- Web Hosts Silence the Voices of Dissent
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- (AlternateNews.Com) -- It appears that YellowTimes.Org
has once again been shut down for voicing their unpopular opinions. Once
again the voice of dissidents who raise questions regarding the justification
of the current conflict in the middle-east has been stifled.
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- The alternative news website YellowTimes.Org, experienced
a short, two hour outage yesterday when their hosting company apparently
pulled the plug due to their displeasure with the posting of images of
Iraqi civilian casualties and American POWs. The website was reinstated
for a brief time when the operators of YellowTimes.Org decided to comply
with their hosting provider's request to remove such images. However, service
was once again removed shortly thereafter. At the time of this writing,
YellowTimes.Org has been off-line now for close to 24 hours.
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- This is not the first time YellowTimes.Org has lost its
service due to the airing of its unpopular views. The news service was
shut down briefly last February after it ran a story featuring a former
Iraqi scientist who refuted the likelihood of a viable, on-going nuclear
weapons program in Iraq. YellowTimes.Org has also had to deal with a barrage
of hacker attacks apparently designed to undermine their ability to distribute
information which questions and, at times, criticizes US middle-eastern
foreign policy.
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- After YellowTimes.Org's hosting provider pulled the plug
on their internet news service in February, the operators of YellowTimes
found a new web hosting provider in: 'CTYME Hosting' (http://www.ctyme.com/hosting/),
a host which publicly proclaims on their website to be free speech friendly.
A quote from their website states:
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- "We are very strong supporters of free speech and
free expression and resist any attempts of governments to impose limits
on what can be said on the web."
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- Perhaps YellowTimes should have done some deeper research
when choosing their new host! As it turns out - CTYME is apparently merely
reselling the hosting services of a larger hosting company by the name
of Vortech Inc.,(http://vortechhosting.com). Vortech Inc., an Orlando,
FL based company, is a company with a history of silencing the voice of
dissent.
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- In January of this year Vortech Inc., shut down another
of their client's websites when they received complaints that the public
was using the website to send e-mails of protest to the California State
Legislature.
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- ( See: Democrats Kill Freedom Of Speech: http://savecalifornia.com/press/newsreleases/release.cfm?nrid=PR030117A
)
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- Vortech Inc., at the time, claimed that their decision
to remove access to this particular website was due to the fact that the
website in question was engaged in "spamming" because the California
State Legislature didn't ask to receive these e-mails of protest. I, for
one, can not recall the last time a government body 'asked' to receive
letters of protest. This justification is especially confusing when it
comes from a hosting company which has, in the past, come under heavy fire
as being a "Spam-Friendly" host. (a quick search of: [Vortech
"Spam friendly"] at: http://groups.google.com will verify this..
the many URLs which show up in such a search are too lengthy to include
in this article.)
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- It seems as though this current conflict may once again
be attempting to raise the spectre of the silencing of the voices of dissent
as one of the most potent players in the coalition of the willing.
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credit is attached.
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