Boston Bans Boing Boing From City Wi-Fi 215
DrFlounder writes "The city of Boston has apparently blocked access to Boing Boing on the municipal Wi-Fi. This is possibly due to the popular blog's known Mooninite sympathies." Update: 4/22 13:11 GMT by KD : Seth Finkelstein did some research and posted an explanation of the blockage to his blog. "'Arbitrary and capricious' seems the relevant characterization."
The ISPs were right all along (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Funny)
Do not question the mayor. LED cartoons are terrorist threats and non-sycophantic websites are subversion.
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case, it is a government controlled service, and thus clearly falls under free speech rights. Someone needs to bring the constitutionality of this under question in court.
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:4, Interesting)
And what if the majority of the citizens of Boston really do hate the blocked site(s)? Then those, who want to access it, are screwed by the same flaw of Democracy, that killed Socrates... And even if citizens of Boston do wise up and force the block to be removed, tell me, what's easier — organize the citizens to protest and petition the government, or switch to a competing service provider?
Municipal WiFi was and remains a profoundly stupid idea, because it effectively blocks the competition through government subsidy. At least, with roads and other infrastructure it could be argued, that we can't have competing ones simply due to the lack of space (although Tokyo manages to have competing subway lines, somehow). But WiFi networks? Please — can put 10 different access point on the same pole...
The illiberal Socialist Boston is showing us all the worst of it. The supposed market failure [wikipedia.org] was used to justify government's encroaching into an area, where it should not be allowed. You — the fans of "Municipal WiFi" — have made this bed. Now sleep in it.
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:4, Insightful)
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BS. Developing standards (TCP/IP, 110V) is completely different from providing services. And you know it.
"Insightful" my behind — find a better example, or admit, there aren't any.
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Because of this, the citizens of boston cannot vote to ban content due to the first amendment. The constitution protects t
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Agreed, with one caveat, they should lose their 'common carrier' protection and be responsible for all content which flows through their network.
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Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
What if those decisions are done by automated systems rather than humans - would you feel better because you knew that no actual person was reading your mail and listening to your phone calls?
You might still say "they're free to do it, and I'm free to take my business elsewhere", but what if everyone does it, and if you had no other choice but to agree to it if you want to be able to send letters or call people on the phone? You might say "I'm gonna encrypt my letters and scramble my phone calls", but what if your postal services company and telco decided that that was against their ToS? Would you still say "I'll just take my business elsewhere"? And again, what if everyone did it and you COULDN'T take your business elsewhere?
Your rights are only worth anything as long as they are actually protected, and that includes protection against non-government entities as well. And while you may argue that forbidding these kinds of things would impinge on the companies' freedom to conduct their business the way they want to, also do keep in mind that non-interference is an essential counterpart to freedom - your right to swing your fist ends where my face starts, and arguably, the same thing applies here.
As long as you just stand somewhere swinging your fist, it may make some sense to say that I simply shouldn't go near you in order to avoid being hit, but if you deduce from that that you're always free to swing your fist, then do consider a situation where I'm in a group of people who're all swinging their fists, with nowhere left to go. Is it my fault then that I get beaten up?
So, yeah, I agree that it does fall under free speech rights, but I also think that saying "if it were a private company, nothing would be wrong with it" is fallacious.
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Yeah. (Score:2)
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But the difference .... (Score:2)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election. If you're encountering censorship by a cable company given a legal monopoly to "serve" a certain region, you have virtually no recourse unless such a thing was specifically planned for and written into the contract. I know that my city has no control over my cable provider's rates, allowing them to jack prices through the roof [timoregan.com]. I don't know if there is similar deregulation in the case of censorship, but I wouldn't be surprised.
In the end it's best to have as many choices as possible. So far as I know, having municipal wireless does not preclude the existance of DSL and cable providers.
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about boing-boing, it's about filtering on a public network. If the government is providing a public network, it must be open and unfiltered - because the existence of a free public network drives away alternative commercial providers - it may become the only network, or it may be the only network available to some users.
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Menino has been in office roughly forever, in large part because nobody else really wants the job. That is, nobody who's not far more inflammatory to some major part of the populace. "Mumbles" Menino is everyman's mayor, the none-too-bright neighbor who you know means well, and won't do anything really outrageous, while things basically take care of themselves.
The muni wi-fi network probably has very few users anyway. It's rather new and I don't think it covers the whole
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Bullshit. Free or not has nothing to do with it. If the government is providing some service, that service should contribute to the public good. Censorship is absolutely not a public good.
Same Bums Give You Both. (Score:2)
At least the people of Boston have a chance to throw the bums out in the next election. If you're encountering censorship by a cable company given a legal monopoly to "serve" a certain region, you have virtually no recourse
It's funny how cable companies originally got their monopolies from local public service commissions and municipalities. By now the locals no longer matter, but monopoly service and bad government go hand in hand.
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Here's all I have to say on the subject:
Let's watch the monkey dance.
...Anti-intellectualism.
...Anti-intellectualism.
Make fun of the South of France.
And that's why Boston will not be throwing anyone out.
(Thanks, Ze [zefrank.com], for the words)
--Rob
Re:The ISPs were right all along (Score:5, Informative)
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People like Hatch, Kennedy, Stevens, Pilosi, and all those other idiots *should* be voted out. It's in the best interest of the other 49 states to get rid of these asshol
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Interesting point.
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What you're missing is the fact that many people care more about a politician's effectiveness in advancing the positions that they advocate than they do about his personal habits and morality. Senator Kennedy may be an alcoholic, but he's a highly functional alcoholic. He remains in office because, on the one hand, Massachusetts voters like his positions and find him effective, and on the other hand, they don't care very much about his alcoholism. There's no reason to think that it is particularly difficul
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Oh please, as if any of the big companies were going to do it.
Besides, an uncensored internet connection isn't "only a bit better" for a lot of people, so there will still be plenty of grounds for other companies to compete, of course, that would require them to offer full wireless internet access too, none of this "well, you can use the web a little bit, and our email, but if you do anything else, we drop you" bul
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Government taking over services private industry could do is always bad and always has been. Free choices should decide when and if a service is provided or blocked, but governments choose based on politics and force.
Query (Score:3, Funny)
Yes (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Query (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Query (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. In some places the government is terrifiying and immoral. Now if the guy goes to prison, particluarly a max security prison(bomb making terrorist), then our government will have taken another step in the direction of terrifying. Getting beated and shanked because you designed an advertisement for a cartoon isn't hilarious, it's awful.
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Re:Query (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm no fan of guerilla marketing, and would've been happy to see them charged with, say, littering. But no; it was treated as a bomb threat. That's just stupid.
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This is what they did (Score:2)
Pretty hard to defend against this. Assuming you should have to!
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http://zebbler.com/friends/ATHF/Ignignokt_and_Err
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Meh.. (Score:5, Funny)
"Boston Bans Boing Boing Because of a Blog"
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All over again... (Score:5, Funny)
I say we commence remoonification.
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Never Dumb Enough (Score:3, Insightful)
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Typical behavior for (Score:2, Interesting)
How's that dig thing coming along mayor? Oh, let me guess, straight info on the dig will be blocked next for policy violation?
censorship (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that the government is censoring adults is offensive. But then again, Boston has had a reputation [wikipedia.org] of puritanism.
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Even with regard to sex, the Puritans incorporated premarital sex into courtship into a specific bedroom ritual between prospective mates. What's happened is that people have confused Victorian attitudes toward sex with the Puritans' rigid restrictions on many forms of recreation. And reports of Victorian negativity toward sex are probably overblown, even at that.
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Here we go again.... (Score:2)
I think I'll include a special section for 9/11 inspired idiocy.
Before long, the only place to get uncensored wireless access will be from some 'terrorists' open AP..... sigh
political speech is our most protected speech (Score:4, Insightful)
If the project is funded with public monies, this will be an excellent case to push hard and loudly in court.
Re:political speech is our most protected speech (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm, I think the "Boston is banning Boing Boing because of the Mooninites" meme is just a joke (or at least I hope it is).
The more logical explanation is that the ISP who runs Boston free wi-fi is using on of the many filtering services known to block Boing Boing. [boingboing.net]
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I don't think that Freedom of Speech in the US was supposed to be interpreted as "The government is obliged to use taxpayer's money to carry your speech and bring it out to the people". It basically means that you cannot be arrested for having and expressing an opinion. How you reach the people isn't the government's problem.
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I agree that the government doesn't have to facilitate political speech, but if they go out of their way to block some, they'd better have a very evenhanded approach, spreading the love to oppos
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No, the government is not required to set up wi-fi, or have libraries with free public internet access. But if the government DOES do those things, they cannot discriminate against people based on their beliefs or associations, nor restrict access to (legal) material based on the content of the material.
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Why we don't need terms of use. (Score:3, Insightful)
- Saying that you can't do something legal is wrong, because it is legal.
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speculation? (Score:5, Insightful)
But really, what are the censoring for? I'm more worried about actual censorship than I am about a bunch of Adult Swim fans not being able to mutually mastubate over their pictures of Mumbles Menino.
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070223/071109. s html [techdirt.com]
"banned combination phrase found" (Score:5, Insightful)
What was the phrase? Don't know.
Why was it blocked? Don't know.
Was the Mayor of Boston involved. Highly unlikely.
Was any authority or elected official involved? Highly unlikely.
Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some filter somewhere blocked one page on Boingboing's website.
Hardly the First Amendment case that's being suggested and debated.
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Two points:
1. There shouldn't be any filtering software. If you have children you wish to protect by keeping them ignorant, go to the store and buy some filtering software. Don't censor everyone's connection.
2. The "one" page that was blocked was boing boing's home page (check that graphic again). It's fair to assume subsequent pages were also blocked.
Re:"banned combination phrase found" (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, it's good to make a ruckus until the problem is fixed, and if by some meteor strike it was intentional, I'll line up with the rest. But we have no indication this is any such incident - it will in all probability be fixed.
It must be a stressful job to write such filter code - make a mistake in one direction and you are exposing wee ones to pornography, make a mistake in the other direction and you've got blogs full of sheep on sites like slashdot complaining that you are "censoring" them.
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Inadvertent censorship needs to be treated the same as intentional censorship - there's no way to differentiate the two, and trying to just allows the former to be used as an excuse to defend the latter.
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No, there is absolutely NO DOUBT here. The network is explicitly intercepting and blocking the webpage, and it is explicitly substituting a custom blocking page with the Mayor's name and government seal, and directly stating the fact that the page is being banned.
It must be a stressful job to write such filter code - make a mistake in one direction and you are exposing wee ones to pornography, make a mistak
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"Oh n0es, UK thought police are censoring Slashdot!"
Some people round here need to get a grip, definitely.
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People that read BoingBoing frequently can't tell the difference. As everything posted there is either humorous or a call to arms, it's easy to confuse the two.
(Score: -1, Flamebait)
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That is untrue: the whole site is blocked. Note what the blocked URL is.
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Highly likely. The decision to block inappropriate sites on the municipal wifi was almost certainly made by such an official. Did that official decide to block boing-boing? Probably not, but it is a consequence of that person's decision that this government sanctioned censorship (for whatever reasons the site is being censored, as you point out we don't know) is happening.
Really folks, there is utterly no information here except that some fi
Simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Domain name change (Score:4, Funny)
Land of the free? (Score:2)
And I thought that China was the only country that censors websites.
bigger problem (Score:2, Insightful)
if the taxpayers are paying for the bandwidth, they have a reasonable
expectation to control what goes over the wire(less) *they* own. Maybe the
Boston case is just a mistake, or a quirk of the local political machine, but
in many less tolerant places, the voting public themselves will choose to
censor the network. If free muni wifi really works, alternatives will be
driven out (no economies of scale), and residents will have no choice
to
No municipal Wi-Fi, no corporate business Wi-Fi (Score:5, Interesting)
Wireless internet should be provided by mesh networks, with perhaps non-profit associations renting or buying fat pipe for backbone. Do it the bad way, and the gubmint or Rupert Murdock or Clear Channel start telling us who's not to have access this week.
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How many more things like this will have to happen before you are convinced that you DON'T want your neighbors (or worse, some unaccountable entity with no marketplace competitors, with no incentive to provide a valuable service) getting to decide on what you can get internet access to (and wether or not you can opt-out of paying for access that doesn't suit your needs?)
Big Brother Back In Action..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should we be letting some bureaucrat telling us that our tax dollars are going to be spent giving the community free WiFi, and then telling us that our tax dollars are going to be spent restricting us from content accessible through a network that our tax dollars paid for in the first place?
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Boston T1 Party (Score:5, Funny)
Three Cheers! (Score:2)
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With enough money and proper coordination, a lawsuit might be the right idea. A sufficiently large legal LART could prevent municipal ISPs from implementing global filtering at all. In this case though, I doubt anyone's in the position to do that correctly.
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Net Jargon 101 (Score:2)
Start with Smartfilter! (Score:5, Informative)
If they're going to sue, they need to start with those jokers at Smartfilter.
They use it at my workplace, and it blocks things completely at random. BoingBoing posted some critical articals on Smartfilter [google.com] and instantly got on their shit list -- Boing Boing is now permanently blocked as "nudity", a blatantly false category designed to get people in trouble for even trying to view it.
If you report the inaccuracy [securecomputing.com], they claim to fix it, only to ignore it and keep them blocked.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if Boston was just using Smartfilter and this is just a symptom of a much larger problem. Smartfilter is, IIRC, the official filter of choice for the US and Iranian governments for blocking naughty content from their masses -- ever since the Republicans managed to con their way into forcing all library machines into being filtered ("Think of the Children" covering the fact that Libraries are poor people's only way to get on the net) Smartfilter has been a bit of a fun toy to play with.
In the middle of the 2006 elections, for example, out of the blue Liberal blogs and Political Canidate websites in Swing States [dailykos.com] suddenly found themselves blocked as being "curse words" or "mature" or "forums" or other similarly flimsy excuses. Pretty sneaky -- get a censorship filter installed where poor people (who typically vote Democratic) are going to be forced to go through it, then just start randomly blocking political "dissidents" that you don't like. And since Smartfilter has a very, very strict policy (now, anyway) about not REMOVING, only RECATEGORIZING websites... well, yeah.
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In fact, the most informative, honest and relevant news in the US was when the government(ewww booogymaaan) paid the broadcaster to carry the news.
Only when that stopped did the news becomes slanted in favor of ratings and to support the owners views.
Most government wi-fis are wide open.
This is probably the result of one person, who happens to be in the govrenment, being an ass. Which they will get slapped down for.
The government functions do to the hard working Americans who want the same b