UPDATE: AT&T have responded “Officially, AT&T claims that the act of censorship was the result of a simple mistake made by the content monitor”

“The editing of the Pearl Jam performance on Sunday night was not intended, but rather a mistake by a webcast vendor and contrary to our policy. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not edit or censor performances. We have that policy in place because the blue room is not age-restricted. We regret the mistake and are trying to work with the band to post the song in its entirety.”

A bit of heavy-handed censorship of a Pearl Jam concert by AT&T this weekend led the band to fire off an open letter to fans—a letter in which Pearl Jam railed against media and ISP consolidation and called for readers to support network neutrality. During a recent show by Pearl Jam, they played, “…the melody from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” and Eddie Vedder served up a pair of anti-Bush lyrics to the tune. “George Bush, leave this world alone,” he sang. “George Bush, find yourself another home.” which AT&T censored on the webcast of the concert. PJ were obviously unhappy, and made a bid to support net neutrality, something that seems below most people’s radar. From their site:

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media. Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of “NetNeutrality.” Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.

“What happened to us this weekend was a wake-up call, and it’s about something much bigger than the censorship of a rock band.”

Remember, if only a few big companies own the Internet’s bandwidth, the same sort of censorship could take place on any Internet content. Net neutrality is the only fair option, demand it.