When I read the post the other day at Boing Boing about internet censors denying people access to Boing Boing, I thought that was stupid and mentally wished Cory, et al. success in their efforts to expose such nonsense.
Then I sort of forgot about it.
Until, that is, Steve Newson discovered today that Newsome.Org is also being blocked by these idiots. Steve has all the particulars posted on his site, but the bottom line is that some outfit called Websense has decided that Newsome.Org is forbidden entertainment and has added it to its blocked sites list.
Let me first say a word about my censorship philosophy.
Business Context
There are only two legitimate reasons to censor adults at work- bandwidth issues and security issues. If everyone is listening to online radio at the same time, that can bring the entire network to a crawl, and that’s not good. Additionally, IT departments simply have to protect people from themselves where viruses, etc. are concerned. 99 people might know better than to open an email containing a virus, but the 100th person will do it every time.
Otherwise, if you have people who want to goof off and they can’t goof off on the net, they’ll goof off some other way. If they are not getting their work done, keeping them from reading Boing Boing and Newsome.Org is not going to change a thing.
That is an HR issue, not a technology issue.
Family Context
My kids aren’t yet old enough to surf the net (thankfully). But when they are, you can bet Daddy will lock down the family computer in a material and redundant fashion to keep them from seeing stuff on the net that we don’t let them watch on TV.
So I’m not a censorship basher. To the contrary, I am a future customer.
But this is Horse Manure
But for some jackass sitting in a cubicle somewhere to decide that this site, which by design is very family friendly, should be blocked is utter nonsense.
I’m going to look into this business and see what I can find out. I’ll leave it at that for now.
In the meantime, please read Boing Boing’s Guide to Defeating Censorware.
And stay tuned.
Newsome.Org 