<nettime> Demon UK forced to censor usenet feed (wouters, NTKnow)

["nettime's_indigestive_system" <nettime@Desk.nl>]

     Paul Wouters <paul@xtdnet.nl> (courtesy of patrice riemens)
          Demon UK (had to) censor
     NTKnow
          excerpt from 4 june issue (courtesy of t byfield)

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From: Paul Wouters <paul@xtdnet.nl>
To: discussion@hippiesfromhell.org
Subject: Demon UK (had to) censor

It was to be expected,

Demon UK was found responsible for the content of an article on their 
newsserver made by a US citizen on a US news server that propagated to
them through the Usenet a while ago (And Scientology hasn't even found out
about this and used it as an argument in their favour :)

As such, they are now more or less forced to censor articles on their
news server, and are blocking a few people that posted references to the
articles. Apparently even quoting a newsarticle that mentions the URL is
something they can be hold liable for (and as such they now have to forbid).

I guess this could also mean that the entire alt.binaries.*.erotica.* is 
illegal in the UK as soon as someone blames the indecency on the ISP. In fact,
go sell your Demon UK shares, they won't have any money left after a zillion
people worldwide will sue them for every penny they have left for contributing
to slander by means of Usenet.

*sigh* It's going quite well with the Internet lately. I think I'll start 
breeding some pigeons now.....

References (through slashdot):

http://x32.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=484559175
http://www.dispatches.demon.net/pr/1999/pr1999-03-26a.html

Paul

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     <...>

         Boo, Demon, boo! Boo for denying USENET access to anyone
         posting links to the infamous LAURENCE GODFREY fake postings
         [NTK 1999-03-12] - archived by, ahem, "a popular discussion
         group search engine". Of course, we'd feel a lot happier
         laying into this craven spinelessness if we hadn't done
         more or less the same thing, and heeded Laurence's sensible
         encouragement to remove all our links to defamatory
         postings about him three months ago. Our sympathies, then,
         lie with Demon. Unless it really is impossible for them to
         keep these links off the newsfeed: if indeed, attempting
         to cancel these messages just makes them spread further...
         http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey3.htm
                             - hmm. well, *maybe* we can link to this
         http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=a99/now0312.txt&l=46#l
                                              - anyone for a Webring?

     <...>

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