Library thing is really cool

November 16, 2007 in Books, Censorship, Net Neutrality, Web 2.0, Wordpress

As noted earlier, Librarything is a handy place to post books and an example of new media working together with, rather than competing with, old media. Which is why I am rather frustrated that wordpress is doing some kind of censoring of Librarything widgets in the borders of blogs hosted on wordpress.com. Why [...]

Hate speech of the far right (Chris Castle edition)

November 3, 2007 in Chris Castle, Comcast, Corporate Fascism, First Amendment, Free Software, Net Neutrality

Chris Castle has a long rant about Comcast’s blocking the Bit Torrent protocol, or to be more precise he has a long rant about the many who are criticizing Comcast; it seems he is a little upset that many have objections to Comcast’s actions, and that a consensus exists that committing fraud in the name [...]

Comcast, lying

October 25, 2007 in Comcast, Corporate Fascism, First Amendment, Free Software, Linux, Net Neutrality, p2p

Here we have Comcast’s own statement regarding Bit Torrent:

And here we have observation by Ernesto over at Torrentfreak:
Comcast Throttles BitTorrent Traffic, Seeding Impossible
Written by Ernesto on August 17, 2007
Over the past weeks more and more Comcast users started to notice that their BitTorrent transfers were cut off. Most users report a significant decrease in [...]

Further, it cannot be ignored that the distribution of linux and FOSS to dismantle the centralized power structures of large corporations is itself an act with a political dimension. So, any attempt to dismantle or disrupt Bit torrent traffic is a de facto act of political repression.

October 24, 2007 in Comcast, Corporate Fascism, First Amendment, Free Software, Linux, Media, Net Neutrality, Thoughtcrime

The headline says it all, I think. Comcast did what they did in secret, denied it when confronted, and furthermore tried to cover it up when it was exposed. Why did they do it in secret, and deny it when they were confronted? Because they knew it was wrong. It really is that [...]

Impossiblity of a Market Failure, (Jim Harper edition)

October 22, 2007 in Corporate Fascism, First Amendment, Free Culture, Free Software, Linux, Media, Net Neutrality

Once again, someone at TLF has defined a market success so narrowly, that by his very definition, it is impossible ever to discuss an example of a market failure. Here we have Jim Harper, discussing the recent supression by Comcast of Bit torrent traffic:
But I expect that we’ll soon learn more about the situation, [...]

Comcast, fighting freedom

October 20, 2007 in Censorship, Computing, Corporate Fascism, Free Culture, Free Software, Linux, Net Neutrality, St. Louis

If anyone wasn’t convinced of the need for net neutrality legislation, a story by Declan McCullagh should dispel any objections they might have. It seems that Comcast has been interfering with Bit-Torrent traffic of its subscribers. What’s more it knew that to do so was wrong, and therefore denied it when asked about [...]

We don’t need no thought control

August 14, 2007 in Censorship, Corporate Fascism, First Amendment, Media, Net Neutrality

Thought for the day: “A threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – MLK
Amazingly, as the examples of case after case after case of ISP’s instituting content-based suppression of expression (or plainly said: Censorship) pile up, certain bloggers (mainly ‘libertarian’) continue to deny that this is talking place at all. [...]