Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - Re: [internetworkers] From the Department of Full Disclosure

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Thomas Beckett" <thomas AT tbeckett.com>
  • To: <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] From the Department of Full Disclosure
  • Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:32:13 -0500 (EST)

So why doesn't he just find another ISP?

TaB


> a forward from Salon ...
>
> Cheers
> KJ
>
> ------ Forwarded Message
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/03/25/yellowtimes/
>
> No dead bunnies, no dead soldiers A Florida Web-hosting company
> pulls the plug on a site that dared to show graphic images of war.
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - By Tim Grieve
>
> March 25, 2003 | As the editor of the alt-journalism site
> YellowTimes.org, Erich Marquardt thinks war coverage should go
> beyond the breathless reports of "embeds" and the
> is-it-the-Fourth-of-July-already live shots of Tomahawk missiles
> exploding into distant targets. So when Al-Jazeera aired videotape
> of U.S. soldiers captured and killed by Iraqi troops, Marquardt
> posted screen grabs of the images on the YellowTimes site. It was a
> chance, he thought, to counteract the "romanticized" view of war
> offered up by the mainstream media.
>
> That chance didn't last long. On Monday morning, the Florida-based
> Internet company that hosts YellowTimes told Marquardt it was
> pulling the plug on his site unless he took the photos down.
> Marquardt didn't blink, and YellowTimes is now off the air.
>
> Marquardt calls it "outright censorship" -- an attack on
> YellowTimes' ability to show that war has human consequences. "The
> mainstream media doesn't show the real effects of war," Marquardt
> told Salon. "They send in their embedded correspondents and they get
> all excited, and then people become excited by the image of war and
> not the truth."
>
> In fact, the mainstream media has shown little from Al-Jazeera
> videotape of Americans captured and killed. The Pentagon asked the
> networks not to air the video because it showed the captives who had
> been killed and because, the Pentagon said, the making of the
> videotape violated the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. networks have
> complied with that request, and many major newspapers have refrained
> from publishing photos taken from the video as well.
>
> In a note accompanying the photos on the YellowTimes site,
> Marquardt's colleague Matthew Riemer expressed hope that seeing the
> photos would allow Web-surfing war junkies to make a "more real and
> human-based assessment" of both the Iraq war and war in general.
> Instead, at least some of the people who saw the site contacted
> YellowTimes' hosting company, Vortech Hosting Inc., and demanded
> that the photos be removed.
>
> Vortech owner Craig Smith said that his company's decision to
> suspend service for YellowTimes had "nothing to do with politics and
> nothing to do with how we feel about the war in Iraq." He said that
> the Florida-based company is a small family business that would
> "like to keep the emphasis on 'family.'"
>
> "The fact is, we don't allow adult content, be it pornography or
> violent images," Smith said. "I personally saw a picture of a
> soldier with a hole in his head on that Web site. This, to us, would
> be considered adult content. Whether it was a dead soldier or a dead
> bunny rabbit, we don't want these types of images on our Web
> servers."
>
> Cindy Cohn, the legal director for the Electronic Frontier
> Foundation, said it is unusual for a hosting company to shut down a
> site because of its political bent. "Most people who host other
> people's speech actually believe in freedom of speech," she said.
> Cohn said the "isolated" actions of a company like Vortech aren't
> particularly problematic so long as there is competition in the
> Web-hosting market. "I tell people, 'If you don't like your ISP,
> vote with your feet.'"
>
> That's what Marquardt has done. He has found an individual in San
> Francisco who is willing to host YellowTimes, and the site will be
> back up -- complete with the controversial photographs -- within a
> day or so. But that doesn't mean he's happy about it.
>
> "What's so great about the United States is that the government does
> not regularly censor dissenting views," Marquardt said. "But the
> problem you have is that private companies do."
>
>
> salon.com
>
> Copyright 2003 Salon.com Salon, 22 4th Street, 16th Floor, San
> Francisco, CA 94103 Telephone 415 645-9200 | Fax 415 645-9204 E-mail
> | Salon.com Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
>
>
> ------ End of Forwarded Message
>
>
> ---
> Come and play at the InterNetWorkers Web site!
> http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/ You are currently subscribed
> to InterNetWorkers mailing list
> To unsubscribe visit
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/internetworkers






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page