An Internet service provider in Northern Idaho is blocking access to Facebook and Twitter for customers, upon request, in response to allegations of censorship after President Donald Trump’s accounts were suspended on both platforms.
Twitter suspended Trump’s account on Friday, the day after indefinite suspensions of Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were announced in the name of promoting a peaceful transition for President-elect Joe Biden.
On Sunday afternoon, YourT1Wifi distributed an email to customers about user calls to block these sites. In response, representatives said that YourT1Wifi would block Facebook, Twitter “and any other website that could also be censored” on Wednesday, according to the email. Customers can be added to a list without blocking upon request.
Although YourT1Wifi’s email said the decision was not partisan – “just a high moral foundation for fair and decent communication” – client Krista Yep said he believed the move showed support for last week’s Capitol riots in Washington, DC She shared the email exchange on a Twitter post that has since gone viral.
“I was shocked,” she said in an interview, “but it was clear how, OK, incredible: my Internet service provider supports the insurrection.”
When Yep informed the company of his desire to cancel the service, however, the owner of YourT1Wifi, Bret Fink, said in a response that a blockage was not occurring at all for the customer.
He said that YourT1Wifi would block the sites upon request. More than two-thirds of the company’s customers have requested firewalls, he wrote.
In his e-mail to Sim, Fink said, “I could probably have formulated this in a better way, since some people are getting confused and thinking that everyone is being blocked.” They reiterated the option in an email to the shared customer Monday morning.
“As many (of) customers stated,” said the email, “they don’t want their children or family to connect to these sites and they don’t have the know-how to stop them from showing up, so they asked us to do that for them. “
Founded in 1996, YourT1Wifi’s coverage area extends to parts of the Idaho panhandle and the Spokane area, according to the company’s website.
Fink did not immediately return a request for comment.
Yes – which still plans to cancel its services – said it believes that YourT1Wifi is “overshadowing” customers with how the company has changed its offerings.
“They probably thought they were defending their ideals, which are probably in line with Trump’s ideals with the insurrection and ‘being censored’,” she said.
Jim Alves-Foss, a professor of computer science at the University of Idaho, said that providers often block websites when requested as a service to customers.
“I know that some (Internet service providers) offer ‘family-friendly’ services, where they block certain websites,” said Alves-Foss. “It is more work for one (Internet service provider) to manage individual lists of websites to be blocked. They have to have this infrastructure in place. “
Generally, service providers routinely censor and block certain sites, such as sites that are known cyber threats, said Alves-Foss. With the revocation of the net neutrality rules in June 2018, Federal Communications Commission regulations allow providers to block websites as long as they are transparent in their disclosures, he said.
The move may conflict with Washington’s net neutrality law, however. According to the law, providers are prohibited from blocking “non-harmful legal content, applications, services or devices, subject to reasonable network management”. Idaho does not have a net neutrality law.
A spokesman for the Washington governor’s office, Jay Inslee, said that the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s Office is aware of the situation.
In the meantime, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said Attorney General Bob Ferguson “takes enforcement of the Washington network neutrality law very seriously.”