Archive for the ‘Censorship’ Category

I’m offended, so I can attack you now then Nancy, right?

rabbitpirate

Wed Jan 06, 2010 7:23 pm by rabbitpirate

As you are no doubt aware on New Years Day Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and his granddaughter were attacked in his house by an axe-wielding Islamic extremist intent on murder. The reason for the attack, well Westergaard was one of the people behind the now infamous Danish newspaper cartoons that depicted Muslims and Mohammed in a less than favourable light. Clearly justification for bloody axe based murder. Thankfully the attack was not successful and the would be killer himself was shot and ~~unfortunately only~~ wounded in the attempt.

Of course no sane person would see Westergaard as the bad guy in this story or the attack on him as justified…would they? Enter Nancy Graham Holm and her article at The Guardian Online website.

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Discussion (26) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship, News, Religion

Happy New Censorship!

AndromedasWake

Fri Jan 01, 2010 1:29 pm by AndromedasWake

Firstly, let me welcome you to the new year, 2010 CE, which promises to be a great one here at League of Reason. We have some exciting plans, and the growth of our community shows no signs of stopping.

Sadly, something awful, just… shameful and absurd has happened in Ireland today, and our Irish friends who wish to live in the year 2010 are now in a battle for their freedom of speech, which has been dealt a critical blow by censorship-loving religious tyrants, completely out of touch with the prerequisites for a fair society.

The following article, by Michael Nugent, is reposted from blasphemy.ie – an excellent blog documenting and opposing blasphemy laws. Bloggers are invited and positively encouraged to spread it far and wide. You can read it here, or click on the title to go straight to the original post.

Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

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Discussion (20) • Add Comment Tags: Atheist Ireland, Blasphemous Quotes, blasphemy, Blasphemy Law, blasphemy.ie, Ireland
Posted in Censorship, News

Down with this sort of thing

rabbitpirate

Tue Dec 22, 2009 7:10 pm by rabbitpirate

Now I know that every skeptic and freethinker on the blogosphere, and I am ashamed that I had to look up how to spell that, has mentioned this already and I am pretty sure that I have done so myself in the past. However this is an issue that I feel strongly about and which, to be honest, anyone who cares about free speech should feel strongly about as well.

As you no doubt know the libel laws in the UK are a joke. Not only are they around 150 times more expensive than else where in Europe but, unlike most laws, they also seem to operate on a guilty until proven innocent basis. Combine this with the fact that the UK libel laws can be brought to bare against anyone anywhere in the world if the thing they are commenting on has so much as looked in the general direction of the UK and you have a pretty effective tool for people of questionable scruples to use for silencing those who, often quiet legitimately, speak out against them. No where are these issues clearer than with regards to skeptical hero Simon Singh and his on going battle against the forces of evil the British Chiropractic Association.

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Discussion (2) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship

…and do you have to call his name while we’re doing it?

rabbitpirate

Thu Dec 17, 2009 3:45 pm by rabbitpirate

I have to say that this one made me smile. A billboard with the aim of “challenging stereotypes” with regards to the Biblical story of Jesus’ divine conception was put up in Auckland, New Zealand and was promptly defaced with brown paint. Ok so that’s not exactly unexpected news. However the fun part of this story is that the billboard was put up by St Matthew-in-the-City church rather than a group of unwashed, hairy, furious, heathen atheists scum. And on top of that it is actually funny.

Mary and Joseph billboard from St Matthew-in-the-City church in Auckland

But, surprise surprise, it appears that the Catholic Church can’t see the funny side and have condemned the billboard as “inappropriate” and “disrespectful“. Ok, so I kinda get that but I have to say that the main complaint they are making really doesn’t make any sense to me. Lyndsay Freer, spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Auckland, made this rather confusing comment:

“Our Christian tradition of 2,000 years is that Mary remains a virgin and that Jesus is the son of God, not Joseph,”

I…well I don’t really know what to say to that other than that Ms Freer obviously doesn’t get it. The billboard is clearly implying that Joseph is getting himself some immaculate ass after God had already been there and as such in no way suggests that Joseph was the father of Jesus and not the big guy. Also this idea that “Mary remains a virgin” confuses me. The Bible clearly states that Jesus had siblings and yet the Catholic Church seem to have this weird idea that Mary somehow remained a virgin for these pregnancies as well, or am I missing something here?

Either way this is yet another example of good Christians and their aversion to free speech. Nothing too shocking or original there, it just made me smile.

Discussion (7) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship, Religion

Don’t go having an opinion now

rabbitpirate

Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:51 pm by rabbitpirate

Here at the League of Reason we are all about freedom of speech and as such I feel the need to mention this even though many of us would be happy if people just stopped talking about religion altogether. Now as that is unlikely to happen this is worth looking at as the outcome of this case could end up having an effect on those of us, like Th1sWasATriumph, who are actively involved in debating religious people. Anyway as I write this evangelical Christians, hotel proprietors and owners of a seriously sci-fi surname Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang are awaiting trial accused of breaching public order because they allegedly insulted a guest’s religion. The couple apparently engaged in discussion with a Muslim guest about the differences between their religions during which they are said to have described Muslim dress as putting women into “bondage” and Mohammed as a “warlord”. Oh noes.

The couple were arrested and charged for this most terrible of crimes under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 and Section 31 (1) (c) and (5) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which has dismayed a number of lawyers who consider this a misuse of the act that was designed to deal with law and order problems in the streets. Prominent criminal barrister and expert in religious law Neil Addison had this to say on the matter:

‘The purpose of the Public Order Act is to prevent disorder, but I’m very concerned that the police are using it merely because someone is offended.

‘It should be used where there is violence, yobbish behaviour or gratuitous personal abuse. It should never be used where there has been a personal conversation or debate with views firmly expressed.

‘If someone is in a discussion and they don’t like what they are hearing, they can walk away.’

Now while the church has used this as yet more evidence that they are oh so persecuted I think this is something the rest of us should keep an eye on. If they are convicted then this could set a worrying legal precedent. Right now people have freedom of speech; they do not have the freedom not to be offended. If these people are convicted then the Public Order Act could be used to change all that, at least that is how I read this article. Are there any lawyers out there who could shed some more light on the matter?

Discussion (1) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship, News, Reason, Religion

TubeGuardian has arrived, have we won?

joshTheGoods

Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:32 pm by joshTheGoods

As you all probably know by now, the first public release of TubeGuardian has shaken up the votebotting scene, but is this the final blow in what has been an epic battle of morality and reason versus closed minded bigotry and censorship? Not in the least! In this blog, I will introduce everyone to TubeGuardian, answer a few common questions, and explain why this software is only the first step in many to come in the war against freedom and expression.

So, what exactly is TubeGuardian, and how does one acquire and use it?

TubeGuardian is software designed to determine and counteract votebot attacks. It can be downloaded right here at the League of Reason. Instructions for use will be posted in the forum entry for this blog post. If you do not know what votebots are, please see CosmicSporks excellent series of blog posts on the topic here. There are three main functions that TubeGuardian executes: gathering statistical information on videos, determining whether a video is under attack, and quickly disabling ratings on videos it determines are under attack. Let’s take each of those functions one at a time and dig a little deeper into how they work.

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Discussion (11) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship, News, TubeGuardian, YouTube

Finally DMCA’d . . . By A Homophobe! RICHNESS

Th1sWasATriumph

Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:37 pm by Th1sWasATriumph

I got DMCA’d for this video (mirrored by AndromedasWake) by homophobic moron Youtuber JiLAdren.

I feel quite special. Votebotted and DMCA’d – I’m apparently a threat, and if I’m a threat then I’m sure as hell doing something right.

However, JiLAdren has managed to get the video he tried to censor seen by (over the next few days) thousands of people. He’s exposed me to a wide audience just begging to denounce him as a homophobic coward.

Which brings me to my main point – dprjones provided swift legal advice, AndromedasWake recorded a new intro and mirrored my original video, and people are already starting to mirror it themselves. It’s immensely gratifying. To everyone who’s already mirrored, and to anyone that does, or might, or even thinks about it – thanks. And that goes double to AW and dpr.

You could even pre-emptively mirror my new video on JiLAdren . . . I’m sure he’ll DMCA it in short order, and in any case then you’d have the full set lying in your videos.

League of Reason AWAAAAAYYYYY!

Discussion (16) • Add Comment Posted in Censorship, Reason, YouTube

Leaguer fights back against Votebotting, TubeGuardian in development

AndromedasWake

Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:36 pm by AndromedasWake

Well, well, well. What do we have here?

In the war against censorship, one of our forum members and Youtuber joshTheGoods is taking matters into his own hands, and I have to say I feel much safer at night knowing that at least one sensible codemonkey is working on the software weapons we need.

Josh posted the video embedded below on his channel today, demonstrating an early build of TubeGuardian, an innovative background application that monitors your Youtube channel statistics (or anyone else’s, for that matter) and if given access to your account, will sense when videos are targeted by votebots, and automatically react to protect them. This does not involving counterbotting – which would only be stooping to the level of those free speech-hating cowards – but rather the act of defending your videos by disabling ratings. Check out the video for the full lowdown from Josh himself. It’s set to play in HD, so be sure to embiggen it with the fullscreen function for maximum effect.

Since I began writing this post, it appears the above video was itself votebotted! A nice demonstration of the effectiveness of TubeGuardian, which disabled ratings after just five 1-star votes. Note that it is not the number of ratings that triggers TubeGuardian‘s defence programme, but rather a suspiciously high number of ratings when compared to views.

As Josh mentioned in the video, he is open to suggestions as the software is in development, so if you have any, or can offer any help, please send him a PM on Youtube. If anyone can port the software to OS X, I’d certainly appreciate it (and let’s not forget our friends on Linux). Once it reaches a stable release, we will be sure to host the install files officially here at League of Reason.

In the meantime, check out joshTheGoods’ channel and subscribe to him for video updates about TubeGuardian.

Discussion (4) • Add Comment Tags: Censorship, joshTheGoods, software, TubeGuardian, votebots, YouTube
Posted in Censorship, YouTube