Libya Takes Hard Line On Link Shortening Domains

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Libyan government has removed an adult-friendly link-shortening service from the web, saying that it fell afoul of local laws in a crackdown that could come as a blow to other url shortening services such as bit.ly, which is particularly popular on Twitter where all messages have to be limited to 140 characters. 'Other ly domains are being deregistered and removed without warning,' says Co-founder of vb.ly Ben Metcalfe. 'We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.' Alaeddin ElSharif from NIC.ly, the body that controls Libyan web addresses, told vb.ly co-founder Violet Blue that a picture of her on the website had sparked the removal. 'I think you'll agree that a picture of a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand isn't what most would consider decent or family friendly,' says ElSharif. 'While letters "vb" are quite generic and bear no offensive meaning in themselves, they're being used as a domain name for an openly admitted "adult-friendly url shortener." It is when you promote your site being solely for adult uses ... that we as a Libyan registry have an issue.'"

Comments

Their rules, their game

[OzPeter]

Seems fine to me. You don't have to play on their turf

Re:Their rules, their game

[91degrees]

They have their own internet. It just happens that it's connected to various other internets to form one big internet.

The Picture in Question

[eldavojohn]

Won't anybody stop this insanity and think of the adults who crave link-shortened pictures of "a scantily clad lady with some bottle in her hand"?

I wouldn't even call her 'scantily clad' but you can judge for yourself here.

Re:The Picture in Question

[ByOhTek]

as far as I can tell SFW in even some of the more restrictive environs in the US.

Although, while not scantily clad, I think she is someone I'd still prefer to see in a Burqa.

Re:The Picture in Question

[OzPeter]

I wouldn't even call her 'scantily clad'

While not being an expert, Islam in general expects at least modest dress for women that includes not having bare arms. So the definition of scantily clad is region dependent.

Re:The Picture in Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, good, thanks for the link, you'd think it would be something that would be incredibly obvious to include in the story, but apparently not. Either that or I'm giving too much credit to the BBC.

I suppose I should be outraged by this, except:

1. I hate URL shorteners.
2. It's not like there isn't a free market for domains. Don't like the Libyan rules, create a domain somewhere else.

Re:The Picture in Question

[OzPeter]

Well, that's the point. Cultures that think pictures of women who are "clad" (which is just a fancy word for "wearing clothes") are very probably suppressing their women.

And people from Brasil look at what the US norm is and shake their head. I have a female friend from Brasil, who after a business trip to the US she told me how she brought her normal Brasilian bathing suit and felt weird wearing it around Americans. The next trip she borrowed her mothers bathing suit because it was more modest and fitted in by US standards. So by your definition and her experience the US is suppressing its women. And dare I mention Prairie dresses?

Re:The Picture in Question

[SteeldrivingJon]

Uh, no. The accepted conception of 'scantily clad' in the US has changed dramatically in the last 100 years in the US, without as dramatic a change in religion. (The delta between ankle-length bathing costumes for women and Lady GaGa's outfits is a lot wider than the difference in US religious beliefs from 1910 to 2010.)

Re:The Picture in Question

[Barefoot Monkey]

I wouldn't even call her 'scantily clad'

While not being an expert, Islam in general expects at least modest dress for women that includes not having bare arms. So the definition of scantily clad is region dependent.

Thank God for the USA, where the right to bare arms is enshrined in the Consitution.

Re:The Picture in Question

[ArsenneLupin]

Yes, Jesus too, he tells women not to touch him in John 20:17 presumably because they are unclean, and commands a man to touch him ten verses later.

Not really, it looks more like this was a translation error.

Actually, she was clinging to him (not merely intending to touch him), and he basically told her: stop clinging to me, but instead go out and preach the word.

Re:The Picture in Question

[OzPeter]

Values are completely different today, and no where is it more prevalent than religion.

Except that even within religions the accepted morality varies by geographic region. For example the morality of followers of Catholicism is widely different between such areas as Brasil, the US, Italy and Ireland. And thats not even getting into other branches of Christianity. That is why I said region and deliberately chose NOT to say Religion.

Re:The Picture in Question

[Moryath]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't want to let any religion get their hands on your government - whether it's a nutjob cult set up by an early 19th century lunatic, a 7th century pedophile, or even a rather kindly gentleman whose major accomplishment was sitting on his ass under a tree for a month and a half.

Ultimately, we want to get religion out of government as much as possible. If something is universal - say, prohibitions on murder or theft - then we can certainly all agree to implement them in a secular manner. But I shouldn't be restricted from buying some beer on my one day off each week just because a bunch of fundamentalist shitheads think I should be wasting my morning praying to their sun god.

Re:The Picture in Question

[commodore64_love]

I read a report about a Millersville PA government school teacher being FIRED for having a similar photo online - drinking alcohol. They said it sends the wrong message to her students.

>>>you don't want to let any religion get their hands on your government -

And yet we already do (see my last sentence).

Re:The Picture in Question

[leonardluen]

and how has meddling with them been doing? seems it only makes them hate us and turn their anger in our direction.

I really don't care if they are liberated or not. how has democracy been working for our own freedom lately?

Re:The Picture in Question

[Anonymous Coward]

The Quran say nothing about how women should dress, other then covering their chest.
Few religions have any actual dress code. Islam is butchered by the savages that use their Gods name for war and oppression.

The Quran speak mostly of peace and love, and acceptance of others.
It even says that responsible christians and jews, will go to haven.

Re:The Picture in Question

[twidarkling]

This is the problem with religious types. It is possible to be ethical without being religious. Recognizing certain fundamentals about treating people fairly and intelligently does not require a mandate from a higher power, nor the promise of damnation for failing to live up to that ideal. Further, religion has perpetrated as many evils, if not MORE evils in the world than anything else. Multiple Crusades, for instance, or protecting pedophiles in the name of sparing the Church a tarnished name.

So yeah, get religion the fuck out of government. If you can't be ethical without religion, you are NOT an ethical person.

Re:The Picture in Question

[anti-pop-frustration]

Totally agree with you about keeping religion out of government and public life in general.

That being said, can we please not make this story about Islam?

This has nothing do to with Islam or cultural relativism and everything to do with Lybia being a totalitarian regime. Gaddafi is the local thug and dictator, but he is not an islamist by far. He's an arab nationalist, an ideology that is largely secular (very much like Saddam Hussein was), yet he has supported and backed terrorism several times in the past (Lockerbie Bombing). Please try to have a wider perspective, most of the dictators in power in Muslim countries don't give a shit about Islam, they are only looking out for themselves. They might use religion to try to legitimize their regimes or as a populist tool to fight their democratic opponents.

This is what happen we you do business with autocratic regimes that have no respect for the law or for basic human rights and liberties. The only real rule is the whim of the local leader/prince.

Switzerland learned the hard way, when Lybia kept two Swiss nationals hostage during several months as retaliation. This because the Swiss police arrested Gaddafi's son for beating his servants and treating them as slaves.

Bottom line: If you do chose to do business in authoritarian non-democratic countries, be prepared to pay the cost and lose it all at any point in time.

Re:The Picture in Question

[Silentknyght]

Further, religion has perpetrated as many evils, if not MORE evils in the world than anything else.

Let's be clear here--it's not the religion that's perpetrating the evils, it's the people in it. It would be more proper to say that "many evils have been perpetrated in the name of religion...". If you have a perfect religion, it could/would still be corrupted and distorted by the imperfect people who administer and follow it.

If religion didn't exist, people would blame their bad behavior on something else. Video games, or rock and roll music perhaps...

Re:The Picture in Question

[Omestes]

one way or another (through war or election) those people chose their own government. if that government is not acting in their own best interest it is just a matter of time before its people will choose another.

Tricky topic there. Did they choose their government? If some asshat comes in, with a full military, and threatens to kill and rape everyone there, and managed to convert some youths (generally) into zealot shock troops to bring terror to the local populace, can you really say it is a choice? If it comes down to support General Asshat or died, and have your family killed, is it really a choice? On one, almost purely literal, level; yes. On another, it isn't, though, since it is a coerced choice, and thus barely a choice at all.

What good is freedom if your dead, and your family raped or slaughtered? Personal safety and your family is generally more important than everyone else, so you'll generally choose these over dying for a nebulous, and potentially unsuccessful cause. This does not mean you endorse, or chose, your government.

Also a government is a wild beast, you can agree with some bits, while hating others vehemently (this is how I feel about the US, I sure as hell didn't choose some of our policies, I was just born here, that doesn't mean I have a shred of control).

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, being a philosophy major and associating with a couple people working on their masters in foreign policy. On one hand we have to agree that people should have the right to choose their religion and government. On the other hand do people have the right to inflict their views on others? Is depriving the choice in the former worth allowing the latter? Also, can people freely choose oppression?

Personally I think not. Yes, some Muslim (for example, not to single them out) women would choose their limited (repressed, even) position in society, and completely buy their societies masculine and religious line. But this is all they know, since they are barred meaningful education or experience of the world. Is this choice a real choice, since it isn't an educated choice? Also is this a choice that someone else has the right to make for them?

Education is the precursor to choice. You cannot make a free choice without an awareness of the options. If you repress this awareness you are oppressing choice, thus there is no choice. Women didn't choose to be restricted to burkas, even if they think they did.

If your country restricts information, and doesn't have elections it is a tyranny. Pure and simple.

Is this a justification to outside action? This is debatable. I think it is, though not necessarily a justification for war or military action.

I can see why the US might not be the best person to help allow people to choose their own mess, though. We have a bad history of it, especially on fighting people's choice of economic systems (translation, deciding not to kneel to US corporations), and their choice in electing leaders who are on a different end of the political spectrum than us. But sadly most of the rest of the world is more likely to just enter the relativistic nonsense loop and say "its their culture, thus it is okay". Or the whole "we can't inflict our culture on others", when the question isn't "culture", but "freedom to be an individual".

Re:The Picture in Question

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

If religion didn't exist, people would blame their bad behavior on something else. Video games, or rock and roll music perhaps...

There's been a hell of a lot of evil perpetrated in the name of "democracy" too.

Wait until they see this one.

[BenFenner]

http://5z8.info/refugee-murder_g6m3x_cockfights

Different culture, different opinions

[fantomas]

Depends on what you consider moral or immoral in your culture.

A lot of folk howled with laughter in Europe when middle America made a fuss about Janet Jackson showing off her body during Superbowl one year, in mainland Europe you'll see advertising hoardings promoting perfume, moisturisers etc with half naked models and nobody even blinks. While on the other hand a lot of Europeans freak out at aspects of US gun culture that pass without comment across the Atlantic. All over the world people have different opinions on what is right and what is wrong.

You want to use a Libyan DNS, I guess you have to abide by Libyan rules.... A classic case of a global economy confronting local norms and attitudes. Who is right and who is wrong? how do you decide? (wish I had the answer but alas I don't.....)

Re:Different culture, different opinions

[OzPeter]

A lot of folk howled with laughter in Europe when middle America made a fuss about Janet Jackson

Actually to be fair a lot of people in the US also couldn't understand what the problem was. However those who complained about it had the louder voice.

Re:Different culture, different opinions

[Dynamoo]

nic.ly is very clear about this in several places in its regulations: The Applicant certifies that, to the best of his/her knowledge the domain name is not being registered for any activities/purpose not permitted under Libyan law. [..] Domain names must not contain obscene, scandalous, indecent, or contrary to Libyan law or Islamic morality words, phrases nor abbreviations.. So if vb.ly's content broke Libyan laws.. then, tough. Get a Libyan lawyer.

appropriat.ly

[paiute]

dastard.ly

VB

[Anonymous Coward]

While letters 'vb' are quite generic and bear no offensive meaning in themselves

He's obviously not a software developer.

Sharia is a bit of a red herring

[SteeldrivingJon]

If US states had top-level domains under their control, I can imagine quite a few that would try to do the same thing.

It's just conservative cultural mores, which come in all religious flavors. Libya doesn't want its domain used for sexual matters, Texas won't let you buy or sell vibrators, and I think some places still enforce the sabbath so that few businesses are open on Sunday. Connecticut doesn't allow take-out sales of alcohol on Sundays. Various localities in the US ban alcohol sales altogether. John Ashcroft covered up a public statue's boob with a curtain when he was AG.

Talking about sharia just puts it into "oooh, scary muslims! They're so alien and different!" territory.

Well, I Did Include It in a Summary Before pickens

[eldavojohn]

Ah, good, thanks for the link, you'd think it would be something that would be incredibly obvious to include in the story, but apparently not.

I included it in my summary that I submitted a half hour before pickens but they selected his instead because mine was voted down to purple in firehose for some reason. Guess I wrote the wrong headline as I've got the same quotes he does plus the picture.

WTF?

[gstoddart]

Wait, why the hell are people registering domains in Libya to shorten URLs?

They don't exactly have a history as a nice place and they have been suspected in supporting terrorism.

WTF is Twitter doing running stuff through a domain registered in friggin' Libya?? Why not just run a couple through Iran or Myanmar while we're at it?

SSDD

[Anon-Admin]

This type stuff has been going on for years. It is nothing new! I used to own xg.nu, on it I ran a large anon server averaging 3.5 million unique hits a month and 500,000 messages a day.
The island state of Niue Who owns the .nu domain notified me that Anonymity was not permitted and took the domain back. Point is, this happens a lot more than it is reported. There is no real recourse for this, you live, learn, and move on.

Re:SSDD

[grcumb]

This type stuff has been going on for years. It is nothing new! I used to own xg.nu, on it I ran a large anon server averaging 3.5 million unique hits a month and 500,000 messages a day. The island state of Niue Who owns the .nu domain notified me that Anonymity was not permitted and took the domain back. Point is, this happens a lot more than it is reported. There is no real recourse for this, you live, learn, and move on.

I knew the guy who helped establish and run the .nu domain. He's done a lot for the people of that island, and in so doing, he's had to respect the cultural predilections of his fellow islanders, who have been strongly influenced by evangelical Christian beliefs in recent years.

'Nu' means 'nude' in French and 'now' in Swedish. Guess which country the registrar focused on? Guess which one it had to defend against?

Revenues from the domain registrations went to provide free wireless Internet access to the entire island, and since then, the island has purchased XO laptops for every single school child, making them the first country to achieve 100% distribution (albeit for only 500 kids).

But over the years, the government has tried to get its hands on the profits, leading to successive disputes. If the .nu registrar didn't keep a squeaky clean reputation for that ccTLD, he would have been pilloried for his failure. I find it hard to imagine how arguments about Free Speech rights would have improved this particular situation.

Re:ly sites smackdown

[xaxa]

So, you think you should get free speech but not Libya?

LY is the code for Libya, it's for them to decide how to administer it, just like it's for my country to decide how to administer .UK and for North Korea to handle .KP (which stopped working last month).

Re:don't let this one get away!

[gstoddart]

bite.me [bite.me] is still available.

That's damned funny. Though, some of the suggestions around "Bite.me" the parking page suggests are a little disturbing (AnimalBite.me).

Of course, I had to look to see what TLD .me was, and found this humorous bit:

The dot-ME top level domain replaced the dot-YU (Yugoslavia) domain previously used by Serbia and Montenegro. In addition to declaring .me independent of .yu.

I'm sure someone thought long and hard to come up with that bit of wit. :-P

Re:ly sites smackdown

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Libya has shown that they do not deserve to be in charge of a tld that happens to be a common English suffix. They have no inherent right to it, so this is just an issue of expedience and user experience for English speakers.

Okay, Libya has no inherent right to the TLD that most closely denotes the name of their country ... but "we" (the US? the English-speaking world? the United Nations?) have the inherent right to take it away from them ... because it "happens to be a common English suffix"?

Are you actually listening to yourself?

Re:ly sites smackdown

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay let's agree that neither of the groups have a right...

I don't think you're going to get much agreement on that either. The country TLD system wasn't created to create 200 or so TLDs which sound like the end of words because people don't like putting the whole word in the second level and having an appropriate TLD. It was created so that there would be no regional dispute over names. It was created to categorize sites regionally or, in the case of com, net, ord, edu, mil and the other TLDs, based on some other criteria.

Now the fact that countries have realized that they can make money off people who want TLDs that make the URL aesthetically pleasing doesn't change the fact that this is a perversion of the system of categorization. Now it's perfectly fine that when countries decide to allow this type of deviation from the intent...they've been given the domain to administer however they see fit. But it stops being fine when you start arguing that the perversion is more important than the original intent.

The intent is that .ly is the top-level code for Libya. Companies that made the foolish choice to base their business around a TLD from a repressive country at the whim of a dictator are not a reason to stray from that intent. It's their screw up and they have to live with it, as do the twits who decided to use their services.