Today, the United States Congress will be holding hearings on the first Censorship system for the US Internet.

This bill must not pass. Write your representatives and demand that they vote against it.



Watch this video for a better explaination

Some of you may disagree with us taking on this fight, but believe me - it affects us.

In the past, we've had a former member we've banned file a false DMCA claim against us and successfully take us down.

If this passes, our little forum is fucked. No two ways about it; Somebody will get butthurt about being banned and we'll get taken down, again - but this time, there's a risk of actual criminality behind it; Not just for Amy, Gareth and possibly myself, but for every single one of you.

Don't tell me that this will be carefully used and no false claims will succeed, because we've been on the wrong end of that tale before.

In addition, this has the potential to actually break the internet itself; The video above explains.


Today, we're standing alongside Mozilla, Creative Commons, Google, 4chan, Reddit, Wikimedia, Free Press, The EFF, Grooveshark and millions of others to say; "Aw, HELL NAW".
Do your part.

This post was last modified: 11-16-2011 04:04 PM by ῦ.

lol

...Not going to ask why you have three sets of empty bold tags, but would you care to actually qualify that statement, or am I just removing that post in a completely unironic twist for lack of content?

This post was last modified: 11-16-2011 04:24 PM by ῦ.

thanks for bringing this to my attention

(sneaky bastards - no wonder our media is distracting us with nonsense...)

I saw this morning  the US is trying to stop internet lying. Like on dating sites if you misrepresent something about yourself like your weight or on facebook if you don't use your real name.

That's not quite it; What you're referring to is criminalizing violation of a sites Terms of Service.

For example, under that bill, returning to a website you've been banned from would be breaking the law; Likewise, the example you gave, Facebook requires you to provide your real name - it's in the ToS. I am under a false name and I will never put my real name up there, because I'm not a frelling moron and I'm not in the public arena as myself, either. Gareth is under his real name, but he's listed on the DNS record for AFF anyway.

You'd still be free to lie about your name, age, weight etc, except on sites that specifically forbid it or require truth about that specific.

This post was last modified: 11-16-2011 05:10 PM by ῦ.

I'm sorry I was referring to this story because I have not heard about what you are saying and I am not sure if the US is hiding what you are saying  from the people.
Are we (US) already being censored in part? I could not find the info you wrote here only the story on ToS violation.
Scary stuff Pika..

No, today is when the hearings begin on the matter - it's already weighted 5-1 for*.

Click the big image in the first to go to the relevant website for more info; It's also up on Slashdot. The specific bill is SOPA; Stop Online Piracy Act.

*Register of Copyights, someone from the MPAA, someone from Pfizer, someone from MasterCard, and someone from the AFL-CIO, vs a guy from Google. Mastercard were deliberately chosen because Visa opposes this; I am glad I have Visa, not Mastercard, and that Visa is the more common here.

This post was last modified: 11-16-2011 05:23 PM by ῦ.

Why are they doing this now? Seriously... whats the whole freaking point of censoring websites?

I signed it.  If half the stuff that they're talking about comes to be, this would be a major problem.

I like both this post and the OP. Thank you, Mytelli! You've made up my mind on internet censorship.
(with a ***-eating grin!)

No one is stealing news. MPAA, RIAA, and ESA fall completely within the bounds of the sorts of people who want to kill digital distribution, free content sources like youtube, parody of all shapes and sizes, satire as well, blogs, etc... that makes the web AND the entire internet what it is. So we all go back to 1999 internet.

oh yes, china and iran, two countries that every powerful, rich and relatively free western nation should aspire to be more like... would sign if i was in the US.

This post was last modified: 11-16-2011 05:34 PM by nialll.

Whats the point of censoring? Isn't it just going to get the masses angry?

***Moments later***

Duh!!!

Strange how there are more Democrats than Republicans supporting the Protect IP act, and more Republicans than Democrats supporting the Stop Internet Piracy act... I wonder if it has anything to do with the phrasing. How much do the propositions differ by?

It would be strange for AFF, a website that as far as I'm aware is based in Britain, to be taken to court on the basis of an American law, but the US had done things like that before, so I wouldn't be surprised. Mind, they'd be able to block access for American users.

I can understand why the traditional media wouldn't want to report much on it, though - the internet as it is is losing them revenue. No big conspiricy is needed, just rational self-interest. Game theory and all that.

Do you know the best thing?

This won't do *** to stop piracy, because it just blocks DNS for stuff outside the US; All major trackers are now outside the US. All you need is the ip address and use that instead of a URL, or use one of the myriad of plugins for Firefox that already circumvent this shite.

We've already been taken down due to a false claim under the Digital Millenium Copy Right Act. At the time, we were hosted in Germany and had our DNS with an American company, 1and1.

I strongly advise anybody who is thinking of hosting or getting DNS from 1and1 to reconsider; They did not follow the correct procedure for DMCA takedowns and took us down without notice and without investigating. We switched to GoDaddy and they've prevented it happening again from the same person.

Now we're hosted elsewhere, and whilst US law still doesn't really apply to us, DNS Poisoning does, and losing all our US traffic would be a serious chunk of our monthly views. They wouldn't take us to court - that's not needed - just blacklisted or taken down.