Slashdot Mirror
Australian Website Bans ... Australians
Nazlfrag writes "Earlier this month the blog and discussion forum ZGeek was sued for $42 million AUD over a user's comment. The plaintiffs are aspiring movie producers who claim to have lost a movie deal due to a 9/11 conspiracy discussion thread. Even though the initial lawsuit has been thrown out, and the company complied with lawyers' demands by taking down the offending posts, it is believed the plaintiffs will file suit again. In addition to suing the forum, in an Australian first they have been granted an injunction to force the ISPs to disclose the IP addresses of the two posters involved. Due to the risk of incurring even greater legal costs the company is closing its doors in Australia, and will ban their fellow countrymen from posting there again."
Consider this: The Ten Commandments contain 297 words, the Bill of Rights 463 words, and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address 266 words. A recent federal directive regulating the price of cabbage contains 26,911 words.
I'm shocked nobody has called bullshit on this one yet. Damn, dude. Check snopes.
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/cabbage.asp
Unless of course you also read this on snopes and decided it was a good time to perpetrate an urban legend. *shrugs*
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Why are we regulating cabbage? Are they requiring the price to be low to combat anti-competition tactics in cabbage syndicates?
The government has regulated the cost of food for a long time for many reasons...
1. The free market cannot be trusted to maintain price stability. If there was a sudden drop or rise in the price of food, then people might not be able to afford it, or in the reverse, that farmers would go bankrupt and supply would diminish. When it comes to basic needs things like food, electricity, water, stability often sought after.
2. There is no cabbage cabal, only Zuul.
3. Incorporating a price floor prevents large corporations from winning based on economy of scale -- they cannot undersell smaller operations, thus existing infrastructure (land, mainly) will never be repurposed at a lower cost. But it "protects rural america" doing this.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Wait what?
As a longtime user (~10 years) of Zgeek, and an Aussie, I'm pretty sure we haven't been banned. It's just that the site, which is hosted in the US already is going to legally set up shop outside of Australia to avoid these kinds of legal hassles.
For the record, the whole lawsuit thing is a joke, and everyone's aware that it's doomed to failure. The problem is that since Zgeek is essentially run by one guy in his spare time, he doesn't have the resources to fight it effectively, so it's better to run away rather than set yourself up for future problems.
For the record, the site really isn't too much more than a place were people post random news, and a forum which is dominated by in-fighting, trolling, and a bizarre 'shit-in-his-shoes' meme (it was started after Google started rating us highly as place to get life advice). And yes, it's as much fun as it sounds.
Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, The Thread That Cost Someone $42.5 Million Dollars:
Page 1.
Page 2 (John posts as "Doghead" on this page).
Page 4.
Greg Smith's threat/post.
Mirror - Page 1
Mirror - Page 2
Mirror - Page 4
Mirror - Greg's Threat
If there are any other pages I missed that got picked up in the cache, post them here.
Sorry, amendment to what? We don't have that fancy-schmansy Bill of Rights you yanks have, we go back to the Magna Carta, mate.
Oh, wait...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear