Chapter 4
Gatekeepers
Who’s in Charge Here?
Who Controls the Flow of Bits?
When the Telecommunications Workers Union went on strike against Telus, the leading telecommunications company in western Canada,1 a discussion about strike-breaking sprung up on a pro-union website operated by a Telus employee. Then suddenly the site became inaccessible to anyone who was using Telus for Internet service. Telus subscribers could get bits originating in places from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. They could get bits representing symphony orchestras and pornography. But if they wanted to see the discussion about resisting management’s efforts to break the strike, they couldn’t. Telus had taken the position that because the cables delivering the bits belonged ...
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