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Canadian Censorship Takes Down 4500 Sites

Posted by timothy on from the now-that's-what-I-call-political-science dept.

uncadonna writes "According to activist group The Yes Men, the government of Canada has shut down two parody websites criticizing Canada's poor environmental policy. The article goes on to claim that 'In response to Environment Canada's request, Serverloft immediately turned off a whole block of IP addresses, knocking out more than 4500 websites that had nothing to do with the parody sites or the activists who created them. Serverloft was shown no warrant, and never called the web hosting company about the shutdown.'"

8 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Works for me by FPCat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Umm, http://ec-gc.ca/ is working for me.....

    1. Re:Works for me by compro01 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Both sites appear to be working fine from here in Canada also. This is either some quick backpedaling or bogus.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:Works for me by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, I'd agree, except using government muscle to come after people who mislead others is kind of a crappy thing to do.

      It was a German company that pulled the plug. They were under no obligation whatsoever to honor the request. It's them who screwed up most in this affair.

    3. Re:Works for me by Intron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) Saying something - speech.
      2) Taking money or goods under false pretenses - fraud.

      I don't understand your confusion here. There's already laws against 2). No need to bring 1) into a legal discussion at all.

      --
      Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
  2. Uh, More Hoax? by TrebleJunkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uh, could the press release (from the Hoaxsters, no less) just be more of a Hoax?

    --

    Ed R.Zahurak

    You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.

  3. Think hoax till proved otherwise. by stimpleton · · Score: 5, Informative

    From Wikipedia re The Yes Men: "...they create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows".

    I would be looking at this with tongue firmly in cheek.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_yes_men

    --

    In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
  4. Re:Hmmm by MadnessASAP · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a Canadian I can confirm that they are in fact called "The Conservative Party of Canada" or more colloquially "The assholes who somehow managed to win an election and try to claim divine mandate with less then 25% of voting Canadian behind them."

    --
    I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
  5. Re:Hmmm by BlueStraggler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How else do you explain the politicians who self-identify as "conservative" who are so eager to expand the size and power of government?

    That's an easy one. The core philosophy in conservatism is maintaining the existing power structures in society. The size of government is immaterial, and will be increased when necessary and decreased when unnecessary to the achievement of this aim. The existing power structure in the USA is based around the military industrial complex, which dictates big, big, big government (but which spends very little on actual social programs). The power structure in Canada is based around the resource economy, which dictates government small enough that the energy, mining, and forestry companies can override popular opposition. That pretty much explains everything you need to know about the differences between American and Canadian conservatives.