It is true that the US doesn't have a national framework for censoring the Internet. However, it does exist in patchwork form on an ISP level. Every major ISP censors and filters websites and IP's it deems to be harmful. A lot of times, there's confusion and a lot of innocent sites are caught up in the mix due to name based virtual hosting in webservers.
Some would argue that anti-spam blacklists and droplists are censorship, and pretty much every ISP uses those. I don't share that point of view, but there are those who would argue this.
I have not come across anything that was censored by my ISP in anyway. Only one such case was cited on Wikipedia, were Verizon blocked text messages due to a violation of ToS.
Could you provide any more information on ISPs blocking content?
Until you can substantiate your claims inre: "every major ISP" censoring, it's FUD.
I don't have any evidence that my ISP (Shaw) or the other major Canadian ISPs don't censor. But you haven't presented any evidence that they do, nor have you presented any evidence to support your claim for just the major US ISPs.
And there's no need for the ad hominem, friendo. It just weakens your position.
We were talking initially about US ISP's, then you mentioned North America so I figured I'd throw in my experiences with Telus and Rogers. That wasn't an ad hominem attack. I was pointing out that you have no direct experience dealing with large US ISP's and their blocklists.
How am I supposed to substantiate my claims? What do you want as evidence? Do you want me to post email threads or something? No way.
Do you know how a looking glass works? It's pretty easy to find blocked IP's using Comcast's.
Technically that's censorship. Censorship I can live with, but it is censorship on a national scale. Every other Canadian ISP maintains a block list, but hey you won't believe me unless I produce a sworn affadvit from the security personnel of each ISP.
Some would argue that anti-spam blacklists and droplists are censorship, and pretty much every ISP uses those. I don't share that point of view, but there are those who would argue this.