Bonum Certa Men Certa

GoDaddy, Go Away: How This SOPA Backer is Censoring the Internet Despite SOPA's Death

Summary: Political censorship now in the West, but overlooked by statistics that omit domain-level cutoffs

Remember the boycott against GoDaddy over SOPA (pro-censorship bill) support? Well, guess what? Even without SOPA GoDaddy is censoring Web sites and the EFF is up in arms [1]. iophk says that it's "like when ODF sites were censored in 2008 via a different registrar. Back then it was blamed on a contract dispute but somehow got cleared up within hours of the critical deadline having gone."



The last thing we need on the Internet is censorship and we wrote many posts about the reasons. Here in the UK we have paedophiles claiming that we need censorship to protect us from paedophiles [2] and in central Europe too politicians like Neelie Kroes continue to pretend adults are children [3] and require government supervision on the Web.

This new Internet censorship world map [4] totally fails to take into account the type of 'soft' censorship we now have in the UK, including domain-level interception of Web sites without due process. It's really quite bad and Reddit too is not in the censorship business [5,6], basically burying stories that reveal government interference in Web sites. Twitter is also censoring sites now (at domain level even [7]), YouTube continues to facilitate censorship through bogus copyright claims [8,9] or utterly fictional claims [10] (iopkh says that "the film was blamed after the fact and that the actual violence had the hallmarks of long and careful planning, including selection and casing of the target"), and in India domain-level censorship was achieved (hiding political corruption) only after a court had gotten involved [11]. What a disgusting trend. How long before many ISPs in Western nations block sites like Wikileaks (some parts of the US public sector have done this for years)? If we don't protect free speech, then the rich and powerful will continue to take it away, eliminating the advantage of the Web (speaking truth to power, bypassing gatekeepers).

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help


  2. Top UK official involved in national porn filter arrested for child porn
    A top British government aide who helped create 10 Downing Street’s controversial policy to censor online pornography for the majority of British Internet users has resigned from his post on Monday after being arrested last month on charges of possessing child pornography.


  3. A free media needs regulators to be independent
    In each EU country, audiovisual services like TV benefit from oversight by independent regulators. And yesterday we convened the first ever meeting of all those regulators, from across the EU.


  4. The most important thing you’ll see today: Internet censorship world map


  5. Why Reddit mods are 'censoring' Greenwald's latest bombshell


    In the article, Greenwald provides images from a Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) documents that show how the clandestine agency has tried to “control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the Internet itself.”

    Greenwald also provides a great deal of context and explanation in his article, comparing it to similar programs allegedly carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA). Greenwald’s story was subsequently picked up on Boing Boing, RT.com, Daily Kos, Zero Hedge, and Der Speigel.

    The removals have been the subject of numerous threads on r/subredditdrama (where redditors discuss “Internet fights and other dramatic happenings from other subreddits”) and r/undelete (home to submissions that moderators remove from the top 100 in r/all). Redditors are calling it an act of censorship.

    [...]

    Moderator BipolarBear0 responded to the Daily Dot to add that Greenwald's original story was removed because "it breaks our preexisting rules as to analysis and opinion."

    “As it stands, the Firstlook story is almost entirely comprised of analysis and a lack of objectivity. Not to say that's necessarily a bad thing—in fact, the Firstlook story by Greenwald is, at least in my opinion, a great piece of investigative journalism.”


  6. Reddit Censors Big Story About Government Manipulation and Disruption of the Internet
    The moderators at the giant r/news reddit (with over 2 million subscribed readers) repeatedly killed the Greenwald/Snowden story on government manipulation and disruption of the Internet … widely acknowledged to be one of the most important stories ever leaked by Snowden.


  7. Twitter Blocks Kickass.to Links, Says They’re Unsafe


    Twitter is refusing to link users to Kickass.to, the second largest torrent index on the Internet. People who attempt to access the site through Twitter get a warning that the site may be unsafe and potentially harmful. Questions to Twitter about the reason for this unusual blockade remain unanswered.


  8. YouTube Ordered to Remove 'Illegal' Copyright Blocking Notices


  9. Bad Facts, Really Bad Law: Court Orders Google to Censor Controversial Video Based on Spurious Copyright Claim
    It's an old legal adage that bad facts lead to bad legal decisions, and today we've got a classic example in Garcia v. Google—the "Innocence of Muslims" case. Based on a copyright claim that is dubious at best, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Google to take offline a video that is the center of public controversy. We can still talk about it, but we can't see what we are talking about. We're hard-pressed to think of a better example of copyright maximalism trumping free speech.


  10. YouTube ordered to remove film that sparked violence in Middle East
    US appeals court said anti-Muslim video infringed actress Cindy Lee Garcia’s copyright to her role and she could order its removal


  11. Court blocks Tamil 'Assange' Shankar's website savukku.net
    Justice CT Selvam of the Madras High Court has ordered the Chennai City Police to block the website www.savukku.net immediately. He has directed all those affected by savukku.net to file complaint with police. Senior Tamil Nadu police officer Jaffer Sait is likely to be the first complainant in the case. Savukku.net, which is known as a Tamil Wikileaks is likely to face a huge trouble after this order.




Recent Techrights' Posts

Hopping From One Set of Buzzwords to the Next
Rotating hype and vapourware
Currys PCWorld Hates GNU/Linux Even Though It Runs the World
If more and more people choose to remove Windows, then Currys PCWorld will feel the financial impact of its dumb policies
The Register MS Takes More Money to Boost Slop Hype, This Time From Snyk, a Notorious FUD Source
At some stage or at some point they might even decide to stop doing so
"AI" Hype or LLM Slop is Not About Efficiency, It's About Lowering Standards
It does not seem like IBM is genuinely committed to the same goals (or commitments) as the original Red Hat
If Free/Libre Software is Adding Trillions in Value to the European Economy, Then the European Commission Must Crush Software Patents
Further to what we wrote yesterday
 
Links 14/08/2025: Data Brokers Hiding Opt-Out Pages From Google, "Fight Chat Control"
Links for the day
FSF Infrastructure Under Constant Attack
The disconnect (literally) has had an effect on credibility
Feels Like The Register MS is Trying to Diversify a Bit
If The Register MS goes back to being The Register US (or UK), that will be a nice improvement
Gemini Links 14/08/2025: Reading Journal and LLM Fatigue Revisited
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 13, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Internet Relay Chat and Gemini Protocol Help Us Relive the Net of the Dial-Up Era
The kids were alright
"GPT-5" is Another Microsoft Dead Cat Trying to Bounce
The hype, the momentum (or the inertia) is wearing off
Microsoft Windows Losing Its Grip Near Turkey and Russia
The 'corridor' nations connecting Iran to Europe
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Google News, and Serial Slopper (SS)
The slop, the bad, and the ugly
Links 13/08/2025: The “Incriminating Video” Scam and Corruption in South Korea
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Movie Memories and Mystery Machine Bus
Links for the day
Links 13/08/2025: GitHub Trouble and Openwashing by Microsoft OSI With the Typical Buzzwords
Links for the day
Microsoft Swallows GitHub Losses
Only Microsoft knows how much money it has already lost on GitHub
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Climate, Coffee, and Deploying Troops in Washington DC After Pardoning 1,000+ Insurrectionists in Washington DC
Links for the day
The Register MS Lowered MS Focus This Week
We hope The Register recognises its errors and tries to make up for them
Learning Ethics From Jeffrey Epstein's Enabler/Client/Ally, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft Accenture
Whatever merits vocabulary changes initially had are being tainted or obscured by later iterations, which tell us to avoid word like "normal", which apparently offend some people (so they argue)
Personal Attacks From Rust People Serve to Confirm They Have Lost the Argument
"The discussion I find around the net so far has no technical merit and centers around ad hominem"
Physical Meters and Purely Mechanical Meters Aren't Dumb; It's Dumb to Mock or Dismiss Them as Antiquated
I've learned a lot this week, both online and over the telephone
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 12, 2025
GitHub Will End Up like XBox and Skype
It is not likely that the XBox franchise will survive the next 5 years
Stones Thrown in Glass Houses
Projecting? You bet!
As Europe Gets Increasingly Serious About Software Freedom and Digital Sovereignty It Needs to Enforce a Ban on Software Patents ASAP
many councils in Europe move to Free software and US policy/companies cannot be trusted
Windows 12 in Bahrain (Microsoft "Market Share" Down to 12%, an All-Time Low)
They really ought to get away from Windows even faster
The Web Needs 'Pest Control' When It Comes to LLM Slopfarms
The goal is to discourage more sites becoming slopfarms
Microsoft Can Now Stop Reporting the GitHub Layoffs (Even When They Happen)
GitHub's original staff will see the true cost of becoming "b0rged" - something that Microsoft earned a bad reputation for
How to Get Very Bad or Even Malicious Code Into Linux? Write it in a Language That Linus Torvalds and Most Other Linux Developers Don't Understand.
One point nobody brings up is, what if code gets committed while evading audits and scrutiny?
Links 12/08/2025: Wikipedia Fails at UK High Court, Perlmutter Still Fights to Squash the Slop Lobby
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Field Recording and Digital Legacy
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: WinRAR Zero-Day, SonicWall Does More Harm Than Good
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: More Sabotage of Underwater Cable Ahead of Russian Alaska Summit
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Will Not Miss Microsoft GitHub, It Was Only Good at Harvesting a Lot of Code for Plagiarism-as-a-Service
investors are apparently willing to lose money for buzzwords
Slopfarms Slopping Away at "Linux" and Spreading Microsoft Misinformation
Slopfarms don't comprehend this as they lack actual comprehension, they're just parrots
Links 12/08/2025: Science, Hardware, and Ukraine Excluded From Negotiations About Its Future
Links for the day
GitHub the Company Has, in Effect, Just Died (Time to Look for Alternatives)
To Microsoft, what's left of GitHub after dismantling/folding it is some "training set" (people's code, without permission to "train" i.e. misuse under the guise of "GenAI" plagiarism)
Linux Foundation Says "Housekeeping", "Hung", "Normal", "Native Feature/Support" and "Girl/Girls" Are Offensive Words
Bombing people is OK, just use the right "terms"
It Looks More Like Microsoft GitHub Layoffs
GitHub is just losing loads of money
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Meditation, OpenStreetMap, Smolweb, and More
Links for the day
Google News is Dying: Most of Its Top Stories Now Are LLM Slop With Slop Images (i.e. 100% Fake 'Content')
Google News has been drowning in this sort of stuff for quite some time
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 11, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 11, 2025
Our Predictions Were Right: GitHub Dying as Losses Pile Up (as a Company It Cannot Continue to Exist, It's Not 'Free Hosting')
GitHub always lost money