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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.