Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets caused a bit of a stir yesterday, appearing on an AT&T Tech Channel online show and changing the subject to discuss AT&T’s plans to filter the Internet.
As Joel says:
As you can see from the video, the crew ended up scrubbing the interview about half-way through. Figuring that might happen, I asked my steely-nerved friend Richard Blakeley to tape the first take. I wanted to make sure that we had a record of the event, primarily to ensure that AT&T would have no reason to try to bury the interview entirely—the same reason I am running this clip now, while discussion about what to do with my segment in post-production is surely underway.
After the crew got their wits about them—they were not very happy with me, understandably—we went on to shoot a second take, which to Hugh’s credit also included not only talk of gadgets, but of network neutrality and AT&T’s collusion with the NSA. I look forward to seeing that segment air on the The Hugh Thompson Show.
It’s yet another lesson for all you Join The Conversation/Two-Way Dialogue/New Transparency/Consumer Engagement gurus: Companies want to control the conversation as much as possible. And it could get very, very ugly.
Thanks to The Consumerist for pointing to this.
Dan Goldgeier
David Burn
Shawn Hartley
Wade Sturdivant