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Report: AT&T Blocking 4chan
July 26th, 2009 | by Ben Parr
54 Comments
4chan is the anonymous Internet forum known for its pranks, its hacking, and the Rickroll. While its content and discussion is not suitable for children, it is a popular and important piece of web culture.
AT&T doesn’t seem to like 4chan, though. According to the Los Angeles Metblogs, AT&T DSL users are unable to access anything on the img.4chan.org subdomain if they live in Southern California. If true, this essentially blocks 4chan’s most popular and controversial forum, /b/. It looks like a censorship battle is brewing, especially since 4chan users are aware of the apparent block by AT&T.
The LA Metblogs has compiled several sources that apparently confirm AT&T has blocked img.4chan at the ISP level, including reports from multiple Twitter users who cannot access 4chan and even calls to their help desk. We’ve also seen reports on Reddit. While we cannot confirm this news (or if true whether AT&T did this on purpose), it’s still a troubling report, especially if you believe this is censorship by a major ISP. The 4chan ban doesn’t seem to affect AT&T Wireless (aka your iPhone) or most regions.
It’s very likely that this is only the beginning. 4Chan is notorious for Internet attacks, and from the looks of at least one 4chan thread, they are not happy at all. AT&T should clarify whether or not they blocked img.4chan, and if they did, who is affected and why they blocked it before things get out of hand or servers get hacked.
Are you an AT&T customer and having problems reaching 4chan? How will 4Chan react? Could this all be a hoax orchestrated by 4chan (it’s possible)? There’re a lot of questions to be answered, so leave us your thoughts in the comments.
Note: We called AT&T, but were unable to confirm or debunk the reports since we do not have AT&T High-Speed Internet accounts
