We all sit quietly in our computer rooms and blog our hearts out about the latest outrage by our government and our worries about how large companies efforts to limit net neutrality could affect our ability to get out important messages. Yet, for most of us, this is academic or hypothetical. How many of you know someone who has had his account terminated because of stuff that he has written?

Yet this isn’t hypothetical or academic. Hossein Derakhshan, aka Hoder, noted Iranian Blogger has constantly been the canary in the coal mine. He has been blogging about Iran since 2002. He has received death threats. Today, I received an email in which he talks about how his hosting service, Hosting Matters, terminated his account because of what he has written.

Doing a little searching, I found this post by Roger Simon about a denial of service attack on Hosting Matters, which knocked out Instapundit, LGF, Tim Blair, NZ Bear, etc..

In Hoder’s case, Washington Institute fellow, Mohammad Mehdi Khalaji threatened to sue Hoder because of comments Khalaji asserts were defamatory. Instead of seeking due process, Hosting Matters abruptly terminated Hoder’s account. Hoder is now considering legal action against Hosting Matters.

This is a good illustration of why net neutrality is so important. Hosting companies should not be able to restrict content because of a feared lawsuit against someone using their service. Hosting companies need to be protected from such lawsuits so that people like Mohammad Mehdi Khalaji cannot take away people’s freedom of speech by threatening a lawsuit.