Easyeverything cafe - ban che-lives

[peaccenicked]

This has limited my access very much.
I wonder if any others have bother here. I know we have had trouble before with them.
Easywhat.......

[BOZG]

They seem to ban a lot of left-wing sites in Internet Cafe's. I remember people complaining about it on the Artist Direct RATM board that people couldn't access the site so some people were trying to boycott them.

[Reuben]

yeah I started a topic about them in the past after I couldnt get to che-lives. I checked oiut yesterday and you still cant. maybe we should write to them

[El Che]

I definatly think we should try and do something. How dare they decide what you can and can not read?

[Valkyrie]

What are they and how do they restrict access to this site?

[peaccenicked]

From 5th july 2001
"LONDON -- Gay and lesbian groups Wednesday called for a boycott of the internet cafe chain owned by the billionaire Stelios Haji-Ioannou after the company blocked on-line access to some gay Web sites.

Managers of Gaydar.co.uk, which runs classified ads and a dating service, said customers at easyEverything's eight stores in Britain were being barred from access despite an absence of "hard-core" material.

The site is one of several -- including pages aimed at black lesbians and a gay cruising site -- that critics claim are being censored while other gay and non-gay sex sites remain available.

EasyGroup, the parent company for the Internet chain, confirmed that a filtering service provided by a subcontractor to eliminate "illegal, obscene or hate" material barred access to some of the gay sites.

But James Rothnie, a spokesman for easyEverything, denied that the filtering system was discriminatory, saying that it barred hardcore pornography, regardless of gender. He admitted that the system may be subject to "anomalies".

Gaydar, which was Wednesday given support by Rainbow Network, a gay internet news service that is not barred, called for a boycott of easyEverything's 21 worldwide stores, used by 2.2m people a month.

The Web site also accused the Internet chain of being inconsistent in its policy towards them. A spokesman said, "We have a lot of members, and we will ask them not to use easyEverything.

"They have blocked us before, then the ban was lifted and now it's in place again."

"When we have a situation where some gay Web sites are barred and others of similar content but heterosexual are allowed, it looks like discrimination," a Rainbow Network spokesman added.

EasyEverything, whose flamboyant founder last month entered the list of Britain's billionaires with a fortune of pounds 1.1bn, uses a filtering service provided by the American company, Websense.

Customers seeking to access a site at one of the internet cafes are passed through the Websense computers to ensure that they do not contain banned material, including hard-core pornography.

Those trying to access a barred Web site are returned to easyEverything home page on their machine.

Rothnie said the system could sometimes exclude sites that would not be classified as obscene, and users could register a complaint with Websense to have the blocking mechanism removed.

However, he added that some of the barred sites did contain hard-core pornography, and that easyEverything had a duty to prevent customers having access to sites that were likely to be illegal or offensive.

"We have no desire to act as censors, but we are obliged to stop sites that offer hard-core material, promote hatred or are illegal," he said.

"When that it is applied to sex sites we do so regardless of gender. There may be anomalies concerning some Web sites, but it is completely wrong to suggest that there is any discrimination. "
Maybe we should write to them

[El Che]

I think we should resister a formal complaint with "websense", and if that doesn`t work we should study other options. I certaintly dont think we should accept this, especialy since internet cafes could be the only way that those who cant aford a computer have to come in contact with us and our ideas. This site is not "obscene" or any other such non-sense, but yea I can understand why a billionare wouldn`t want people to visit us.

[Lefty]

has anyone sent a letter to "Websense"? I remember people talking about it, but i dont believe anything ever came of it. Oh well, it doesnt sound like they are suppressing it on purpose, and no one is really being hurt, so it doesnt really have highest priority.

[Unknown]

Im not sure if this would work but if you register the site in a different country they couldent do anything

you now the .com if that was something like .el it would be spanish, so on and so forth if the maker of this page could change its location then were fine or keep make these sites repatedly

as for the cyper cafes what we should do is
the richer of us buy extra computers and every one donate then setup a left wing company with thousands of computers and places for tramps to sleep then they couldent boss us around>>>>>>>>>>>>

[bleed3r]

That would require changing the host, changing the URL won't do it. If this were the case, the filters could be deterred by a simple redirect script. Any half-solid filtering method blocks access to the server by IP and DNS, some even use MD5's.

As far as legal censorship, we all know the upper class's views on communism. I don't know much about EasyEverything (we don't have it here), so I can't consult the local law... But I would definitely suggest filing a complaint and seeing if it goes through. Worth a shot

[bleed3r]

I'm at school right now and the banning policy here is quite odd. This forum is all fine, but if you try to access a page translator, like the ones at dictionary.com or altavista.com, you get "Organizational policies prohibit access to this page"

(Edited by bleed3r at 4:34 pm on May 22, 2002)

[Edelweiss]

I have several IPs available, I'll soon set up an new domain with a new IP, this should solve the problem at least temporary.

[maxfish17]

Bleed3, I think your school probably bans those page translators because they think kids (in a foreign language class) will take english pages and use the online translators so they can do projects in French, Spanish etc. without any effort.