archGFX » the-pink-ghetto http://archgfx.net Austin web designer - Adam Freetly Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:01:04 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Freedom of Speech has a new home http://archgfx.net/blog/2008/geek/blogging/freedom-of-speech-has-a-new-home http://archgfx.net/blog/2008/geek/blogging/freedom-of-speech-has-a-new-home#comments Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:02:25 +0000 adam http://archgfx.net/?p=1309 Torrent Freak: The Pirate Bay launches an Uncensored Blogging Service. This is great news. after the many altercations whereby wordpress.com has broken and muted both the voices of those it finds distasteful, and those who disagree with their policies, it's great to see someone stepping up. Well, I'd be remiss not mention tumblr's clearly written and transparent content policy, but choice is always better. The Pirate Bay has a history of fighting hard for even the edge cases of freedom of speech, so the service will be interesting to watch. via Violet Blue.

]]> http://archgfx.net/blog/2008/geek/blogging/freedom-of-speech-has-a-new-home/feed 1 Free Speech for the dumb http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/soapboxing/free-speech-for-the-dumb http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/soapboxing/free-speech-for-the-dumb#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2007 15:52:27 +0000 adam http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/soapboxing/free-speech-for-the-dumb
There's been a lot said about Turkey's wholesale blocking of wordpress.com, because of a few possibly libelous blogs hosted there. It doesn't interest me much, because unless the state-owned ISP and firewall is dismantled, there's not going to be free speech anytime soon.  Not to mention, I can't read turkish, and thereby determine whether the blogs in question are indeed libelous1.  What does interest me, is the Section 2257 legislation that could be passed in 3 days. Since wordpress.com, and most of the rest of the sites I visit, are hosted in the US, this is far more invasive, and far more likely to genuinely impact "free speech" as it exists on the internet:

  • The regulations would require the people running a site to get and maintain personal information from every user (that means you) who posts a “sexually explicit” photo, including your photo ID (driver’s license, passport, or military ID).
  • The regulations would allow the Attorney General to conduct warrantless searches at will on the sites’ records, including your personal information.
  • There are few safeguards over what the FBI can do with the information it obtains.
  • If a site operator fails to comply with the regulations, he or she would face a prison sentence of up to 5 years.
  • For more detailed information on Sec. 2257, go to http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/misc/2257_fact_sheet.pdf.

Alberto Gonzalez may have resigned, be we are not out of the woods, by any means.  The US is picking and choosing what her citizens can and can't say.  For them, it's sexual activity; for Turkey, negative comments about Adnan Oktar.


  1. not to mention, according to matt's statements about opendomain.org, Adnan Oktar had every right to demand that all domains containing permutations of his name be ceded to him, on the basis of him owning his own name
]]> http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/soapboxing/free-speech-for-the-dumb/feed 11 This is the last time, I swear http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/geek/blogging/this-is-the-last-time-i-swear http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/geek/blogging/this-is-the-last-time-i-swear#comments Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:53:35 +0000 adam http://archgfx.net/blog/2007/geek/blogging/this-is-the-last-time-i-swear There's no reason I should still be posting about wordpress.com. I guess I'm just annoyed that I ever thought it was a good place to blog/journal/post. The exclusion of anyone who's not a child or a christian has reached a fever pitch. They've just released the following guidelines1:

  • No inappropriate titles. Do we suppose this means that if you're posting about the really hot sex you had last night, you should make sure the title is "fluffy kittens for everyone"?
  • No profanity or nudity. This means that my cuss-like-a-sailor-because-it-makes-people-respond-not-just-think-about-it tactic is definitely outlawed. I hate to think what it means for ICHC.
  • No extraneous categories. I'm sure my 2.0 category was causing serious consternation. let alone "cult-of-matt". In fact, only the officially sanctioned categories are allowed. Anything else and you'll be relegated to the dustbin, because then you won't drive traffic to our ad-laden tag pages.
  • And really, you should only post to one category at a time. nevermind that wordpress.com categories can't be used as categories, since the links lead out of your blog2. if you use categories as tags (meta information), you're definately going to be banned

Basically, if you're not an aspiring member of the web 2.0 a-list-aspiring echo chamber, you're not welcome on wordpress.com. fantastic. glad i left. now I'm off to find the 11 most relevant tags for this post.


  1. taken to their logical extreme, with commentary
  2. do I really need to explain what a horrific user experience it is to click on someone's category in post meta and find no posts at all?
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