AT&T Sunday blocked sections of the popular image-based bulletin board, adding more fuel to the debate over network neutrality. Web site 4chan.org reported Sunday that AT&T subscribers could not access certain portions of its bulletin boards. And AT&T spokesperson confirmed to Central Gadget that the carrier was blocking portions of the site because they were "following the practices of their policy department." AT&T declined to provide a more specific explanation for why it decided to block portions of the site, although it did say it had specific reason for doing so.

Make Your IT Initiatives Provide Immediate Business Impact: Download now While AT&T says that it contacted 4chan.org before blocking the site, 4chan.org founder Christopher "moot" Poole said that as of yesterday the company hadn"t contacted him. Poole also advised 4chan users to "call or write customer support and corporate immediately" to complain about the blocking.

Although AT&T restored access to the site late last night, its decision to block 4chan.org has sparked a fresh row in the network neutrality debate. Erling Løken Andersen, the CEO of the Norwegian social networking site Biip.no, said that AT&T was "firing one of the first shots in the net neutrality war" by blocking the site. Meanwhile, the Tech Herald reported that several users took AT&T's actions to be related to network neutrality and not related to legitimate network management concerns.