Net censorship finds a new expression
A recent item on the website of the NUJ's London Freelance branch rehearses the recent history of the Spinprofiles affair (we suppose you could call it 'Spinprofilesgate'), in which a website was rendered inaccessible after an individual complained about it to the registrar for the site's domain name.
This represents a potentially worrying new form of censorship.
A threat or perceived threat concerning possible defamation is directed not at the authors or publishers of the offending item (the writer or website itself) and not even at the 'distributors' (the hosting service for the website or the service providers who make it available to the public), but at the organisation which effectively licenses the name of the site. It's as though you could threaten Companies House because a company registered there has offended you.
The story so far is summed up (with a few inaccuracies) on the London Freelance branch website:
"The Spinwatch inititative, founded by David Miller and colleagues at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, set up a database of spin doctors (and, to use the term some prefer, 'reputation management consultants') at www.spinprofiles.org....
"The project has been forced to move, in an unusual and worrying fashion. Usually, those who object to what's said about them online issue a legal threat to the 'hosting company' - the outfit that owns the hard drive where the website's information sits, waiting for you to call it up. Distressingly frequently, the hosting company rolls over and deletes the site, rather than enter the ruinous maelstrom which is British libel law.
"A think-tank researcher called Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens issued his threat instead against the 'name registrar' - the outfit that owns the computer that tells your computer where to go on the internet to find the content of the site you want. It rolled over: so though the contents of the site still existed, no-one could get to them."
In fact, Spinwatch retaliated by changing the domain name it was using from www.spinprofiles.org to www.powerbase.info. It kept the site exactly where it was, but simply changed its name.
According to the LFB website:
"Spinwatch is still trying to clarify what Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens is complaining about. In the meantime, the database is available at www.powerbase.info."
When we looked (23 July 2010), both domains (spinprofiles and powerbase) were unavailable. This could be for a number of reasons, but it's entirely possible that the so-called 'sponsoring registrar' for both domain names - Tucows Inc., in Canada - has blocked both domains.
Whatever the reason, this new form of censorship is worrying.
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