| Your computer successfully creates the illusion that it contains photographs, letters, songs, and movies. All it really contains is bits, lots of them, patterned in ways you cant see. Your computer was designed to store just bitsall the files and folders and different kinds of data are illusions created by computer programmers. |
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 | The story of Naral Pro-Choice America and Verizon Wireless, what was that? | |
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| Naral wanted to form a text messaging group to alert the members but Verizon denied it citing the unpleasant messages it might contain. | |
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| Text message alert groups for political candidates it would allow, but not for political causes it deemed controversial. |
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| Had Naral simply wanted telephone service or an 800 number? | |
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| Verizon had no choice either way. Telephone companies were declared "common carriers" long ago. Like railroads, phone companies are legally prohibited from picking and choosing customers from among those who want their services. | |
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| In the bits world, there is no difference between a text message and a wireless phone call. Its all just bits, traveling through the air by radio waves. It doesnt treat all bits the same, and the common carriage rules for voice bits dont apply to text message bits. |
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| Did Verizon backed down in the case of Naral? | |
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| Yes, but not to the principle. A phone company can do whatever it thinks will maximize its profits, yet no sensible engineering distinction can be drawn between text messages, phone calls, and any other bits traveling through the digital airwaves. | |
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