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Did AT&T intentionally censor political lyrics from a webcast of a Pearl Jam performance?

Fans watching Pearl Jam’s Lollapalooza headlining set on Sunday via AT&T’s live Webcast may have noticed an unexpected silence during the band’s politically charged version of “Daughter.” The band posted a letter on their official site yesterday addressing the matter, and asking whether their performance was intentionally censored by AT&T:

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them. During the performance of “Daughter” the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” but were cut from the webcast:
- “George Bush, leave this world alone.” (the second time it was sung); and
- “George Bush find yourself another home.”…

In a statement to blog GigOM, AT&T said the Pearl Jam incident was “not intended, but rather a mistake by one of the webcast editors,” adding that editing policies were in place not to censor sets, but to cut down on excessive profanity since the broadcasts are not age-restricted. AT&T also confirmed they are working with Pearl Jam to post the original, uncut version of the song, though no date has been announced.

I can’t imagine AT&T’s actions were a matter of corporate policy, if only because it would immediately cost the company its access to almost all other performing artists if they had been acting deliberately.  Nonetheless, telecoms do have an awful lot of power, sometimes to the point where incidents such as this can be a bit frightening…

Here’s a clip of the performance, in case you’re curious:

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