Spoof sites banned in Oz
p2p news / p2pnet: Spoof web pages have been banned in Australia.
One has, anyway. And it was on PMO orders.
John Howard is the country’s prime minister and a site featuring a, “soul searching ‘apology’ speech for the Iraq war has been shut down under orders from the Australian Government,” says the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Richard Neville, an Australian futurist and social commentator was ‘mystified’ to discover his satirical website johnhowardpm.org had been blocked on Tuesday with no explanation from either his web hosting company, Yahoo or the domain name registrar, Melbourne IT.
“He said that after two days of silence, a customer service representative from Melbourne IT today informed him by telephone that the site had ‘been closed on the advice from the Australian Government’.”
Neville’s spoof site resembled Howard’s and Melbourne IT spokesman Bruce Tonkin said it was shut down in response to a request from the prime minister’s office because it, “looked too similar to its own site“.
Also See:
Sydney Morning Herald – Government orders spoof site shut, March 17, 2006
March 17th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
‘…it was shut down in response to a request from the prime minister’s office because it, “looked too similar to its own site”.’
Looked too similar my arse. Censorship.
March 17th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
This is unbelieveable – seriously – for a moment there I thought this country was a democracy – turns out all along it was a dictatorship – this is truley outrageous – shame ARIA didnt think of that when they went after Kazaa –ah, your honour, the Kazaa site has mp3s on there – thats a bit too similiar to our site….
and whats worse is that his host agreed without even consulting him or giving him a chance to respond.
unlike the USA and other countries we do not have a constitutional right to free speech – what we have is a very narrow IMPLIED right to POLITICAL speech – even our BS law would consider this wrong
SUE!!! SUE!!! SUE!!!!
March 17th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Yay for Australian fascism!
March 18th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
“unlike the USA”
You believe the myth.
There is no real free speech in the USA.
There is free speech if you do not stray off the official line.
Speak about religion and see what will happen at school to your kid or to you at work, if you work for a Republican government.
And dont think the USA president believes in free speech himself. His best friend/ally is the Saudi king. The king will have you hanged if you speak againt the monarchy system of government.
March 20th, 2006 at 6:13 am
I checked – http://www.bonsai.com.au – is available, he should try that url
(John Howard is sometimes referred to as “little Bush” )