Censorship - 'Portadown News' falls foul of Freeserve

Victor

OK, I can't say I frequent the site, but this seems to be a step too far.

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From http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2001/1119/breaking44.htm

'Portadown News' falls foul of Freeserve
By Conor Pope Last updated: 19-11-01, 12:47

A website poking fun at the deeply unfunny political situation in Northern Ireland has been shut down by Britain’s biggest Internet Service Provider (ISP), which declared it racist and offensive.

The Portadown News was shut down by Freeserve, the Internet giant whose servers had been hosting the site, almost two weeks ago.

Freeserve received a complaint from a member of the public and decided that the site broke its terms of service declaring it to be either "abusive", "racist", or likely to cause "offence and anxiety".

...

"As part of its commitments under the Good Friday Agreement, the IRA will be relaunched next week as The Northern Ireland Terrorist Service. (N.I.T.S.)," begins the lead story in the current issue.

....

"A decision was taken to remove the site. It contained racist comment and bad language that was likely to cause offence and anxiety. As such this contravened our terms and conditions", the spokesperson said.

The editor dismisses the claims of racism. "I think that 'racist' is a term used to silence any criticism of spineless censorship.

.....

TwoShedsJackson

Having read the site in question several times before it got shut down, I must say I found it highly amusing. On the other hand I'm a big fan of amusing satire. If you can't laugh at two groups of people killing each other in a perpetual argument over who has the best imaginary friend, what can you laugh at, eh??

I complained to Freeserve about six months ago about a site they were hosting which distributes racist propaganda and asked them to shut it down. Site's still there.

The editor dismisses the claims of racism. "I think that 'racist' is a term used to silence any criticism of spineless censorship.

Couldn't agree more. There was no racist content on the site, that I saw, unless of course, you consider Catholics and Protestants two seperate races. Anyone?? Anyone??

Victor

OK, its back up on a different ip http://www.portadownnews.com/index.htm - WARNING OFFENSIVE CONTENT.

Although given the "page 3" photo, I'm tempted to ban it myself.

Baz_

ROFLMAO... "Mr McGuinness, who was not the leader of the IRA, is hotly tipped for the position of not the leader of the N.I.T.S."

classic stuff, ta for the link.

yellum

Oh its soooo good.

DadaKopf

Awwwww. That's a shame, Portadown news was always great. I mean, it's a fine line and all but great stuff comes out of such grim sit'uations. PN was always a breath of fresh air.

Still, I', sure it won't be sated for long, they'll find a server they can host on for free and if they don't, maybe people should offer their hosting services to them

You know who you are!

yellum

Its back DadaKopf

DadaKopf

YAY!