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Facebook Blocks Users From Mentioning BugMeNot.com
ThinkingInBinary writes "The other day, I was trying to mention bugmenot.com in my Facebook status, and I discovered to my horror that Facebook blocks the phrase 'bugmenot.com' as "abusive" in status updates, messages, and presumably any other communications on the site. Facebook isn't even listed on BugMeNot, as they requested that logins for Facebook be blocked. This is pretty ridiculous, as I can't even send my friends a message mentioning bugmenot.com!"
Everyone seems to have a problem with it. It's really bugged me that I've never been able to get to bugmenot from work:
Access to this web page is restricted at this time.
Reason:
The Websense category "Hacking" is filtered.
URL:
http://www.bugmenot.com/
I'm a big tall mofo.
or write a letter.
Try it, it's fun. I even bought a fountain pen. It feels nicer than a biro, or typing on the keyboard.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Yes. If you've looked at their redesign that will be implemented soon, you know what I mean. They basically split the functions of the site across 4 or 5 pages instead of just the one, so now you have to click more to see the same amount of content. The whole redesign is made to get more page views of their ads.
I hate it, but I'm old. I remember when the internet and the WWW came to suburbia back in the mid 90s. Almost all internet sites were free, if you had the hardware to access them, just like facebook.com is right now. It's free.
Somehow, someone who has no understanding of economics managed to convince themselves that facebook.com was worth hundreds of millions for investment. It's not. It never will be. It's a free website that has some cool widgets and lets you keep up with your friends. It's not like they have a patent on social networking.
Here's what will happen. Facebook will have to continually make its interface more intrusive in order to please their investors and advertisers. As that happens, they will loose users. Eventually another site will pop up that has the same functionality as facebook.com only without all the BS. People will begin to use it, and the internet circle of life continues.
Thank you Dave Raggett
...as soon as they allowed others to block sites from bugmenot.
They killed the point of using them.
Nowadays more and more sites are blocked on bugmenot.
So much in fact that I uninstalled the Firefox* add-on.
Does anyone know an alternative?
Preferably one that's offshore and will not bow to any idiot sending them a complaint.
* The Firefox spell checker does not know the word "Firefox"? WTF? ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Did anyone else notice the little iframe in the bugmenot page? That links back to the ttuttle.com site the original blog post is on? According to Chrome's nifty element inspector it's pointing back to http://www.ttuttle.net/396jdw.php, though it's obviously slashdotted by now so I have no idea what it's supposed to do or if that address is unique.
Not true at all. You're thinking of the First Amendment. The First Amendment is a particular feature of the US Constitution and doesn't have any legal force in other countries or apply to non-governmental entities in the United States. (By virtue of the 14th Amendment, it applies to the States as well as to the federal government.) "Freedom of Speech", on the other hand, is a value that exists independent of the US Constitution. Freedom of speech is guaranteed in the constitutions of many other countries and in such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 of which reads:
Perhaps the best way to advertise is to submit to Slashdot that somebody has blocked you. Interesting.
I wrote a long note about BugMeNot and facebook's censorship, and it posted just fine.
An hour later (now), I checked facebook and my published note has vanished. Gone without a trace. No warning, no e-mails, nothing, it's just not there. I'm putting up another note about censorship (without using the BugMeNot phrase this time) to see what happens.
Regardless of what happens, I will be cancelling my facebook account by the end of next week. This is absolutely ridiculous.