Internet Filters - Libertarianism is Hate Speech?

John Deere asks: "Just went live with a libertarian web-based discussion site a few days ago and today one of our members posted that our news and political discussion site has been listed as a 'Hate Speech' site by SurfControl ("details) Needless to say, some of our slacker members are now unable to access the site, due to blocks at their places of employment. Now, I don't mind our site being blocked by employers who want to keep their employees working instead of arguing objectivism vs. utilitarianism. It does concern me, however, that it appears to be quite easy to be listed as a 'Hate Speech' site, and not have much recourse. My questions are, has anyone been successful in changing the categorization of their site by one of these filtering services, from negative to neutral or positive? How much pressure was required and how long did it take?" It would be interesting to note how many GOP and Democratic sites are also listed under the same tag at SurfControl. I have a hard time seeing political discourse being listed as hate speech, but maybe this is a case of a single comment or post getting the entire site banned. Has anyone been able to negotiate a change of status with the various filtering services out there? If not, is there any legal way such changes can be forced by some form of arbitration or legal action?

Comments

Let's Think About This....

[zpengo]

Everyone's jumping on internet filtering services, saying that they're "censoring" sites and violating their first amendment rights.

Hasn't it occurred to anyone that this filtering services *also* have a right to say what they think is good and bad? That they have first amendment rights too?

And if people choose to use those services, shouldn't they have a right to select from a variety of independent, somewhat autonomous services, rather than a bunch of sites that only censor what the government says they're allowed to censor?

What kind of libertarian buys this rubbish?

If your site gets blacklisted by some company, tough crap for you. If they blacklist you and catch crap for it from the public, tough crap for them. But let's not get into this pansy liberal government regulation nonsense. Nobody's constitutional rights are being violated. Sheesh.

Re:[OT] Interesting site.

[BitGeek]

The libertarian movement is made up of three groups.

1) The kooks that every third party gets almost by default for being "non mainstream" enough. A small proportion.
2) Ex-Repubulicans who realized that the republican party doesn't really support liberty (even economic) like they say. And a few hardline ex republicans who think the republican party doesn't go far enough in cutting taxes and spending.
3) Ex liberals who were liberals because they believed in free choice, human rights, and all that but who recornized that the democratic party opposes all of these things. Who realized that alle the "anit-corporate" and rich bashing was a form of hate speech, and that if you really want free choice, then that includes not just the choice to be a home maker, or marry who you want, but to work where you want and to keep your money. (Yes. I'm a member of this group.)
3) Anarchists. There are anarchists who share only the description with the 1334 idiots on college campuses who just really wanted a cooler way to say "slacker". These types have noticed that every government is corrupt and that the smaller the government, necessarily the more free the people, and so they have thought a lot about just how small you can make a government and have a safe free society. They tend to get into lots of arguments with the ex republicans and democrats.
4) Objectivism. Because Objectivism is a philosophy that has libertarianism as its political component, all Objectivists are Libertarians. (Unfortunately, there are a lot of "objectivists" who actually aren't objectivists, and are really 1334 slackers who wanted a cooler name. This includes the Ayn Rand Institute.)

The biggest problem in the libertarian party is that since they draw from so many groups the groups spend too much time noticing that they came from different places and not enough time going to the people in the groups they left and pointing out to them how their groups are failing them.

Personally, I lean to a parliamentarian government. But I don't think that would solve the problem of liberty in the US. The problem of liberty in the US will not be solved until a majority of people in this country realize that:
1) There are human rights.
2) Human rights are worth fighting for.
3) If you believe in human rights, you will take up arms to defend them.

Since we have most people convinced by the two major parties that 1 is false, we don't even have the bill of rights anymore. So, we're a long way from liberty.