Blogger.com Makes It Too Easy to Censor Blogs - What to Do?

First, please read these two articles:

• The Wrath of Blogger
• Gates of Vienna Blocked by Blogger

What is the current status? As of 4:30 Eastern Time (US) 7/18/07, Gates of Vienna was back up.

So why be concerned about it now? Because other bloggers need to know about this situation, and because it's time for Blogger to do something to prevent its blogs from being shut down either maliciously or by mistake. Gates of Vienna is a respected counterterrorist/antijihadist blog that in no way deserves to be treated as a "spam blog." This situation also shows how easy it would be to misuse Blogger.com to censor another blog.

How did this happen? It is possible that someone unintentionally clicked the "flag" button in the Blogger.com toolbar while attempting to navigate. But then, if a single error like that can cause a blog to be blocked, something is very wrong with Blogger.com! More likely, Gates of Vienna was maliciously flagged as a "spam blog" multiple times by one or more individuals who object to antijihadistist messages being made available to the public. Either way, Blogger.com is allowing de facto censorship, and this is wrong. It allows wrongdoers of every stripe to muzzle anybody who may be trying to warn the public about the crimes they have committed or are preparing to commit. It also will intimidate some bloggers into keeping silent - though not this one!

Does this remind you of anything? It should! The Digg "bury brigade" has aroused intense controversy for exactly the same reason: because it became too easy for a few anonymous users to muzzle opposing points of view or to cover up uncomfortable facts simply by clicking on a little button.

What are we asking Blogger to do? Blogger should add safeguards to prevent the same thing from happening again to this or other blogs in the Blogspot domain. If Blogger.com fails to take action, then other blog owners will have reason to worry about losing access to their blogs. They'll migrate to other blogging systems and and hosting providers that will help them to safeguard their ownership.

You may recall that I've blogged before about the issues that Blogger.com has with spam blogs (see Does Blogger.com think your blog is spam?) but this is a different situation. There is a very big difference between the minor inconvenience of requiring the blog owner to enter Captcha characters before posting to the blog, and the major intimidation Blogger.com causes by blocking the blog entirely.

Now please do this:

• Link to the stories at Gates of Vienna and Foehammer.net from your own blog.
• Ask everyone else you know who has a blog to do the same.
• Publicize the story in every other legitimate way that you can think of: StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Twitter, Pownce, word of mouth, chat rooms, you name it.
• If you wish, post a comment here indicating where else this article is being publicized.

Contacting humans at Blogger.com: Google makes it especially difficult to contact anyone at Blogger.com directly. But at least for now, you can contact them at support@blogger.com. And here's a website with rolling updates on how to contact Blogger.com: How to Contact Blogger Support. So if you are not happy about the way Blogger.com is misidentifying Gates of Vienna and other blogs as spam, you can still let them know what you think.

Also see:

• Vigilant Freedom/910 Group Blog
• Jawa Report
• Blackshards
• Atlas Shrugs
• Blogjunkies
• DH Chaos

Keep the pressure on Blogger.com to do something to safeguard their blogging system against being hijacked by the same "bury brigade" that has rendered Digg.com all but useless! And for what to do about THAT, see How to Bury Digg.com.

Stumble It!

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COUNTERTERRORIST BLOG SWARM WANTED!

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN MOVED TO http://1389blog.com.

The blog name has been changed to 1389 Blog.

Click here for this article on the new blog!

Please update your links, feed subscriptions, and favorites. Thanks!

This article by Julia Gorin is a must read for everyone:

Ending the Balkan Quagmire at American Thinker

This article is all about how US and EU counterterrorism foreign policy went so horribly wrong. It explains how jihadist terrorism has succeeded in overrunning Europe and in attacking the US. It's particularly important for Americans to read this article, because it cites news stories from reputable sources that have had some exposure in Europe, but haven't made it into the US media.

So why am I asking for a blog swarm?

Exactly because this information isn't getting around in the US, and I want this story to get some exposure!

Why is this story being kept off the radar screen in the US?

Simple: It's a catalogue of errors and misdeeds that makes the US media conglomerates look bad, and the US government (i.e., nearly everyone on both sides of the aisle) look even worse. It reveals an ongoing foreign policy fiasco that makes the Bay of Pigs Invasion look like a victory by comparison. And it isn't just a fiasco for the government, it's a fiasco for the American and European public, because it has greatly increased everyone's vulnerability to jihadist terrorism.

What to do?

• Link to the original story on your blog.
• Ask everyone else you know to do the same.
• Publicize the story in any other legitimate way that you can think of.
• If you wish, post a comment here indicating where else this article is being publicized.

This story has been submitted to Digg as How US and EU counterterrorism foreign policy went so horribly wrong. We'll see how long it stays there before Digg's censors and bury brigade get to it, as recently happened with Foehammer's Anvil.

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Serbia

TinyURL for this blog post: http://tinyurl.com/yqzhnl

Stumble It!

Blogs and Websites that have Posted or Linked to:
Ending the Balkan Quagmire at American Thinker:

1. Gray Falcon
2. Foehammer.net
3. Byzantine Sacred Art Blog
4. Ft. Hard Knox
5. Erik with a "K"
6. Intergalactic Source of Truth™
7. Orthodoxy Today
8. Eastern European Forum
9. Jillosophy
10. SerbBlog
11. Allah's Willing Executioners
12. Israpundit
13. JBlog Central
14. New Serbian Optimism
15. Right Wing News
16. Fiery Spirited Zionist
17. Liberty Post
18. Free Republic
19. Sulekha
20. US Political Opinions (UK)
21. Icerocket Blogs
22. The Black Kettle
23. American Council for Kosovo
24. The Lighthouse
25. Phanari
26. 2nd Anagennesis - A Blog of Townhall.com
27. Our Children are the Guarantors
28. Vigilant Freedom/910 Group Blog
29. Brucified
30. EagleSpeak
31. The Conservative Razor
32. Atlas Shrugs
33. Noisy Room
34. Dumb Ox
35. Geek Orthodox.org
36. Ironic Surrealism
37. Panhandle Poetry and Other Thoughts
38. View from Minas Morgul
39. Open thread on The Pirate's Cove
40. Political Mavens
41. Giltner Review
42. Sokotica (full text of article)
43. pjungwir at del.icio.us
44. The Outraged Spleen of Zion
45. Strategic Board
46. Noblesse Oblige
47. Field of Blackbirds
48. Open thread at Little Green Footballs

Updated: Is the U.S. government finally ready to confront cyberjihadism?

See this entry on My Pet Jawa, a prominent antijihadist blog.

It has certainly taken awhile for the U.S. government to start paying attention to cyberjihadism.

1389 wants to know:

When will they begin to look at the relentless pro-jihadist intimidation and censorship at social news and Web 2.0 sites, such as Digg?

When will they recognize that the site's owners and staff are responsible for allowing this activity to run rampant?

When will they start looking at the backgrounds and connections of these staffers, including contractors?

Allowing our self-proclaimed enemies to take control of, and to censor, our social news sites is giving them waaaaay too much power, and it has to stop!

Update (6/16/07):

• From Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) comes more evidence that this threat is significant: Global Islamic Media Front Instructs Islamists to Infiltrate Popular Non-Islamic Forums to Spread Pro-Islamic State Propaganda. We can only guess how many sites have been infiltrated thus far. (Stein hoist to littlegreenfootballs for this information.)

Update (7/5/07):

• Counterterrorist website littlegreenfootballs warns of a new software package for cyberjihadists: Get Ready for the Next Wave of E-Jihad. No skill or experience required!

Update (7/10/07):

• Doctorbulldog assesses our current predicament: Cyberterrorism, by whatever name: It's on the increase!
• My Flanders Fields shows how the leftist/jihadist alliance has extended into the battlefield of cyberspace: Marx Kisses Mohammed on the Internet. This amounts to a high-tech Hitler-Stalin pact, and it's time for the rest of us to figure out how to combat it effectively.

Next article on this topic:

The Battle Against E-Jihadis: Why we need to know what we're up against!

Stumble It!

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Web 2.0

The Conservative Ghetto

By Analyze

Being a Conservative on Digg is analogous to living in the Warsaw ghettos of Nazi Germany. We have been relegated to one section of Digg (the upcoming stories) and any resistance is met with extreme counteraction.

As a regular contributor of Conservative articles to Digg, I have been repeatedly buried. I've been keeping records for weeks and average 25 "bury hits" per day. Obviously, there is a systematic and organized group who bury Conservative article. If my submissions are not being buried, Conservative comments outside the ghetto are dugg down at the speed of light. Any attempt to move articles or comment outside the ghetto is met with provocation.

If one disagrees to vehemently they are sent off to the gas chamber—banned forever. Not even their remains (i.e., comments, submits) are visible. I can't even begin to count the number of Conservative friends who have met this fate.

In studying the bury brigade, the bury rate is approximately 5-to-1. One bury is worth 5 diggs. So, for every bury one gets, subtract 5. Consider LittleGreenFootballs.com (LGF). They are the ghetto resistance. As a result, they are also hit the hardest. They will get upwards of 50 buries for ONE article. I've seen as many as 276 buries for LGF over the course of 3 hours. Truly amazing! I did a comparative study of LGF to TheDailyKOS.com (KOS) one day. It was a 70-to-1 ratio. For every 70 buries of LGF, there was 1 bury of KOS.

Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe I should accept my ghetto status. That means we then have to accept that Conservative news will rarely, if ever, make the front pages of Digg and will, therefore, never be seen or discussed openly. Should Conservatives be the muted minority on Digg relegated to the "upcoming news" ghetto? Is that what we truly want to accept?

It is interesting that liberals are quick to espouse free speech and minority rights but when given the power, they become like Nazi Germany. Grant it, most Diggers do not bury but they also don't do anything about it. They are the vast majority of willing accomplices who accept the "rules" without thought. Power in the hands of liberals (at least at this micro level) is dangerous and oppressive. Imagine if they had power at the national level?

Maybe it is time for a ghetto uprising.

Please see the Comments section for this post.

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ABC News on the cyber-riot and other troubles at Digg

ABC News reports not only on the cyber-riot at Digg, but also on other serious troubles at the site, including the infamous "bury brigade."

This ABC News article correctly points out that the conservative site littlegreenfootballs has been especially victimized by the self-appointed censors on Digg's "bury brigade."

Unfortunately, the ABC News article omitted to mention that LGF is primarily an antijihadist site. Nor did the article note the revealing fact that antijihadist articles are being targeted for burial with especially relentless vigor.

Apparently, Digg is perfectly satisfied with this coverup of everything that might alert the public about the jihadist threat. Isn't it time to ask why Digg has never made even the slightest attempt to put a stop to this pro-jihadist censorship?

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U.S. law

News roundup: Digg users run amok in massive online riot

The Register (UK) reports: Digg buried by users in piracy face-down.

Forbes.com explores Digg's dilemma in all its ramifications, and discusses the online uprising at Digg and what it means for Web 2.0.

Australian news website news.com.au covers the huge revolt at Digg.

Charles Johnson, of the famed antijihadist website littlegreenfootballs, laments the rise of mob rule at Digg.

Gadget and tech news site Gizmodo covers the enormous digital riot at Digg.

Tech industry blog Techcrunch tells why Digg capitulated to the demands of its angry members in what appears to have been a spontaneous online rebellion.

Ryan Block tracks the online revolt that erupted when Digg's admins tried to stop its users from porting the HD-DVD cracking codes.

Wired warned that Digg was melting down.

The story even appeared in the New York Times.

And here are two stories on where it all started, at doom9.

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