 Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dave Farber [mailto:dave at farber.net]
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 9:30 PM
>> To: ip
>> Subject: [IP] T-Mobile Claims Right to Censor Text Messages
>>
>>
>> http://gizmodo.com/5645446/t+mobile-claims-right-to-censor-text-messages
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
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