First Amendment Under Attack — Feds Shut Down 73,000 Blogs

[cory777]

Source: Newsflash

Under the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed in 1998 the Obama administration has shut down 73,000 blogs this week operating on the Blogetery.com WordPress based site hosting service. Initially the focus of the action was on some individual sites which were engaging in illegal file sharing, but ultimately a request was issued to BurstNet, the provider hosting the sites, to shut down the entire network of 73,000 blogs, most of which were engaged in no illegal activity, including harmless sites like Science Experiments for Kids and political sites like Tea and Politics.

This is the first use of the DMCA on this scale and carries frightening implications for the future. Under the act no warrant or any kind of due process is required because the government makes its request directly of the ISP involved and can penalize it administratively if it fails to comply. No proof of criminality or illegal activity is required and the target of the action has no recourse. Many on both the right and left are concerned that this could lay the groundwork for the shut down of political sites critical of the administration, either arbitrarily or as part of some future campaign finance or net neutrality legislation.



Read more: http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/first-amendment-under-attack-feds-shut/

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[Curmudgeoness]

1. Are they sure that this wasn't shut down because someone didn't pay bills?

Or some other reason?

[Better Today]

12. I agree, something smells fishy. I googled blogetery.com and every link has this....

quote

"After being BurstNet customer for 7 months our server was terminated without any notification or explanation.

We're trying to resolve the situation.

You can find details in this thread on webhostingtalk forum."

If BurstNet had been terminated without notice, then how is it that every member (I clicked on 12-18 links) was able to get on-line and post this complaint. Seems like a set up to me.

[Oregone]

23. All you have to do is switch the DNS to a vanilla server and have that as the index page

[Better Today]

31. So one member puts the message up for all members? Like I said, something smells fishy.

[Oregone]

32. Blogetery could put it up for any and all URL requests

Just by using a rewrite rule in the .htaccess file, *any* request to the server can deliver the same, exact page.

Its simple to do. It would take minutes really.

The owner of the domain would just need to put a quick DNS switch request in. Those are now handled in near real-time.

Ive done things similar to this before when servers have gone down (had maintenance page displayed while repair was in process)

Doesn't mean something is fishy at all (though it may be the case)

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Is this really what it appears to be?????????

:wow:

[NJmaverick]

8. Doesn't look that way

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010872-261.html

[ProSense]

3. A RW blog is news?

The author

Do people just search for any crap on the Internet and post it as fact?

[blondeatlast]

29. At least this one searched and sourced something, even if it's likely

bovine excretions.

[madinmaryland]

49. I saw it on the internets, so it must be true...

http://www.tysknews.com/LiteStuff/must_be_true.htm

:rofl:

[snooper2]

50. Aren't you used to that by now?

Don't you know the moon landings were faked?

Everything and Anything you can imagine can be justified by some idiot's ramblings on the intertubes :P

[Oregone]

4. Did the feds shut down 73,000 blogs?

Or did they request a single blog provider shut down, who happens to run 73,000 blogs? A provider that will probably come back online after scrubbing the illegal sites?


Just curious.... :)


I think this is written in a bit of a hyperbolic tone.

[NJmaverick]

7. Check out this article for more info

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010872-261.html

[Oregone]

17. Yeah, honestly, that makes it stranger. I don't get it

So, BurstNet isn't responsible and gets a pass, and instead Blogetery (a party it provides services to) is. But, Blogetery probably didn't directly contribute the copyrighted content anymore than BurstNet did, but instead a party it provides services to did.

So, how does the government decide who to send the letter to to initiate shut down of all services provided to other clients? Why didn't they send the letters directly to the actual blogs? Why not directly to Blogetery, to have them do what BurstNet did to them? Why not send it to the infrastructure providers BurstNet uses, and have them shut down all of BurstNet?

How does the government decide what level is the appropriate one to send a letter to, and how does it decide how many shutdowns of innocent people's services is justified by eliminating the criminal activity?

It sort of looks very arbitrary

I don't know if they contacted anyone else first too, so there is only so much info to go on.

But...isn't it uncomfortable that they can, without evidence or due process, target service providers (which is what Blogetery is) and force shut down of ALL their "clients" at once?

This is the first Ive heard of it, and really do not know enough to have any solid conclusion either way. It seems odd to target where they did.

[NJmaverick]

24. Actually this sounds like a case of investigating a serious crime and LE needed

the server to do some forensics

[Oregone]

26. Maybe

Could be the case. Could be a lot of shit that isn't being explained here really, raving nutty blog article aside

[virgogal]

5. This absolutely frightens me to death. I was unaware of DMCA. Awful !

[NJmaverick]

10. Read this

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010872-261.html

[virgogal]

20. Thanks for the link.

[Tarheel_Dem]

15. Then you're easily frightened.

:eyes:

[NJmaverick]

6. This article from Cnet tells a different story

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010872-261.html

[ProSense]

9. The OP is a post from a wingnut blogger. Why the hell is it posted in LBN?

In fact, why the hell is it posted on DU?

[Robb]

11. This ain't a copyright infringement situation, I can tell that from here.

...And it ain't about free speech, either.

[Oregone]

19. So what was it about?

Got a link?

[blogslut]

40. I think the answer might be in the comments to that article

An unscrupulous affiliate program redirection scam:

It appears on further research that the server which was shut down was not actually blogetery.com, but rather bn.affiliateplex.com, an affiliate revenue sharing site which contained a very large number of links to blogetery. (The site at www.affiliateplex.com is still up, and it sells, among other things, software for getting banned ads past Facebook's security.)

It's also perhaps technically true, but also misleading, to say that the site "hosted 73,000 blogs". From looking at the archives and caches of the site, almost all of those blogs" were nothing more than redirectors to advertising sites, not actual blogs with actual content.

[blogslut]

42. It's becoming clear

affiliateplex looks to be pulling a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zango_%28company%29#Federal_Trade_Commission_charges_and_settlement">Zango, only with WordPress plugin/scripts and free hosting. They have Facebook/cloaking script and some email marketing plugin:

http://affiliateplex.com/tools/

If I had my guess, this was a straight up DOJ anti-fraud action.

[mmonk]

52. Thanks for the information.

[Kievan Rus]

13. This seems fishy

[Yuugal]

14. It was probably easier to shut it down this way

as opposed to the original plan which was to start an Obama blog on there and wait until all of the other 70+ thousand blogs had been alerted on and deleted. :yoiks:

[Tarheel_Dem]

16. This is bullshit, which is why it was moved from LBN. (nt)

[ProSense]

18. People are buying unsubstantiated bullshit from

this guy:

Dave Nalle (b. March 19, 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon) is a political writer, game author and font designer who was active in the early history of the development of the internet. He is Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus, a group that promotes libertarianism within the Republican Party and is Senior Politics Editor at Blogcritics online magazine and is the CEO of Scriptorium Fonts.

link

Yeah, no agenda there.

[Oregone]

21. His blog post was full of hyperbole and seem to lack integrity

But the CNET post was mysterious enough in itself.

[ProSense]

27. " His blog post was full of hyperbole and seem to lack integrity"

You think?

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. What's more, from NJM's link:

"Though BurstNet never indicated Blogetery's problems were caused by copyright violations, TorrentFreak, a blog that covers Web file-sharing issues and broke the story, wrote that the U.S. government may be involved as part of stepped-up antipiracy operations. Nearly three weeks ago, a group of federal law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a unit of the Department of Homeland Security--seized assets and Web sites belonging to people authorities say operated illegal file-sharing sites. President Obama has said his administration is going to get tough on piracy and counterfeiting."

But on Sunday, a spokeswoman for ICE said "while ICE's Internet piracy enforcement efforts are still very much ongoing, we were not involved with the action."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20010872-261.html

[Subdivisions]

22. deleted. n/t

[Oregone]

25. No. Blogetery provided wordpress blog hosting

This isn't about wordpress, but this specific provider getting shutdown by BurstNet for some reason....

Who knows

[Subdivisions]

30. Yes, you're right. I read somewhere that it was wordpress.com that was

shut down and assumed this was referring to the same issue. I saw post #10 after posting and after reading the link, deleted my comment.

[Faryn Balyncd]

33. USA or China?

[valerief]

34. Soon it will be only all Pravda, only Pravda, all the time.

I mean, all Fox, only Fox, all the time.

[Hekate]

41. The source is a wingnut blogger. I think our First Amendment is relatively safe. nt

[KakistocracyHater]

35. didn't Biden have something to do with this? I'd be surprised if not

it DOES bode badly for the future. No hope here.

[SunnySong]

36. I believe this may be a miss-labeled picture of Biden in action,...

[SunnySong]

37. From the comments section of the CNet link

"It appears on further research that the server which was shut down was not actually blogetery.com, but rather bn.affiliateplex.com, an affiliate revenue sharing site which contained a very large number of links to blogetery. (The site at www.affiliateplex.com is still up, and it sells, among other things, software for getting banned ads past Facebook's security.)

It's also perhaps technically true, but also misleading, to say that the site "hosted 73,000 blogs". From looking at the archives and caches of the site, almost all of those blogs" were nothing more than redirectors to advertising sites, not actual blogs with actual content.

That's beside the point, though. Speculating about the reason for the takedown is just that--speculating. It's common for people who have some sort of axe to grind to invent stories about why it happened that justify their axe; people who don't like the government might make up stories to tell themselves that it was a completely reckless act on the part of the government, while people who hate the RIAA might tell themselves stories that it happened because the RIAA wanted to shut down file sharers.

Given the swiftness and thoroughness of the takedown, I would bet that it probably has nothing to do with the content of ANY of the blogs--nothing to do with file sharing, nothing to do with anti-government blogs, nothing to do with copyright. Given that it was running WordPress, and given some of the security problems with older WordPress versions, it's possible that someone totally commandeered the entire server and was using the server for some illegal and potentially immediately destructive purpose, which could be anything from running DDoS attacks to hosting kiddie porn to running a clearinghouse for stolen credit cards. All of those would be more likely justifications for an immediate and serverwide takedown."


This makes more sense to me...

[quiet.american]

39. Well said, SunnySong. The update at NJ's CNet link supports your take on this.

Update 3:20 p.m. PT: In an interview, a BurstNet spokesman declined to identify the law enforcement agency that ordered Blogetery shut down or provide the reason but did say that it had nothing to do with copyright violations.

[SidDithers]

38. Unrec for hyperbole and questionable sourcing...nt

Sid

[Skittles]

43. this does not sound believable

[blogslut]

44. see #42

:hi:

[Tarheel_Dem]

45. Cory, I find it interesting that you posted & ran. Your sourcing for this alarmist b.s.

is suspect at best, and outright falsehoods at worst. Do you have anything further to contribute, perhaps from another source? Or are you just wishing you hadn't posted it in the first place? :shrug:

[cory777]

47. probably wishing I didn't post it.

I do enjoy the responses, though.

[Recursion]

46. 73,000 "link affiliates"

Not 73,000 blogs.

[Xenotime]

48. I'm ok with this if it's RW racist hate blogs.

[Cary]

51. How is it we tolerate "conservative" memes here at DU?

WTF?