Massive censorship attack based on allegations of al Quesadilla activity

casseia's picture

The blogging site blogetery.com had the plug yanked on its server by webhost BurstNET (burst.net) on July 9, 2010, immediately propelling more than 70,000 blogs (according to blogetery) into the cyber void. Initial speculation was that this was an anti-piracy effort, but a statement from BurstNET confirms the alternative rumor, that this was an "anti-terrorist" plug-yanking.

On the evening of July 9, 2010, BurstNET® received a notice of a critical nature from law enforcement officials, and was asked to provide information regarding ownership of the server hosting Blogetry.com. It was revealed that a link to terrorist material, including bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda “hit list", had been posted to the site. Upon review, BurstNET® determined that the posted material, in addition to potentially inciting dangerous activities, specifically violated the BurstNET® Acceptable Use Policy. This policy strictly prohibits the posting of “terrorist propaganda, racist material, or bomb/weapon instructions". Due to this violation and the fact that the site had a history of previous abuse, BurstNET® elected to immediately disable the system.

(That's from BurstNET, but I'm not giving them the benefit of a live link.)

Hmmmm. I wonder how "terrorist propaganda" (and "racist material," for that matter) was defined by BurstNET. A little subjectively, perhaps?

The moral of this story -- one moral: check out your webhost's policies and history, and back up your material.

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gretavo's picture

i would add

that if you happen to frequent a blog (hint hint) that you think is on the right track (nudge nudge) you might save notable content from that site periodically in the case that the site is disappeared and the owner is unable to retrieve his, or her, backups!