Exxon's Brute Squad Hacks the Yes Men

tom_evil notes a story up on Infoshop.org about a parody site and the lack of a sense of humor in a large multinational. "One day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement of ExxonMobil's plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men's upstream internet service provider shut down Vivoleum.com and cut off the Yes Men's email service, in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify. 'Since parody is protected under US law, Exxon must think that people seeing the site will think Vivoleum's a real Exxon product, not just a parody,' said Yes Man Mike Bonanno. Exxon's policies do already contribute to 150,000 climate-change related deaths each year,' added Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum. 'So maybe it really is credible. What a resource!'"

Comments

Re:Nice headline, guys!

[SEE]

Yes, bad form replying to myself here. But!

1) We know the Yes Men have previously masqueraded as ExxonMobil executives.
2) This takedown has generated additional publicity for the Yes Men.

Wouldn't it have been a master stroke by the Yes Men if they had faked their own ISP into taking them down by making the complaint themselves?

because the retaliation was to disconnect them

[putch]

i dont like the yes men either. i tend to agree with their positions, but i feel like they ultimately hurt their cause because they wind up looking like idiots and don't change any minds but just serve as entertainment for the most die hard of leftists.

nevertheless, their internet connection was turned off because exxon didnt like what they were saying. it's kind of disconcerting. had this been any group conservative, liberal or otherwise it is troubling that they can be wiped off the face of the internet.

that's why it's news for nerds and why you're flamebait.

Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power

[Khaed]

This shouldn't be moderated flamebait -- it's true enough. The US is *NOT* the only country where something someone else finds offensive will get shut down.

Ask the people who dared publish cartoons depicting Mohammad. (Meanwhile, in the US, I don't recall violent protests of "Piss Christ" that ended with any buildings being set on fire...)

Yes, there are many examples of freedom of expression being squashed in the US. But to imply "Only in America..." Wait, *seriously*? You *HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT*? C'mon!

Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you going to out-vote Exxon with your wallet?

Conjecture My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

That's purely conjecture at this point.

"Broadview did restore both IPs on Wednesday, after the Vivoleum.com
website was completely disabled and all mention of Exxon was removed
from TheYesMen.org."

Re:Legal matters

[LehiNephi]

Bingo! It's important to keep in mind a few things on this very touchy subject:

• Exxon (or whatever other oil company) are not the ones burning the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil/gasoline/natural gas every year.
• Even if they were burning so much fossil fuel, Exxon only represents about 2% of the global oil production. They're the biggest private (i.e. not state-owned) oil company.
• Who's burning all that gas? Well, as I drive to work (in my 35 MPG civic), I'm surrounded by people driving Tahoe's, F150's, Escalades, Explorers, Durangos, enormous Dodge Rams, Tundras, etc. By some divine decree, every building in Houston is kept at a temperature around 70F (which most people agree is too cool for the summer). That's who's causing the 150k deaths per year.