Boston Bans Boing Boing From City Wi-Fi

DrFlounder writes "The city of Boston has apparently blocked access to Boing Boing on the municipal Wi-Fi. This is possibly due to the popular blog's known Mooninite sympathies." Update: 4/22 13:11 GMT by KD : Seth Finkelstein did some research and posted an explanation of the blockage to his blog. "'Arbitrary and capricious' seems the relevant characterization."

Comments

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with this ... except, perhaps, if you hate freedom.

Do not question the mayor. LED cartoons are terrorist threats and non-sycophantic websites are subversion.

Re:Yes

[maxume]

They think they are a country; that fills in each half nicely.

speculation?

[notnAP]

Is there more to the story that truly indicates that the discussions on the great LED scare are the reason for the ban? How do we know the city didn't ban it for other, equally stupid reasons? I mean, really... unless there is more to the story, mroe reason to support the speculation, the author really seems a little childish making such a wild claim.

But really, what are the censoring for? I'm more worried about actual censorship than I am about a bunch of Adult Swim fans not being able to mutually mastubate over their pictures of Mumbles Menino.

Re:political speech is our most protected speech

[Reverberant]

If they are blocking BoingBoing over the Mooninite issue,

Umm, I think the "Boston is banning Boing Boing because of the Mooninites" meme is just a joke (or at least I hope it is).

The more logical explanation is that the ISP who runs Boston free wi-fi is using on of the many filtering services known to block Boing Boing.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[Chandon Seldon]

It's not about boing-boing, it's about filtering on a public network. If the government is providing a public network, it must be open and unfiltered - because the existence of a free public network drives away alternative commercial providers - it may become the only network, or it may be the only network available to some users.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[bhalter80]

While I appreciate your comment that they have the opportunity to throw them out at the next election that opportunity will remain just that and nothing else. To be voted out of office in MA takes some serious doing. For an example look at their senior senitor the Honorable Edward M Kennedy, he's often publicly intoxicated, and has even been involved in fleeing the scene of an accident where his campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne was killed as a result of drowning after the car he was driving was driven off a bridge. I feel all their jobs are safe after all being a drunken murderer isn't enough to keep you from getting reelected.

Re:The ISPs were right all along

[StarvingSE]

I can understand if a private ISP blocks content, although I don't agree with it. They are a private company and can do things like that, and I can choose not to do business with them. I would rather do without internet access than pay a company to block content.

In this case, it is a government controlled service, and thus clearly falls under free speech rights. Someone needs to bring the constitutionality of this under question in court.

Boston T1 Party

[spezz]

We should all head down to the harbor and dump crates of routers into the bay. It worked before.