Yesterday I wrote about how 70,000 users blogs on the WordPress owned service, Blogetry, were mysteriously shut down by a “law enforcement agency”.
Now more details have emerged and the BBC have reported that it was indeed the FBI who ordered the services’ closure because of a “link to terrorist material” and an al-Qaeda hit list”.
BurstNet, which hosts the service said that Blogetry.com had also posted “bomb-making instructions”.
The question remains though if the FBI acted within reason and within the limits of its powers in closing the service. It stands to reason that not all of Blogetry’s 70,000 users were terrorists or support terrorism. It’s far more likely that there were no more than a handful of blogs using the service that could have been considered as directly supporting terrorism.
The Centre for Democracy and Technology has also expressed concern about what happens to the 70,000 plus bloggers who have had their blogs terminated.
“As a free speech advocate, I certainly think it is unfortunate that what I assume are many thousands of perfectly innocent blogs were taken down here,” John Morris, the head of the Centre for Democracy & Technology’s free expression project told BBC News.
“I hope our society is able to figure out a way to address one bad apple in a pool of content without collateral consequences for the innocent speakers. This (case) highlights the fragility of speech on the internet when thousands of speakers have their speech removed.”
As of right now, twenty four hours later and there’s no word on whether these perfectly legitimate blogs will be restored and what, if any, rights the users of Blogetry might have. Unsurprisingly the FBI have only said that they do not comment on current investigations.
Update: Blogetery blogs are online again. The service is offering free blogs and pro accounts based on the WordPress blog system.
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Martin,
according to BurstNET’s press release (which I also linked to in yesterday’s post’s comments section), the site was *not* ordered to be shut down by the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency). BurstNET themselves decided to terminate the service due to violation of the ToS. Source: https://www.burst.net/news/blogetry.shtml.
Thanks,
Dave
Sorry, “Mike”, that is. Not “Martin”.
My gosh! If you want a bomb, use the latest–binary explosives. The liquid-powder as separate entities does nothing and can be legally shipped anywhere. Mix the two and whammmo! This is what they teach us in Iraq.
http://www.fixor.com/
I mean, this stuff is available everywhere; who needs nuclear?
Want to fly safely without fear of murderous terrorists? Just imprint “Allah” on the floors of the airports, the floors of the planes and the toilets. No terrorist will dare step on “Allah”.
Hmm… come to think of it, I’m going to get some “Allah” stickers printed so that I’ll have it handy to stick inside the toilets next time I fly.
Would be hilarious :)
Stop to torture Arabs.
Stop to kill Palestinians.
Stop to steal other countries money via TehMightyWallstreetScam(TM).
Don’t bother other nations.
In Gold We Trust.
Gold Bless Military Junta Of Amerika.