Consumerist
censorship
Posts Tagged “
Censorship
”
censorship
censorship
Go Daddy Refutes Censorship Claim
The reader who sent Go Daddy an email asking why they shut down RateMyCop.com received a response in which they emphatically denied any censorship—this was all about a customer exceeding his contracted server usage limits and nothing else, they say. Read their full response after the jump.More »
censorship
Go Daddy Shuts Down RateMyCop Watchdog Site
Yesterday, Go Daddy pulled the plug on RateMyCop.com, which has been criticized by law enforcement officials for allegedly putting police officers in danger by listing their names and in some cases badge numbers. Visitors can then add comments and post critiques or praise about specific cops in their area. The website collected its officer data via public information requests, and no personal information is used, nor are undercover agents revealed. Still, law enforcement officials are upset at the exposure. When the site's owner, Gino Sesto, called Go Daddy, he was first told it was removed due to "suspicious activity," but then the reason was changed by a supervisor to an exceeded bandwidth cap, which Sesto disputes. Update: Go Daddy responded to our reader's email and said taking the site offline had nothing to do with censorship. More »
censorship
Uproar Over Tiny Illustration Of Naked Statue In Children's Book
A German author and her publisher were thrilled when a U.S. publisher inquired about putting out a North American edition of one of her bestselling children's books... until the U.S. publisher asked the author to airbrush some of her illustrations. More »
complaints
The Problem With Using "Free" Online Services: Random Censorship
Laura used Picasa to share photographs of her mastectomy with members of her support group, as well as family and friends. Now they're gone, deleted without warning because some anonymous jackass flagged them as inappropriate. [Update: Pics are back up! Google apologized and reinstated the entire album, along with comments.] The first problem with this is that it's hard to figure out which category of "inappropriate" surgical pictures fall under: obscenity, pornography, promotions of hate, incitement of violence, spam, malicious code, or viruses? More »
Apple has agreed to drop its lawsuit against Think Secret, a website that specializes in publishing in-house Apple rumors and leaks. In return, Think Secret has agreed to stop existing. However, this means the editor also gets to protect his sources. [Think Secret via Gizmodo]
Powermark Homes abuses DMCA to silence PowermarkHomesSucks.com without having to go through one of those pesky court thingies. [Consumer Law & Privacy Blog]
at&t
AT&T's New TOS "Respects Freedom Of Expression"
BoingBoing reports that AT&T has altered the language in its reviled TOS to say it thinks it's okay for people to speak their mind. Really, they hard-wired that into the legalese:
"AT&T respects freedom of expression and believes it is a foundation of our free society to express differing points of view. AT&T will not terminate, disconnect or suspend service because of the views you or we express on public policy matters, political issues or political campaigns."
That's very sweet of them to say. Really. Though, we're skeptical of how well, "But it says right here, they respect the freedom of expression as a foundation of a free society!" would hold up in court...
More »
censorship
After Blogs Cry "Censorship," AT&T Says It Will Change Terms Of Service
After getting roundly whiplashed for having a clause in their Terms of Service that could be interpreted as meaning they reserved the right to terminate the service of any customer who criticized them, AT&T DSL reached out to several blogs today with the following commitment to change their ToS:
We are revising the terms of service to clarify our intent. The language in question will be revised to reflect AT&T's respect for our customers' right to express opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. And we will make clear that we do not terminate service because a customer expresses their opinion about AT&T.We'll reserve judgment until the pixels dry. As of now, their ToS is still the same.
AT&T Changes its 'Terms of Service' [GigaOM] (Thanks to David!)
AT&T tells me it will revise "damage our name" language in TOS [ZDnet]
PREVIOUSLY: AT&T Promises To Not Terminate Your Service For Criticizing Them
AT&T And Verizon Can Cancel Service Of Subscribers Who "Damage" Their "Reputation"
(Photo: gorriti)
pr
AT&T Promises To Not Terminate Your Service For Criticizing Them
Yesterday we posted about how the AT&T DSL Terms of Service contain a clause that says AT&T can cancel your service if you "damage" their "reputation." Today, AT&T PR bots reached out to some sites to say they would only do it if you were promoting violence or peddling child porn. Unfortunately, that's not what's in writing. What's in writing is the nebulous "damage" of their "reputation." So, AT&T subscribers, feel free to criticize away, until they change their mind.
AT&T vows to use Terms of Service for good, not censorship [Ars Technica via BoingBoing]
PREVIOUSLY: AT&T And Verizon Can Cancel Service Of Subscribers Who "Damage" Their "Reputation"
(Photo: emerald isle druid)
AT&T And Verizon Can Cancel Service Of Subscribers Who "Damage" Their "Reputation"
Criticizing AT&T DSL as a subscriber can result in them shutting down your service, according to their Terms of Service:
Criticizing AT&T DSL as a subscriber can result in them shutting down your service, according to their Terms of Service:
whoops
Verizon Reverses Policy On Pro-Choice Text Messages
Verizon recently rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, to make Verizon's network available for their opt-in text message program. More »
net neutrality
AT&T Censors Pearl Jam
Last weekend, AT&T delivered a live stream of Lollapalooza performances on its Blue Room website. Unfortunately, during Pearl Jam's set, they muted some politically charged lyrics. Pearl Jam is outraged, and AT&T is backtracking and blaming the company they hired to provide the feed:"[The muting was] a major mistake by a webcast vendor and completely contrary to our policy. We are working closely with the vendor and the band to post the song in its entirety on this site and ensure that this does not happen again."More »
news from the swamp
Bill To Outlaw "Fleeting" Swear Words Passes Senate Committee
Ars Technica says that a bill to give the FCC power over even"fleeting" swear words has passed a Senate committee and now moves on to the full Senate. More »
reputation defender
Firms Hired To Cajole Websites Into Annihilating Their Own Content
We're in a WSJ article today that touches upon our encounter with Reputation Defender, a company clients hire to go around sending turgid pleas to mean websites for posting factual information already reported in mainstream media publications:ReputationDefender also sent a takedown request to Consumerist, a Gawker Media blog that had written about a man who was briefly jailed for harassment after repeatedly calling online travel agent Priceline.com Inc. for a refund. The letter asked the blog to remove or alter the archived post, saying it was "outdated and disturbing" to its client. Consumerist editor Ben Popken blasted the request with a profanely titled entry, calling it an attempt at censorship. "It's not like we're spreading libel," he said. "They were trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube."More »
breaking
Liveblogging Digg's $#@*!storm
1:30, Diggs started to take longer to register . The digg box on one post started showing 11 diggs, when the post really had 56.1:40 Our post is the top blog post when searching for digg in technorati tags, resulting in our first noticeable traffic ever from technorati. good thing we got reinstated in the directory for the 3rd time or so recently.
1:43 Serious slowdown after digging posts...more than 30 seconds.
1:44 Digg pwns sel: "Digg will be down for a brief period, while we make some changes."
1:45 Listening to the "Oh Nine, Eff Nine" song.
1:47 Digg still down.
1:48 It is going to take them a really long time to remove all the stories with the code in it. And then there's all those pesky users to ban.
1:49 Still down.
1:51 They are never going to keep that number out. People will add it as comments just for no reason. Congrats, MPAA, you've created a powerful new meme!
1:52 Just noticed that Kevin Rose, Digg founder, posted something two hours ago about how they're effectively going to tell the MPAA to shove the C&D. It uses the AACS code as a headline so you know he is for reals, or maybe it's just Digg-bait to increase his AdSense revenue.
1:59 People say it's up. But they also say it's timing out and hanging. Still down for us.
2:03 Now everyone sees "We'll be back shortly."
2:05 We remember enjoying the headline that said, "BREAKING: DELL DUDE LANDS ON MOOn!" With the subheading "also 09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63.jpg." Think it linked to a picture of Kevin Rose, a shovel, one of those terrorist creatures from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and a graphical representation of the deadly number. Not quite the perfect Venn diagram of Digg user interests, but cut 'em some slack, they're working on the fly.
2:08 This is a phat rap about the number.
2:09 Fatigue, thoughts of this post's pointlessness, begin to settle in.
2:12 Posting more screencaps taken shortly before the crash, inside.
2:16 People say it's up!
2:17 Hasn't propogated to us yet. Apparently the top story is Rose's, "I will never take this down."
2:19 It's back for us. Looks like the same crazy pile of hex stories. It's well past the tipping point of where people are just clicking on, and submitting all, the hex code stories they can.
2:20 Wonder if Digg will credit their advertisers for all the page refreshes.
2:21 Again, Rose: ""But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you 've made it clear. You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be."" Let's see what kills Digg first, fighting the MPAA suit or no one wanting to read a site full of hex spam.
2:28 Submitted this post to Digg. More »
breaking
Digg Goes Ape$#@*!
A wide-scale user revolt is disrupting popular social news networking Digg. It's a protest over Digg acquiescing to MPAA pressure and deleting a 15,000+ dugg story about a crack for the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray DRM system. More »
libraries
Sports Illustrated Refuses To Send Swimsuit Issue To Libraries
Why is Sports Illustrated refusing to send a copy of the swimsuit issue to libraries? Is it because they want people to buy it off the shelves? Robyn writes:I am a librarian at the University of Dallas. We have not received our issue of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition even though we have an active subscription. The serials discussion list I am on has been abuzz on this topic. It turns out no libraries have received their issues. The publisher has decided not to send it to any institutions. Librarians who call in to complain are being offered an subscription extension of two issues. That will not satisfy patrons who are looking for the swimsuit edition. They'll just have to go buy it on the newsstand (surely that's not the publisher's intent!)Who knew librarians were so down with the swimsuit issue? That's very cool, somehow. More »
It should be up to the institution to decide whether or not they choose to make the issue available to patrons. The publisher should send the issues we've paid for. If we throw them in the trash, that's our prerogative.
