Attention DU IT Professionals!

[benburch]

Are you an IT professional in charge of your companies firewall ruleset?

I am thinking that we ought to compile a canonical list of Right Wing hate sites to make blocking such sites easy, and back that list up with a foundation and website where we mention only the hate speech and not the political affiliation of any of the sites. Basically I am thinking that we can define "hate speech" broadly enough to include almost all conservative and neocon web sites.

If we do the PR right, we could likely get this list banned from school, library, government, and kid-safe networks.

Comments?

[philarq]

1. So you are saying free speech is a Bad thing?

[benburch]

5. Nope...

I'm saying that our sites are already blocked, so theirs should be too.

You cannot get DU on most military bases, for example.

[DBoon]

2. So your idea is to discredit web site blocking

by blocking a bunch of sites run by blow-hards, in the hopes of pissing them off enough that all blocking is discredited?

[benburch]

7. That would serve the purpose.

The goal being to equalize the playing field. As it stands, they have our sites blocked in many places. The State of Alaska blocks Air America for example, but not Rush Limbaugh.

[RoyGBiv]

10. The *state* of Alaska?

I apparently missed this.

Do you mean the state blocks access to AA via its internal networks, or what?

[benburch]

12. Yes.

There was an article about this a year ago.

I'll try to find it.

I know this because they missed blocking White Rose, and White Rose was therefore mentioned in the newspaper article.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. So (fill in the blank)

"So" seems to be the universal accusation word.

--p!

[MH1]

4. Ummm...bad idea, I think. (if I get your meaning)

I'm an IT pro but not in charge of the firewall ruleset...and I would have a problem with this, I think.

Basically it comes down to, if you blocked a site like freakrepublik, you'd have to block DU too...and so on.

OTOH, real hate sites like Stormfront are probably already blocked. If you want a list of hate sites by known hate groups, Southern Poverty Law Center probably has already done that, or can point you to someone who has.

[rpgamerd00d]

6. So, a needle pulling thread !

Sorry, couldnt resist !
:D

[drm604]

8. I don't really like it.

I'm uncomfortable with blocking sites due to their political viewpoint. I'm especially uncomfortable with doing so by being disingenuous about why sites are on the list. Free speech is free speech.

[meisje]

9. Hair-Brained!

[Rick Myers]

11. Not a good idea!

IMHO