Well, Cyber Patrol says they made a mistake about my page, and that they: 1) took me off their CyberNot list; 2) they'll review my page, and other anarchist pages; we'll see what comes of this. Does this make what they did OKAY? No way! What is shows is how capricious and harmful these filterware programs are; no tool is substitute for human reason. I checked out the links and today my page did not show up on the CyberNot list.
My thanks go out to those of you who wrote Cyber Patrol in defense of my page!
The following came from Bennett Haselton. I'm going to write these yutzes and see what their problem is.
Hi, I'm sorry I couldn't find your real name on your web site, but I wanted to thank you for your support over the last couple of months. A lot of new members have found their way to our web site through the link from Anarchy for Anybody.
The other purpose of this letter was to welcome you to the select group of webmasters whose sites are banned by one of the filtering programs. Cyber Patrol is blocking your site (not to be confused with CYBERsitter, which is blocking Peacefire.org).
Without downloading Cyber Patrol, you can verify that your site is blocked by going to HERE and typing in your URL, http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~dtn307/anarchy.html. This is a kind of "lookup service" for people to find out whether or not their sites are blocked by Cyber Patrol. The search engine replies, "This site IS on the CyberNOT list." (The CyberNOT list is their name for the list of "bad sites" that comes with Cyber Patrol.)
There is also an "unofficial" CyberNOT search engine HERE where if you search for "nwu.edu", your site will be listed as one of the NWU sites being blocked. According to the results, Cyber Patrol blocks your site in the categories of "Violence/Profanity" and "Sexual Acts/Text" (Cyber Patrol lists "bad sites" in different categories so the administrator can decide which categories of web sites should be blocked.)
[NOTE: Obviously Cyber Patrol hasn't looked up my site; they must simply have filtered out anything with "anarchy" in the heading. What putzes! But what can you expect from a bunch of CyberNotsies?!]
[FOLLOW-UP NOTE: I did a sample of about 150 anarchist Web sites, and found that Cyber Patrol was banning 15% of them without justification -- that is, none of the sites I looked at in my sample had anything violent, profane, or sexual in them; they did, however, contain substantive political commentary. What clearly happened is someone deliberately submitted selected anarchist sites for censure, and Cyber Patrol neglected to actually *look* at the pages in question.]
The official address for complaining about Cyber Patrol mis-blockings is HERE; you can also write to Susan Getgood, who is their Vice President in charge of publicity.
Our main page about Cyber Patrol is HERE.
We would like to add a section about the blocking of Anarchy for Anybody. Would you be interested in contributing a statement, or some more information? (Specifically, if you write to Cyber Patrol to ask about the site being blocked, we would be grateful if we could archive your correspondence with them. There is a good chance that they will say that the site was blocked by accident, and apologize. On the surface, they are a lot more civil than CyberSitter. Still, even if they *do* unblock it, there's good reason to be annoyed that your site was blocked in the first place, for God knows how long.)
Other sites that are blocked or have been blocked by Cyber Patrol include:
Ms. Getgood --
To put it mildly, where does Cyber Patrol get off filtering (e.g., banning) my site, Anarchy for Anybody (http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~dtn307/anarchy.html)? According to your heinous filtering program, my site is being banned for supposed sexual material and violence and profanity on it!
I can't imagine why this has happened, because there is no sexual material on my site, and nothing relating to violence or profanity on my page! Did you just simply block out anything with the word "anarchy" attached to it, without bothering to understand that anarchy is a political theory, not simply a blanket term for chaos, violence, and bloodshed?
If your people had even bothered to look at the quote at the top of my page, by Daniel Guerin, you'd see that violence is the furthest thing from my page's editorial thrust.
That's why filtering programs are so offensive -- they are the subordination of human will -- the capacity for moral choice -- to mechanical devices. This is the true profanity at work here (made doubly so by your company's profiteering from this program).
Are you folks authoritarians or simply cynical opportunists out to make a buck? Or perhaps a little of both? Either you enjoy deciding what the rest of the world can or cannot see, or you are pandering to the prejudices of the ignorant at the expense of the rest of society.
Filtering (banning, censoring) is an easy way out -- parents who don't want to take the time to bother explaining complex issues to their children simply download your infernal program and the program does the work for them, blotting out those ideas -- those thoughts -- that are too controversial.
What you push is cruise control for the human mind; an Orwellian gizmo which saps the Internet of the very diversity which gives it strength and value. A few years of your filter programs will turn the wilderness of the Internet into a capitalist putting green -- is that progress???
No one denies that there are bad sites out there; some are patently offensive. But your widget is equally offensive in its usurpation of human will. Your product is the very symptom of the reason why I am an anarchist.
I would like to know if Cyber Patrol singled out my page for censoring or if someone submitted it to you, and to what extent your people actually bothered to review it, or if they simply heard "anarchy" mentioned and went nuts.
It doesn't do you credit if you simply have a Pavlovian reaction to a given set of words and go about censoring sites that don't conform to your tiny ideological fief. There's a whole world of ideas out there -- deal with it!
Nothing worthwhile is ever attained by expunging ideas. Censorship is, instead, the currency of Inquisitors and commissars -- thought police -- who decide on their own authority what the rest of the world can see.
I have nothing but contempt for your product, your company, and for the consumers who haven't the guts to think for themselves or talk to their kids about things -- who, instead, take solace in your gadget as a shortcut to genuine thought and discussion.
Viva anarchy!
Dave Neal
Anarchy for Anybody (except Cyber Patrol and their ilk, who don't deserve it!)
http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~dtn307/anarchy.html
Cyber Patrol Commissars --
Violence/Profanity SexActs is the "justification" behind your company's censure of my Web page, Anarchy for Anybody. Obviously you haven't looked at my Web page, or you would have realized that this characterization is absolutely in error. Perhaps someone TOLD you my page had that when they submitted it for censure, and because you obviously don't know beans about anarchism, saw "anarchy" in the title and thought that this person must, in fact, be right.
In other words, you acted without thinking. Is this the basis for ANY sound decision-making? Certainly not. Prejudice is never a good reason for doing anything.
You have engaged in discrimination against my site on the basis of my political beliefs. And as such, is indefensible. Your actions are unconscionable, and you owe me an apology for this mischaracterization -- this defamation -- of my Web page, and a reversal of this decision.
And I found that my site is not the only anarchist site being so defamed and discriminated against by your product, Cyber Patrol. I did a little research and found that some 15% of anarchist sites are being blocked by your page.
Curious, I looked into those sites, and found NO sexual, violent, pornographic, or profane material in them. I did find, however, a considerable amount of *political* material in them.
That's not to say that all sites calling themselves "anarchist" or "anarchy" sites are characterized in this manner -- only that you have misclassified quite a few sites as such, blinded by your own prejudice.
So, either you are simply being lazy, banning anarchist sites without *any* understanding of their content, or you are deliberately discriminating against anarchists on the basis of our political beliefs. Soft-headed or hidebound -- which are you?
At this point I am presuming you are simply being lazy thinkers, not bothering to look into the sites you are censoring, because of your own lack of understanding about anarchism. That's why I am giving you the opportunity to rectify your error, by informing you of it. I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt, for now.
By all means peruse my site (although I find the fact that you have placed yourself in this position of authority over the rest of us offensive); you will see that my site is neither violent, sexual, or profane.
If you do not do this, then I can only assume you are *deliberately* discriminating against me (and my comrades) on the basis of our political beliefs, in which case we will address this matter appropriately.
It's much easier, I know, to sweep ALL of us under the rug; that's the seductive appeal of censorship -- the power and discretion it provides the censor, who decides to think for the rest of us. But if you value your intellectual integrity, you should really see what you're dissing!
I know that you have speedily emended mis-classified sites in other instances; I expect equal consideration.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Anarchistically yours,
Dave Neal
Anarchy for Anybody
http://pubweb.acns.nwu.edu/~dtn307/anarchy.html
Dear Mr. Neal:
Your site has been removed from the CyberNOT list. It was placed there in error.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We will be doing a complete re-review of all material classified under the category(ies) used for your site to ensure that when your site was blocked in error, other sites were not similarly mis-classified.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Regards
Susan Getgood
Dave:
Your site is no longer on the list , which was rebuilt today.
As for how it got on the list, it was an error made by a researcher who is no longer employed with us. The researcher was looking into bomb-making sites, such as the Anarchists Cookbook, and made the error to include your site, which as you point out, is a site about anarchy.
As I said in my earlier e-mail, we apologize for this error, and thank you for pointing it out. We are now in the process of reviewing the entire category.
Sincerely
Susan Getgood
[NOTE: You see what I mean when I said above how filterware is bad because it supplants human thought and judgment? I'd say the banning of my site is indicative of this. On account of the laziness of a Cyber Patrol researcher, my site was blocked! Think of the power these people have -- with a flick of their wrists, they can determine whether or not your site is allowed onto the Internet!]
[ANOTHER NOTE: How do you think they can account for the fact that the IWW "Industrial Worker" site was blocked? There's no reference to the "Anarchist Cookbook" there, after all. We'll see what they say!]