U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs
After the U.S. Government took action against several sites connected to movie streaming recently, nerves are jangling over the possibility that this is just the beginning of a wider crackdown. Now it appears that a free blogging platform has been taken down by its hosting provider on orders from the U.S. authorities on grounds of “a history of abuse”. More than 73,000 blogs are out of action as a result.
They say it’s because of copyright infringement, but is it really? From reading the article here, it would seem that only sites/blogs which were streaming movies and TV shows were shut down initially, but upon further perusal, it seems like the Feds just arbitrarily shut down a server with several tens of thousands of bloggers on it without due process as is usual with this administration. How soon before they find some reason to shut down other servers or networks? What’s probably infuriating to the bloggers who were shut down is that they have no recourse. They have no idea why the server was shut down. And the Feds are mum about it. Also, if the bloggers can even get a hold of the server admin, they’re refused any explanation of why.
Perhaps this is just a “test case” for the FCC to see if or what they can get by with.
Doesn’t it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy towards the Obama administration to know that they’re watching out for you?
By the way: WordPress is the engine that runs this blog.
Even giving full credence to the notion of “copyright infringement” happening, causing the feds to crack down, it is beyond belief that 73,000 blogs were all the targets of federal investigations.
I suppose we’re supposed to just accept that as collateral damage.
If you blog, may I suggest you frequently back up ALL your data? And maybe be prepared to put up a mirror site if the feds decide someone in your cyber-neighborhood is hosting too many Seinfeld episodes?
Just a thought.
I’m pretty sure that that if the Bush administration had done this, the media and web would have been full of accusations that Bush was “protecting his big business friends” (who else owns big money copyrights?) and taking the opportunity to “shut down free speech” for all the lefty blogs on the same servers. There would be individual sob stories of people who lost their access to pictures of grandma, and small business sites selling energy efficiency products that were now out of business, and so on.
You know how it would go: Bush lied, servers died.
I’m guessing you probably haven’t even heard of this story much of anywhere else. Apparently, the muzzling of free speech is only worth reporting when Republicans do it.
