Bonum Certa Men Certa

Censorship on the Web Done For Financial Security Reasons, Not Anyone's Real Security

Business controls the filters in the West

Big Ben in London



Summary: How Western censorship proved itself to be all about protecting the villains while blocking justice

WHEN society is run by businesses (which is true in the West), then censorship by businesses is natural; it's only to be expected.



Here in the UK we now officially have Internet censorship, just like in China, Iran, Russia etc. Our government would be too hypocritical to criticise those nations over censorship. One leading British civil rights groups asks rhetorically [1], "what could possibly go wrong?"

Here is what goes wrong.

Recently we saw a news site getting censored by the British Web filters [2]. Why? Probably because it delivers an alternative message that puts in jeopardy the copyright monopoly/cartel.

"UK ISPs Need To Be Sued Way Out Into Atlantic," said the founder of the original Pirate Party after this incident [3]. We are gradually getting rather petty and becoming no better than Russia, which "Orders Pirate Party to Drop ‘Pirate’ From Its Name" (according to the censored news site) [4]. Notice what they do here; it is clear that when language is policed we are basically losing our ability to express ourselves. The censored news site also says that "Record Label Asks Google to Censor Artists’ Twitter Accounts" [5] (censorship for the copyright monopoly/cartel), helping to shed light on he sheer abuse of those companies and proving the value/importance of such news sites.

"In other words, the filters are now being turned from tools of law enforcement into tools of protecting criminals and banning those who report crime."There are some other new examples of censorship (by intimidatiob) for business reasons, courtesy of Digital Ocean [6] and SeaWorld [7,8].

Isn't it funny that those who engage in misconduct or unethical behaviour get to use censorship in their favour? In other words, the filters are now being turned from tools of law enforcement into tools of protecting criminals and banning those who report crime. That's what government- and corporations-controlled filters are bound to achieve.

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Blocking: what could possibly go wrong?


  2. Internet Censors Came For TorrentFreak & Now I’m Really Mad
    ISPs exist to provide us with unfettered access to the Internet, not the version they or their technology partners feels is appropriate for us. Their ‘parental controls’ do not achieve their stated aim of “protecting children” and are already causing collateral damage by blocking totally innocent sites such as the one you are reading now. It’s hard not to get angry when you realize your website’s accessibility is becoming disabled by default.


  3. Censorship Triggers Liability: UK ISPs Need To Be Sued Way Out Into Atlantic


  4. Russia Orders Pirate Party to Drop ‘Pirate’ From Its Name
    A long-running battle between the Pirate Party of Russia and the Russian Government has concluded with disappointment for the Pirates. In an announcement yesterday that finally brings an end to a number of appeals, the Ministry of Justice declared that since piracy – sea piracy – is a crime under Russian law, no political party may have that word as part of its name. As a result the Pirate Party can never become officially recognized unless it calls itself something else.


  5. Record Label Asks Google to Censor Artists’ Twitter Accounts
    Spinnin’ Records, one of the largest independent dance music labels, has been sending several unusual takedown requests to Google. The record label asked the search engine to take down the Twitter pages of several of its own top artists, including Afrojack, as well as its own account. Google, thus far, has refused to help out with this blatant attempt at self-censorship.


  6. Digital Ocean said it would shut down my blog if I didn’t remove or edit a blog post.
    This is a story about how the VPS provider Digital Ocean required me to either delete a blog post or make it anonymous by removing any reference to the person I was writing about. If I refused to do it, Digital Ocean said they would terminate my account. The person I wrote about (Googler Travis Collins) in the blog post happened to be a friend of a Digital Ocean executive, but Digital Ocean said the only reason the blog post needed to be removed was due to a terms of service violation. Here’s the blog post in its original form. I describe below how this whole incident came to pass and provide screenshots of Digital Ocean’s communications. Digital Ocean promotes itself as a great place to setup a blog, and they provide instructions to make it easy for you, but you might want to learn how Digital Ocean applies its terms of service before investing a lot of time in writing blog posts.


  7. F-O-R-B-E-S
    Well folks, I suppose it was bound to happen. I wrote a dozen pieces for Forbes.com and enjoyed it very much. But the 13th–an article critical of SeaWorld (a 2.5 billion dollar company partially owned by the Blackstone Group) and praiseworthy of ‘Blackfish” (made on a small budget)–rattled some corporate cages.

    After I posted, editorial management demanded changes that I could not, in good conscience, make. So the article got pulled (after 77,000 hits in one day) and I left my position.


  8. Op-Ed: How low can you can go? Did SeaWorld skew online poll?


Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
 
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day