Prof. Volokh approves of arbitrary censorship of blog comments

Prof. Volokh is the founder of a very popular multiblogger law blog, the Volokh Conspiracy. The Volokh Conspiracy has been cited by law journal articles at least 62 times, more times than any other law blog except one.

Volokh has argued in favor of arbitrary blog censorship by wrongly claiming that the "fairness doctrine," which the Supreme Court ruled in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v FCC is constitutional when applied to broadcasters, cannot constitutionally be applied to blogs. The "fairness doctrine" was an FCC requirement that broadcasters present a balance of viewpoints on controversial issues. Some background about the "fairness doctrine" is given here and here. In a very old (1996?) article that he still stands by, "Freedom of Speech in Cyberspace from the Listener's Perspective: Private Speech Restrictions, Libel, State Action, Harassment, and Sex," Volokh wrote in Section I-B-1, "The Right to Exclude Content,"
.

Broadcasting: The Court has tolerated "more intrusive regulation of broadcast speakers than of speakers in other media"; in particular, Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v FCC upheld a rule requiring broadcasters to give time to opposing views. But the Court has refused to extend its relatively deferential scrutiny of broadcasting controls to other media, such as newspapers or cable TV. Red Lion has been read as turning entirely on "the unique physical limitations of the broadcast medium"--the physical scarcity of available broadcast channels. No such limitations exist for electronic conferences; there are thousands of conferences available to everyone who has Internet access (which includes users of Prodigy, CompuServe, America Online, and similar services). Even if one counts only the three big services, three is still more than the number of cable operators or large local newspapers that serve the typical city. Given that the Court has refused to apply Red Lion to cable and newspapers, I don't see how it could justify applying Red Lion to electronic conferences.(emphasis added)

When this article was written, probably around 1996, blogs were almost unknown, but today the term "electronic conferences" would include blogs.

Volokh thinks that there is just one space-limitation issue here, the issue of a limitation on the number of sites (e.g., numbers of broadcast channels, newspapers, and blogs), but there is also another space-limitation issue, the issue of a limitation on comment space per site. Court decisions should take both kinds of limitations into account.

(1) Limitation on the number of sites --
This limitation acts most strongly on broadcast media, as evidenced by the above statement, "Red Lion has been read as turning entirely on 'the unique physical limitations of the broadcast medium'-- the physical scarcity of available broadcast channels." There is no "physical limitation" on the number of newspapers, but there is a de facto limitation on the number of newspapers because of the great expense of establishing a major newspaper. There is no limit on the number of blogs, but blogs that get heavy traffic are more equal than blogs that get light traffic. The more popular blogs are de facto major public forums, and for that reason arbitrary censorship of comments on such blogs is of particular concern.

(2) Limitation on comment space per site --
Again, the broadcast media of radio and television are impacted most strongly -- there is no way to expand the air time in a 24-hour day. This time limitation's impact on broadcast media is actually an argument against the Red Lion decision -- there is no way that a broadcaster could possibly present all viewpoints. The impact of space limitation is smaller on newspapers -- newspapers can be expanded in order to present more viewpoints. However, as a practical matter, some major newspapers receive hundreds or thousands of letters per day and couldn't possibly print all of them. However, in the case of blogs, comment space is virtually unlimited and free of charge to bloggers and IMO this is the strongest argument against arbitrary censorship or any other form of arbitrary selection of comments that are submitted to blogs.

Also, as I said, the argument against arbitrary censorship of visitors' comments is especially strong in the case of blogs that are authoritatively cited by court opinions, scholarly journal articles, and other authorities. Many of these authorities are parts of the government or are private entities that are supported directly or indirectly by tax dollars.

Also, as I said, this arbitrary censorship is not just a legal issue but is also an ethical and moral issue.

Of course, as a big shot blogger on a very popular blog, Volokh doesn't need to be concerned about arbitrary censorship of his own comments.

I challenged Volokh to post this fairness-doctrine issue on his law blog but he weaseled out.

READ MORE

Courts and law reviews are now citing Wikipedia!

Court opinions and law review articles are now not only citing blogs, but they are also citing Wikipedia! A January 29 New York Times article reports,

More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)

Also, the "Law Blog Metrics" blog has several articles concerning citation of Wikipedia by both the courts and law review articles. It seems that the issue of citation of blogs and Wikipedia by the courts and law reviews should be a pretty hot topic right now but in the past two months the Law Blog Metrics blog has received only one significant comment -- from me (shown at the bottom of this post -- there are two other comments on the blog but they are just well-wishing comments). I think a lot of people are burying their heads in the sand in regard to this issue.

A previous post on this blog shows that Wikipedia has serious reliability and fairness problems because of bias, censorship, and the ignorance of editors. Also, Wikipedia articles are even more unstable than blogs because Wikipedia articles are subject to editing by outsiders. IMO Wikipedia articles cited by courts and law reviews should be archived by major law publishers (e.g., Westlaw and LexisNexis) in the exact forms in which the articles were cited. It may be a good idea to also archive external websites linked to by the cited Wikipedia article. Wikipedia does save all previous editions of articles but it would be hard for people to locate these previous editions. IMO blog articles cited by courts and law reviews, along with the blog articles' comment threads and maybe also associated URL links, should be similarly archived for future reference. Actually, I am tempted to archive some of the news articles that I link to on this blog but I am afraid that such archiving might be a copyright violation.

IMO the way to resolve many of the disputes over Wikipedia entries is simply to post the entries along with (1) notes that the entries are disputed and (2) links to external websites where the disputes are discussed or debated. The mere existence of these discussions and debates on external websites is sufficient to show that the entry is in fact disputed. I proposed this compromise in the case of the dispute over whether the book "Of Pandas and People" should be listed in the Wikipedia list of banned books, but predictably this sensible proposal was turned down by the insiders who tyrannize Wikipedia.

A big problem I have in fighting arbitrary Internet censorship is that many of the bloggers who would normally be on my side practice arbitrary censorship themselves (but at least their blogs are not likely to be quoted, cited, or listed in court opinions, law review articles, scholarly databases, etc.). So for the time being, I must be content to be just a voice in the wilderness (the real voice in the wilderness, not the fake voice in the wilderness who often posts his garbage here).
.

READ MORE

Harvard article about Dover decision

No, this article is not in the vaunted Harvard Law Review, but it is in a Harvard law review -- the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. This article, which supports the notion that intelligent design is just repackaged or disguised creationism, is full of factual errors.

The article says (pages 4-5 of the pdf file, pages 584-585 of the law journal),

Although the opinion was excellently written and reasoned, its broad conclusions will not have a great impact on the public debate about teaching evolution and thus will fail to fulfill its hope of preventing judicial waste. Given the vast divide in American society over the role of religion in public life, the influence of high profile individuals who favor creationist teaching, and the limited precedential value of a district court's opinion, lawsuits will continue to serve as the primary check on new and improved methods of including creationism in the classroom. ID is representative of a huge cultural divide in America that a court, despite ambitious goals, cannot mend prophylactically. In fact, the opinion's decisiveness in finding that ID was not science, based on the overwhelming evidence of the Board's religious motivations, may encourage critics of evolution to repackage their next attack to avoid any mention of religion and thereby escape negative Establishment Clause analysis.

Well, there are some words of wisdom here, e.g., the Dover opinion "will not have a great impact on the public debate about teaching evolution and thus will fail to fulfill its hope of preventing judicial waste." However, unlike many other law journal articles about the Dover decision (other law journal articles about the Dover decision are discussed in the posts in this list), this article stopped short of saying that Judge Jones should not have ruled on the scientific merits of ID. In fact, the article says the opposite: "Finding that ID is theological rather than scientific in nature was necessary to the overall holding that the Board's policy violated the Establishment Clause." (page 4 of pdf file). The defendants' religious motivations were alone sufficient grounds for ruling against them under the Lemon test which Judge Jones used.

I of course disagree with the statement that "the opinion was excellently written and reasoned." And to the extent that the opinion's ID-as-science section was "excellently written and reasoned," the true authors of that section, the plaintiffs' attorneys, deserve whatever credit is due (not much) for that. Also, I disagree with the statement that the finding that ID was not science was "based on the overwhelming evidence of the Board's religious motivations" -- that finding was based on the testimony of expert scientific witnesses. As for encouraging "critics of evolution to repackage their next attack to avoid any mention of religion and thereby escape negative Establishment Clause analysis," I think that the only thing that is openly religious about ID is the name, which suggests the existence of a supernatural designer.

The article has several statements elsewhere that I disagree with, including statements that I think are factually inaccurate -- e.g.,

The Board members who voted for the ID statement and the defense expert witnesses were without exception religiously motivated.(page 6 of pdf file)

IMO defense scientific expert witness Michael Behe was not religiously motivated. And the article fails to mention that the plaintiffs' lead scientific expert witness, theistic evolutionist Kenneth Miller, was religiously motivated.

The article also said,

The Thomas More Law Center, which provided legal counsel for the defendants in Kitzmiller, framed the case as part of a culture war, in which it is necessary to defend the religious freedom of Christians.(page 6)

I disagree that the TMLC was trying to "defend the religious freedom of Christians" -- I think that the TMLC tried to present ID as a secular scientific concept.

Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor Pope John Paul II, and the Dalai Lama find "offensive" what is termed "neo-Darwinism," the belief that the "engine of evolution is random mutation."(page 7)

The belief that the "engine of evolution is random mutation" is part of classical Darwinism as well as neo-Darwinism (neo-Darwinism has added other means of natural genetic variation: genetic drift and gene flow). And natural selection is also of course a basic part of both neo- and classical Darwinism.

The Vatican, however, has indicated that ID is unscientific and should not be taught as an alternative to evolution (pages 7-8)

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who is close to Pope Benedict XVI , recently said that he wants to correct what he calls a widespread misconception that the Catholic Church has given a blanket endorsement to Darwin's theories.

The harsh reaction to Judge Jones is noteworthy because he is a lifelong Republican who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2002, having garnered support from both Pennsylvania senators.(page 9)

There we go again with that shopworn argument that the Dover decision should not be criticized because Judge Jones is a "lifelong Republican," a "conservative," a "churchgoer," etc..

The Discovery Institute has circulated an anti-evolution petition since 2001; despite its claim that the signatures of scientists and engineers are proof that doubt about evolution exists within the scientific community, most signers are evangelical Christians motivated by religious beliefs. Kenneth Chang, "Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition," N.Y. TIMES, Feb. 21, 2006, at F2. (Footnote 53, page 7)

This footnote's misinterpretation of Chang's N.Y. Times article is evident just from the title of the article; the title only says that "many" evangelicals signed the petition -- the title does not say that "most signers are evangelical Christians motivated by religious beliefs." Also, Chang's conclusions are subject to the following sources of error: (1) the small sample size of his interviews and (2) the subjectivity of his interpretations of the responses to his interview questions. Chang's article is attacked here, here, and here, and is defended hereand here.

This is a fairly old law journal article that escaped my notice. After discovering data showing the huge numbers of citations of law journal articles in court opinions, I decided to do a diligent search for law journal articles about the Dover decision -- before now I only found them accidentally while surfing the Internet.

This list has thirteen different Harvard law journals, including the one and only Harvard Law Review.

I think that it is fair to ask whether an authoritative legal citation of a blog that has arbitrary commentary censorship is any worse than an authoritative legal citation of a law journal article (by "authoritative legal citation," I mean a citation in a court opinion or a law journal article). After all, the opportunities for publication of responses to law journal articles are very limited, and the courts have made thousands of citations of law journal articles over the years. However, the limitations on the responses to the law journal articles are unavoidable whereas bloggers who arbitrarily censor have shown a willful intent to suppress dissenting points of view. And many of the court citations of blogs have been citations of the comment sections rather than the opening posts.
.

READ MORE

Law journal articles and the Dover decision

This post discusses the possible effects of law journal articles on future court interpretations and evaluations of the Kitzmiller v. Dover intelligent design decision. As I said, even if the Dover decision were a good one, which it is not, it would have little precedential value because it is just an unappealed federal district court decision of a single judge. I would bet my last dollar that the Dover decision is not binding precedent even in Judge Jones' own Middle District of Pennsylvania federal district court, and I am confident that I remember correctly that the 9th Circuit federal court of appeals once had a rule that no district court opinion could be cited in any court of the 9th Circuit. Furthermore, there are almost no other precedents dealing with the Dover decision's main subject areas, i.e., evolution disclaimer statements and the teaching of intelligent design (or other scientific or pseudoscientific criticisms of Darwinism) in the public schools. The only other precedent in one of these areas is Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish, which was only a federal appeals court decision, not a Supreme Court decision, and which dealt with an evolution disclaimer statement but not the teaching of ID. The Selman v. Cobb County district court decision does not count because this case was finally settled out of court after beng vacated and remanded. Because of this lack of court precedents and because the citation of law journal articles by court opinions has been very common (see below), IMO law journal articles would likely play a strong role in possible future court interpretations and evaluations of the Dover opinion.

In recent years, court opinions' citations of law review articles have greatly declined in frequency but the frequency still appears to be quite significant. The Volokh Conspiracy blog reported,

In the 1970s, federal courts cited articles from The Harvard Law Review 4,410 times, according to a new report by the staff of The Cardozo Law Review. In the 1990s, the number of citations dropped by more than half, to 1,956. So far in this decade: 937.

Patterns at other leading law reviews are similar. And the drop in the number of citations understates the phenomenon, as the courts’ caseload has exploded in the meantime. . . .

The statistics for five different law journals are shown in a graph in Appendix A of the report of the staff of the Cardozo Law Review. One of the symbols on the graph -- a black diamond -- is not identified, so this must be the symbol for the California Law Review (Berkeley). Anyway, these statistics give no idea of the likelihood of particular law review articles being cited in particular decisions.

I think that citation of law journal articles (and -- more recently -- blogs) is most useful in new areas of the law where there are no or few case precedents to rely on. I think that as the number of case precedents has grown, the number of areas of the law where there are no or few case precedents has declined (though new areas like the Internet keep cropping up), and so the need to cite law journal articles may be declining. In court opinions today it is common to see long strings of several case precedents following points of law. I think that judges are reluctant to cite law journal articles when they don't have to, because these articles are not legal precedents and because these articles usually contain just the unrebutted opinions of just one or a few people. I think that a declining need for citing law journal articles helps explain the decline in the frequency of court citations of law journal articles.

Anyway, as I said, IMO there is a particular need to cite law journal articles in analyzing the Dover decision because (1) the decision was never reviewed by a higher court and (2) there are almost no case precedents that directly apply to the Dover case. And as I noted before, of the law journal articles I have seen that analyze the Dover case, most are critical, particularly of Judge Jones' decision to rule on the scientific merits of intelligent design. Besides law journals, there are other important published sources of criticism of the Dover decision, e.g., (1) the Discovery Institute's report that reveals that the opinion's ID-as-science section was virtually entirely ghostwritten by the ACLU and (2) the DI's book "Traipsing Into Evolution." Jones' statement at Dickinson College that organized religions are not "true" religions doesn't help either. Overall, it does not look very good for the so-called "Dover trap". And the passage of a bill to ban or cap attorney fee awards in establishment clause cases will be the coup de grace to the "Dover trap." Like I said, the Dover decision is a dud. The Darwinists have been grossly overoptimistic about the precedential value of the Dover decision.

For other blog posts here concerning law journal articles and other expert opinions about the Dover case, click on the "Expert opinions about Kitzmiller" label on the bottom of this post.

BTW, some other explanations have been given for the decline in the frequency of law journal citations in court opinions, but IMO these explanations have little or no validity. One offered explanation is that law journals have become more interdisciplinary, but they are interdisciplinary because the law itself is interdisciplinary -- for example, to understand environmental law, it is often necessary to understand environmental science and technology. Another offered explanation is that law journal articles have become more theoretical rather than dealing with actual cases, but I can see no reason why actual relevant cases would not be discussed in a law journal article. Another reason given is that the Internet has made it easy for judges and their clerks to do their own research and so they are less dependent on law journal articles to do research for them, but a lot of the research is done by the litigants themselves, and before there was an Internet it was easy to do research in large law libraries by means of annotated law books that gave key case citations for different subjects.

In contrast to widespread court citations of law journal articles over many decades, direct court citations of blogs are still fairly rare, despite some claims to the contrary. However, citations of blogs by law journal articles have become common, and thus a blog has a fair chance of influencing a court decision indirectly through a decision's citation of a law journal article. For example, a law journal article by Jay Wexler cited the Panda's Thumb blog, and Wexler's article might be cited by a future court decision. This potential indirect influence of blogs on court decisions is another good reason why blogs whose bloggers practice arbitrary censorship should not be cited in any authoritative reference.
.

READ MORE

Citations of blogs in courts and law journals

I have learned that citation of blogs in law journal articles is now routine and that citation of blogs in court opinions is significant and growing. Why in the hell should a blog be authoritatively cited if the blogger practices arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters? For example, Panda's Thumb, whose bloggers' practice of arbitrary censorship even includes the disreputable and irresponsible practice of IP address blocking, was cited by Jay Wexler in a law journal article (as well as being listed in a scholarly scientific database). By "arbitrary censorship," I mean censorship of a comment or commenter merely because the blogger disagrees with the opinions and/or arguments of that comment or commenter. Blogs where there is arbitrary censorship are not reliable sources because the bloggers on those blogs have shown an intention to present just one side of controversial issues. Ironically, highly persuasive opposing comments are among the kinds of comments most likely to be censored. Where is people's sense of outrage?

A fairly old post (Aug. 6, 2006) on the Law Blog Metrics blog reported 32 citations of "legal" (or "law") blogs from 27 different court opinions (blogs that are not "law" blogs can also be cited -- for example, Panda's Thumb is not primarily a law blog but was cited by Jay Wexler in a law journal article as noted above), and two more such citations were added in another post on the same day. Most of the opinions are federal court opinions. Nineteen of these citations are from just one blog, the "Sentencing Law and Policy" blog. All of the listed court opinions are dated 2004 or later, showing just how new this practice of citing blogs in court opinions really is. Many comments in the comment sections of the blogs were cited, so the issue of arbitrary censorship of blog comments and commenters is an especially important issue.

Another fairly old (Aug. 16, 2006) Law Blog Metrics post lists 489 law review citations of "legal" blogs, and the comment section that follows showed that over 50 citations had been omitted from the list. The two legal blogs with the highest numbers of citations had 78 and 62 citations.

Anyone can call oneself an expert on law or science and set up a "law" or "science" blog and then arbitrarily censor comments that (s)he disagrees with -- there is no quality control of blogs. Fatheaded Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture Wars) fancies himself to be both a "law" blogger and a "science" blogger because many of his posts discuss court cases and scientific issues. He probably has no formal advanced training or practical experience in either law or science. He also practices arbitrary censorship of the grossest form -- he kicked me off his blog permanently because he disagreed with my literal interpretation of a federal court rule. My interpretation happened to disagree with his pre-conceived notion of the purpose of the rule.

The jerks who see nothing wrong with authoritative citations of blogs whose bloggers arbitrarily censor comments must be the same jerks who have made a fetish of "peer review" of journal articles.

The Law Blog Metrics blog lists many subjects concerning legal citations of blogs but I was astonished that none of these subjects concerned arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters on blogs. It is either very naive or very dishonest to pretend that arbitrary censorship on blogs does not exist. This issue of arbitrary censorship on blogs needs to be squarely faced right now rather than when some crucial citation of a blog is discredited as a result of arbitrary censorship on that blog. If this issue of arbitrary censorship on blogs is ignored now, it is likely to come back to haunt us later.

To me, it is a no-brainer that a blog where there is arbitrary censorship of comments should not be quoted, cited or listed for authoritative purposes.
.

READ MORE

Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers founded!

I am pleased to report the founding of this new association. The association's official website has a lot of discussion about the issue of arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters on blogs and other Internet forums.

Larry Fafarman, Founder and President

Association of Non-Censoring Bloggers

BTW, commenters here should take advantage of my "Comment List" option near the bottom of the left sidebar, particularly when posting on old comment threads. One commenter recently posted a comment on an August (!) comment thread without leaving a notice in the Comment List, and I would not have noticed the comment myself if blogger.com did not send me copies of all comments along with links to the threads where the comments are posted (the "Old Blogger" setup did not tell me where the comments were posted). The Comment List now has a link to my reply to his comment.

READ MORE

Ed Brayton responds on IP address leaks

Fatheaded Ed Brayton has again taken a cowardly potshot at one of my posts here -- this time towards my post titled Leaking IP address information is illegal in UK -- while knowing that I cannot answer him on his blog. He will delete my comments on his blog whether I post under my real name or whether I post under a false name and the comment looks like it came from me. So I will just have to answer Ed and his commenters here.

Ed said,
.

Larry, you muddleheaded moron, ScienceBlogs doesn't "leak" your IP address to me, it's logged every single time you leave a comment.

Ed, you stupid fathead, it is a continuous leak rather than an intermittent leak, but it is still a leak.

I have complete control over the content of my blog, including content left by commenters.

That "complete control" was given to you by Scienceblogs software.

And this may come as a shock to you, since while we both inhabit the US you seem to live in fantasy land, but this isn't the UK.

And it may come as a shock to you that I said that I was talking about the UK and not the USA.

Jesus Christ, Larry, how freaking stupid can you possibly be? The 4th amendment is a limitation on what the government can do.

Wow -- this time you did not even use your trademark minced oath, "for Chri-ing out loud." Where is the government mentioned in the 4th amendment? Also, there is no general rule that the Constitution applies only to the government -- for example, private entities have been convicted of violating the 14th amendment that protects civil rights and the 13th amendment that prohibits slavery. One of my favorite Supreme Court rulings -- I wish I had the citation -- is that someone invoking a law need not show that the law was intended to benefit him.

mark said under Ed's post ( March 30, 2007 10:33 AM ),

You mean if I write you a letter, you're allowed to read the return address? There oughta be a law!

A person sending a letter has the option of maintaining anonymity by either leaving out a return address or by giving a post-office box. Also, a return postal address cannot be used to invade a computer.

Also, rules do not easily transfer from one communications mode to another. For example, people can ask to not receive junk telephone calls but cannot ask to not receive junk postal mail.

mah9 said ( March 30, 2007 10:59 AM ),

I'm pretty sure you're not selling this info on to spammers etc, and not using it for any other nefarious purposes (unless Fafarman actually believes that you are cyber-stalking him), you should not have anything to worry about.

Even if Ed Brayton himself doesn't cyber-stalk me, someone else who sees his posting of my IP address might try it -- fortunately I do not have a unique static IP address.

Matt Penfold said ( March 30, 2007 11:40 AM ) --

Ed,

You are mistaken on a point of UK law. It does NOT matter where you or your blog server are located . . . .

A number of US based companies have fallen foul of this as Europe has tighter controls over the use of personal information held by third parties. Storing personal information on a EU national in the US is a criminal offence in the EU unless explicit consent has been given and the organistion holding the data has undertaken to abide by the principles of EU law regarding data protection.

Well, thank you for that piece of information. So if I were an EU -- or at least a UK -- national, then Ed and Scienceblogs would be breaking the law.

That all said the person complaining is talking bollocks. IP addresses do not constitute personal information unless accomponied by other information,

No thanks this time. For starters, Ed Brayton's posting of ID addresses was "accompanied by other information." Furthermore, if the IP address is a static IP address uniquely associated with a specific personal computer, then that IP address may be used to attack that computer.

Also, Article 2 (a) of the EU's Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 says,

. . . an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity

An IP address -- particularly a static one uniquely associated with a particular computer -- is an "identification number."

. . . . and in anycase posting a comment on a blog would constitute agreement to the data being held.

Wrong -- Article 7(a) of EU Directive 95/46/EC says,

Article 7

Member States shall provide that personal data may be processed only if:

(a) the data subject has unambiguously given his consent; or . . . (emphasis added)

Matt Penfold said ( March 30, 2007 12:06 PM ) --

. . . the law is intended to catch companies and organisations, not individuals.

The European policies and laws do not distinguish between individuals and companies/organizations.

doctorgoo said ( March 30, 2007 12:37 PM ) --

This guy is so crazy! Almost every time he has posted here recently as "Anonymous", he denies that he's Larry and expresses surprise that his posts keep getting deleted.

But then he goes to his own blog and starts complaining about being banned . . . and thus basically admitting that he is Larry.

That's it -- blame the victims.

BTW, doctorgoo, I don't see you posting under your real name.

Alex Whiteside said ( March 30, 2007 10:27 PM ) --

Unless I'm greatly mistaken, an IP address isn't considered a bit of special, private, protected information by common law or statute in England or Scotland (while we share statutes, don't fool yourself that there's such a thing as "UK law"), or for that matter the EU as a whole. It's like your phone number or a return to sender address on a parcel - as long as someone's not posting it up on the internet and instructing people to letter bomb you, or performing DoS attacks with it, no offense is being commited.

You are "greatly mistaken." A static IP address uniquely identified with a specific personal computer -- and there are some such static IP addresses -- can be used to target that computer for harassment, harm or theft of confidential data. And Ed did post IP addresses up on the Internet.

Beren said ( March 30, 2007 03:00 PM ) --

It's impossible for any upload or download to occur on the Internet without an exchange of IP addresses . . . . in general, using a web site means you are broadcasting your IP address, unencrypted, over publicly monitored communication channels.

Not necessarily -- posting a comment is just a one-way communication and the commenter does not need to give his correct IP address. Also, even if posting a comment were a two-way communication, Article 6 of EU Directive 95/46/EC says that the commenter's IP address should be retained for no longer than the time necessary to complete the communication:

Article 6

1. Member States shall provide that personal data must be:

- - - - - - - - -

(e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the data were collected or for which they are further processed . . . .

Anyway, it is nice to know that these folks are reading my stuff.
.

READ MORE

Leaking IP address information is illegal in UK

I have already discussed many of the evils of attempts to ban commenters by means of IP address blocking. I have now discovered that blog service Scienceblogs' leakage of IP address information to blogger Ed Brayton (Dispatches from the Culture Wars) is a criminal offense in the UK and possibly elsewhere in Europe, as discussed below:
.

IP address legality in Europe

It is important to note that unlike the US, under European Union law IP Addresses are considered to be personal data as defined by article 2(a) of Directive 95/46/EC " 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity; " Also see Directive 2006/24/EC.

In association with Time Codes, IP Addressing information will always identify unique ISP account holders unless there is translation of that information.

It is important that this significant difference in legal status is appreciated, since Websites that provide for third party interception of IP addressing information and Traffic Data, without Website visitor consent, are committing a criminal offence in the UK by virtue of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, where through the requirements of European Council Decision 2005/222/JHA such Website owners face serious sanctions, including the winding up of their businesses, being debarred from running a business, and more than 2 years imprisonment.(emphasis added)

IP addresses do not always identify specific individuals (e.g., my AOL proxy's static IP address is shared with many other AOL users), but the potential is certainly there. If I had a static IP address uniquely associated with my personal computer, I would be afraid that some blogger with a grudge against me would try to use that address to invade my computer. Also, there is the danger that a particular IP address will be blacklisted.

These European laws are a great deterrent to blog services that might try to help bloggers use IP address blocking. Since the Internet is so highly internationalized, blog services may be cautious about the potential of getting into legal trouble anywhere.

The "By details" webpage of a Site Meter (click on the Site Meter icon at the bottom of the left sidebar, then click on "By details") lists some visitors by IP address but does not give the last three digits, e.g., 76.171.246.#. That gives out some unnecessary information but at least shows some respect for the privacy of the visitor.

Here are some excerpts of the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995:

Article 1

Object of the Directive

1. In accordance with this Directive, Member States shall protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data . . . . .

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive:

(a) 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity . . . . .(emphasis added)

Article 6

1. Member States shall provide that personal data must be:

- - - - - - - - -

(e) kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the data were collected or for which they are further processed . . . . .

Article 7

Member States shall provide that personal data may be processed only if:

(a) the data subject has unambiguously given his consent; or

(b) processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract; or

(c) processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject; or

(d) processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject; or

(e) processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller or in a third party to whom the data are disclosed; or

(f) processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where such interests are overridden by the interests for fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection under Article 1 (1).

Section 2 (8) of the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 says,

(8) For the purposes of this section the cases in which any contents of a communication are to be taken to be made available to a person while being transmitted shall include any case in which any of the contents of the communication, while being transmitted, are diverted or recorded so as to be available to a person subsequently. (emphasis added)

Leaking IP addresses is also contrary to Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

.

READ MORE

New strategies for fighting Internet censorship

The user guides for the Psiphon hacking program are finally available, but I have decided to abandon Psiphon as a means of fighting arbitrary censorship on Panda's Thumb and other websites and I am changing to other means instead. The reasons for this change are as follows:

.(1) Blogs and other websites that censor usually don't just censor individuals but censor ideas. Often, I found that I myself (when posting other false names) or other commenters were suspected of being me just because the ideas that were posted were not considered orthodox.

(2) The Psiphon program itself has problems and limitations. It is somewhat difficult to set up, you need to have one or more forwarding computers, and the forwarding computer must be connected to the Internet during use.

(3) There are other, easier ways of circumventing IP address blocking: (1) anonymous proxies, e.g., hidemyass.com (however, some blogs have developed the ability to detect anonymous proxies); and (2) at least one ISP, Time-Warner, changes a user's external IP address -- i.e., the IP addresses seen by other Internet users -- each time a user logs on (but it seems silly to change to another ISP just to avoid IP address blocks, and some determined censors block an ISP's whole range of IP addresses in order to block a single user).

(4) Some people consider gatecrashing websites to be unethical (though I have no qualms about it myself).

Here are the other means I am now pursuing or considering pursuing:

(1) -- changing the Internet culture so that arbitrary censorship is widely frowned upon, especially when the blog or other website is so big and popular that it has become a major public forum. I am amazed at how many people find arbitrary Internet censorship to be acceptable. If, for example, a government agency invited comments about an issue and then arbitrarily discarded some comments, that would be considered criminal. Our ethical principles are lagging behind our technology.

(2) -- discourage referencing of websites that arbitrarily censor. For example, I am now trying to discourage the listing of Panda's Thumb in a scientific database and the citation of Panda's Thumb in scholarly papers. I'd bet that if just one prominent organization or person stopped referencing Panda's Thumb because of the arbitrary censorship, PT would stop the arbitrary censorship sooner than you could say Jack Robinson.* The saying "if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem" applies admirably to organizations and people that condone arbitrary Internet censorship.

(3) -- discourage blog services from offering IP address blocking to bloggers. IP address blocking is particularly irresponsible and disreputable because large numbers of Internet users can be affected when an ISP's proxy IP address is blocked or when a range of an ISP's IP addresses is blocked. Also, ISP's should be encouraged to not use fixed IP addresses for their proxies. IP address blocking should result in an immediate boycott of the offending website.

(4) -- discourage the granting of web awards to websites that arbitrarily censor.

I know that many websites besides Panda's Thumb practice arbitrary censorship, but I am targeting PT in particular for the following reasons:

(1) PT is so big and popular that it is has become a major public forum.

(2) PT is listed in a scientific database.

(3) Jay Wexler has cited Panda's Thumb in a law journal article.

(4) PT received two major web awards.

I urge readers to join my campaign to fight arbitrary censorship by PT and other websites. If you wait until you yourself are censored, it will be too late to do anything about it. Below is a list of PT bloggers' email addresses (the ones I could find) and I suggest that you include them in protest emails that you send to third parties. When I sent the PT bloggers a copy of a protest letter to Jay Wexler, I got immediate angry responses from two of them, so I obviously touched a raw nerve! Let's add the motto "show them" to the "I'm from Missouri" motto "show me."

abottaro@pandasthumb.org, ed@pandasthumb.org, brauer@pandasthumb.org, reed@pandasthumb.org, welsberr@pandasthumb.org, rbh@pandasthumb.org, garyhurd@pandasthumb.org, minlay@pandasthumb.org, jkrebs@pandasthumb.org, jml@pandasthumb.org, ianfmusgrave@pandasthumb.org, pz@pandasthumb.org, tmsandefur@gmail.com, tara@pandasthumb.org, wilkins@pandasthumb.org, rosenhjd@jmu.edu,
nmsrdave@swcp.com

For your convenience, here is the other contact info that you need:

Jay Wexler

jaywex@bu.edu

Boston University - School of Law
765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston , MA 02215

The law journal that published his paper may be contacted at --

Washington University Law Quarterly

Contact: Editor in Chief
Email: quarter@wulaw.wustl.edu
Postal: Washington University School of Law
AB Hall
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130 USA

Protests of Thomson Scientific's listing of Panda's Thumb in a scientific database called the ISI Web of Knowledge may be made by means of the contact information listed here. Several Thomson Scientific offices have toll-free 1-800 numbers -- the toll-free number for the headquarters office for the Americas is 1 800 336 4474. Contact information for the ISI (Information Sciences Institute) is here.


====================================================

* I am always curious about the origins of common figures of speech. I used to think that the expression "before you can say Jack Robinson" was named for the pioneering black major-league baseball player who was a household name in Brooklyn when he played for the Brooklyn (now Los Angeles) Dodgers. However, one reference gives this explanation:

This expression originated in the 1700s, but the identity of Jack Robinson has been lost. Grose's Classical Dictionary (1785) said he was a man who paid such brief visits to acquaintances that there was scarcely time to announce his arrival before he had departed, but it gives no further documentation.

However, another reference says,

Grose says that the saying had its birth from a very volatile gentleman of that name, who used to pay flying visits to his neighbours, and was no sooner announced than he was off again; but the following couplet does not confirm this derivation:

A warke it ys as easie to be done
As tys to saye Jacke! robys on.

An old Play, cited by Halliwell: Arch. Dict.

LOL

.

READ MORE

Wikipedia called a Darwinist "grudge factory"

In an article titled "Wikipedia seen as grudge factory?: Competitor looms" on the Post-Darwinist blog, Denyse O'Leary said,

Recently, there have been some serious problems with widely consulted Wikipedia entries on major intelligent design figures that read like poison pen letters. The trouble is, anyone can edit a Wiki entry. This problem is hardly likely to be confined to the intelligent design controversy, as a recent scandal and ban on school use has spotlighted.

The "recent scandal and ban on school use" are described as follows by an article in the Christian Science Monitor:
.

Students in history classes at Middlebury College this spring may have to change the way they do research for papers or tests. Although they can consult the online encyclopedia Wikipedia for background, they are not allowed to cite it as a source.

Professors who drafted the new policy at the Vermont college praise the free website as a "wonderful innovation." They note the more than 1.6 million entries, the up-to-date bibliographies, and the links to relevant, often more reliable sites. But they caution that its open-editing system, which allows anyone to write or edit entries anonymously, carries a risk of error.

Just this month a dark cloud fell over Wikipedia's credibility after it was revealed that a trusted contributor who claimed to be a tenured professor of religion was actually a 24-year-old college dropout. He was also one of the appointed "arbiters" who settled disputes between contributors.

Among these appointed "arbiters" are a clique of Darwinists who have been tyrannizing Wikipedia by insisting that only entries that they approve be allowed. For example, these Darwinists at Wikipedia refused to list Of Pandas and People as a banned book because the book was not on the American Library Association's list of banned books. The ALA hocused-pocused that Judge Jones never expressly banned Pandas and that the book was only mentioned in a statement that was banned. Then I pointed out that the ALA rules say that a book that was only "challenged" as part of a curriculum qualifies for the ALA list of banned books and that the Kitzmiller v. Dover complaint demanded that Pandas be removed from classrooms, and the ALA still would not budge. Then I pointed out that the ALA's own records showed that the book was previously "challenged," and the stubborn jackasses at the ALA still would not budge! Then the clowns at Wikipedia rewrote the whole banned-book article rather than concede that Pandas qualified as a banned book under the old article's rules! I proposed just listing the book on Wikipedia and then adding links to off-site discussions of the controversy over listing the book, but my proposal fell on deaf ears. What in hell were the Wikipedia and ALA jerks trying to prove by not listing Pandas as a banned book? The Darwinist hypocrites want to have their cake and eat it too -- to give themselves a false feeling of tolerance, they want Pandas to be banned but not included in lists of banned books. On Wikipedia, this scandal is documented here, here, and here. My blog's articles about this scandal are here, here, here, and here.

Darwinist tyrannization of Wikipedia is also discussed here.

Also, there was a dispute over whether to include in William Dembski's biography some comments that DaveScot had posted on my blog. That idea was finally killed.

This loss to Wikipedia's credibility is really sad because Wikipedia's scientific articles were once praised as being comparable in accuracy to those of the online version of the vaunted Encyclopedia Britannica.

It has been reported that a rival to Wikipedia will soon be launched and that this rival will supposedly correct these problems of Wikipedia:

One of the founders of Wikipedia is days away from launching a rival to the collaborative internet encyclopaedia, in an attempt to bring a more orderly approach to organising knowledge online.

Wikipedia –- which is available to be written and edited by anyone on the internet –- is one of the most visible successes of mass collaboration on the web, with many of its 1.4m articles appearing high in search results.

However, its openness has also drawn charges of unreliability and left it vulnerable to disputes between people with opposing views, particularly on politically sensitive topics.

The latest venture from Larry Sanger, who helped create Wikipedia in 2001, is intended to bring more order to this creative chaos by drawing on traditional measures of authority. Though still open to submissions from anyone, the power to authorise articles will be given to editors who can prove their expertise, as well as a group of volunteer “constables”, charged with keeping the peace between warring interests.

However, readers who post biased views are not the only problem -- the "editors" and volunteer "constables" who already tyrannize the present Wikipedia are also a problem, regardless of their qualifications. I suggest that one way to resolve disputes is just to post the disputed item along with (1) a brief note that the item is disputed and (2) links to off-site websites where the dispute is discussed or debated. This approach has the following advantages: (1) there is no appearance that the item is undisputed or endorsed by Wikipedia and (2) the Wikipedia text is not cluttered up with long debates over disputed items.

Wikipedia has long been one of my favorite references and I very much want to see its integrity restored.

READ MORE

Parallel evolution of no-censorship blogs

I have been running this blog for nearly a year and all this time I didn't realize that there was another blog similar to this one -- a no-censorship blog dealing with the evolution controversy. The other blog deals specifically with the evolution controversy whereas my blog also deals with other subjects, particularly the Holocaust. The masthead of the other blog, titled Languedoc Diary: A neutral venue and run by Alan Fox, says,
.

A place where IDers and Darwinists can post without the chance of arbitrary deletion, (obscenity and spam excepted). Self-moderation is requested, no other moderation will be applied.

I am adding this blog to my list of external links. I don't want to add too many more external links, though. I have seen link lists stretching into three figures and there is no way to tell which linked websites are the best ones.

I suspect that Alan has not had as much trouble with trolls as I have. Voice in the Wilderness in particular has been a fly in the ointment on this blog. I don't need to answer most of his breathtakingly inane comments, but those comments clutter up this blog with junk. Kevin Vicklund and Bob Serranos have also been big problems with their specious legal arguments that are nitpicking, hairsplitting, convoluted, illogical, and attempts to read people's minds.

READ MORE

Panda's Thumb receives another undeserved web award

The Panda's Thumb blog, which engages in the unscholarly and anti-intellectual practice of arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters, has received yet another undeserved web award, this time a listing in Thomson Scientific's ISI Web of Knowledge list of scholarly scientific websites. By arbitrary censorship, I mean censorship of comments and commenters merely because they disagree with the position of the blogger or other website administrator. Websites that practice arbitrary censorship are showing their intent to present just one sides of issues. Panda's Thumb's arbitrary censorship is documented here, here, and here. The ISI Web of Knowledge's logo may be seen near the top of the sidebar of Panda's Thumb's main page. Thomson Scientific's website says,
.

Nearly 50 years after Dr. Eugene Garfield began collecting and indexing scholarly research data, Thomson Scientific continues his emphasis on quality and relevance – carefully selecting and indexing the core literature published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, books, and proceedings.

Built upon a well-established selection process, the multidisciplinary Thomson Scientific database is the foundation of every ISI Web of Knowledge resource. Editors selecting content for these resources rely on various indicators, including citation analysis, journal publishing standards, and the confirmation of the application of peer review. With these tools, Thomson Scientific can assess the scholarly merit of the journals being evaluated for coverage.

The explosion of the Internet during the latter part of the 1990’s, however, radically altered the way people find and share information. Although scholarly journals still remain the vehicle of choice for conveying research results, the Internet has become an important research tool. Through searching the Internet, researchers and scholars can find relevant ancillary materials that would not normally appear in journals or books. . . . . .

The Internet also enables researchers from all around the world to participate in common projects and contribute to (or search) shared, interactive databases. Bulletin boards and discussion forums allow people to communicate freely and effectively with others in their research community (emphasis added) . . . . .

Sounds a little like what I've been saying, doesn't it?

The website continues,

Because of the power and popularity of the Internet, Thomson Scientific made the decision several years ago to complement the extensive bibliographic information we already provide our customers by developing a collection of scholarly Web sites – Current Web Contents (CWC). To do this, the Web Content Editors in the Editorial Development Department identify Web sites and evaluate them by determining how the Web site adheres to a number of selection criteria. These criteria include authority, accuracy, currency, navigation and design, applicability and content, scope, audience level, and quality of writing. (emphasis added)

Despite the point about people supposedly being allowed to "communicate freely and effectively with others in their research community," Thomson Scientific's selection criteria do not include freedom from arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters.

Thomson Scientific's website continues,

Objective, correct, referenced, or professionally sponsored information is a mark of accuracy. An indication of bias, however, could be a mark of inaccuracy. Bias is possible with for-profit sponsorship of research or with sponsorship by advocacy groups. For example, a conflict of interest may arise when a for-profit pharmaceutical firm hosts a pharmaceutical society page or when a nuclear engineering trade association sponsors a site on nuclear energy.

Arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters is also an indication of bias, but the above statement implies that bias occurs only with for-profit sponsorship of research or sponsorship by advocacy groups, and that is simply not true. I guess that Panda's Thumb's group of bloggers could conceivably be classified as an "advocacy group," but arbitrary censorship is practiced by a lot of individual bloggers too.

Thomson Scientific is treating arbitrary Internet censorship as though it doesn't exist.

The folks at Panda's Thumb will hocus-pocus that I was banned there because I used multiple names, but I was banned there before I started using multiple names. And Wesley Elsberry, who I am told is the official owner of Panda's Thumb, has personally deleted reasonable comments on both Panda's Thumb and his personal blog, Austringer.

The practice of arbitrary censorship by an officially recognized scientific website is particularly bad because that censorship impairs that website's integrity, reliability and credibility as a scientific reference. These are not just websites about underwater basketweaving. I think that when a website is considered to be important enough to be listed in a scientific database, it is not too much to expect the operators of that website to behave in a responsible manner.

A lot of organizations regard this blog as an insignificant little blog that they can safely ignore, and being a holocaust revisionist certainly does not add to my overall influence. But while it is true that my daily-visitor statistics are fairly low, in the range of only 30-60 visits per day, my pageview-per-visit and time-per-visit statistics are probably breaking all records. Visits of over 10 page views and/or over 1 hour are rare on other blogs, but I estimate that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 of this blog's visits are in these categories (to see these statistics, click on the Site Meter icon at the bottom of the sidebar, then click on "By details"). A lot of people who visit this blog come here for serious business. And no, ViW, they don't come here and spend all that time just for the laughs. I am just not that funny.

Protests of Thomson Scientific's listing of Panda's Thumb may be made by means of the contact information listed here. Several Thomson Scientific offices have toll-free 1-800 numbers -- the toll-free number for the headquarters office for the Americas is 1 800 336 4474. Contact information for the ISI (Information Sciences Institute) is here.

I have also objected to Jay Wexler's citations of Panda's Thumb in a paper, "Intelligent Design and the First Amendment: A Response", that was published in a law journal. Protests may be sent to Jay Wexler at

jaywex@bu.edu

Boston University - School of Law
765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston , MA 02215

Jay Wexler actually wants you to send him an email -- he says, "Won't You Please Send Me An Email at jaywex@bu.edu ?" I for one will be more than happy to oblige him.

The law journal that will publish his paper may be contacted at --

Washington University Law Quarterly

Contact: Editor in Chief
Email: quarter@wulaw.wustl.edu
Postal: Washington University School of Law
AB Hall
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130 USA

As a saying goes, "if you always do what you always do, you will always get what you've always got." I like to tell a story about a dissident engineer, Irwin Feerst, who was trying to get an invitation to testify before a Senate committee and was getting nowhere. Then just 50 of his supporters from around the country sent in a form letter from one of his newsletters and he was invited immediately.
.

READ MORE

Internet Censorship Hall of Shame

Arbitrary censorship, besides being generally reprehensible, tends to undermine one of the greatest features of the Internet: a quantum leap in the dissemination and discussion of ideas. Hopefully cyberculture will change to make arbitrary Internet censorship widely frowned upon.

Here is the list of dishonorees:

(1) Panda's Thumb -- multiblogger Darwinist blog. Practices IP address banning, which can block many people who share the targeted commenter's proxy IP address. PT created the hypocritical "Bathroom Wall", a place to dump undesired comments while pretending that those comments are not being censored. Has received undeserved blogging awards: a 2005 Scientific American magazine award and a 2006 award for being a finalist in a contest for best science blog. As a blog that practices arbitrary censorship, was arguably improperly cited in a law journal paper by Jay Wexler.

(2) Pharyngula -- personal blog of Darwinist PZ Myers. Has a "killfile dungeon" which lists banned and unwelcome commenters (I am at the top of the list). A very popular blog, getting about three times as many visitors per day as Panda's Thumb and Uncommon Descent, which are popular multiblogger blogs. Pharyngula received an undeserved 2006 award as winner of a contest for the best science blog.

(3) Uncommon Descent -- multiblogger anti-Darwinist blog. Darwinists have made many complaints that this blog practices arbitrary censorship. Unlike some other blogs that practice arbitrary censorship, UD makes no bones about it. Info about comment policy is here, here, and here.

(4) Dispatches From the Culture Wars -- personal blog of Darwinist Ed Brayton (this blog's posts about Ed are listed here and here). His blog has taken numerous potshots at me after I was banned there. Ed is also a blogger on Panda's Thumb.

(5) Austringer -- personal blog of Darwinist Wesley Elsberry. When I was unable to post comments there and asked for his help, he told me to use trackbacks instead of posting comments. It did no good to tell him that my blog service does not support trackbacks. When others said that they were having trouble with trackbacks, he said, "this is so-o-o-o not my problem." Elsberry is also a blogger (and, I have been told, is actually the blog owner) at Panda's Thumb. He has arbitrarily deleted my comments on both Austringer and Panda's Thumb.

(6) Thoughts from Kansas -- personal blog of Darwinist Josh Rosenau. When I was unable to post a comment on his blog, I asked him to do me the favor of posting the comment for me. He rudely refused, saying that my problem was due to my "incompetent inability" to post comments.

(7) Scienceblogs -- the blog service for many Darwinist blogs, including Pharyngula, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and Thoughts from Kansas. When I complained to the Scienceblogs webmaster that I couldn't post comments, he told me that the problem was that individual bloggers were blocking my comments. When I told him that I couldn't post comments on any of Scienceblogs' approximately 50 blogs and that I therefore suspected that he was deliberately blocking my comments without telling me, he flew into a rage. On the two occasions when I was unable to post comments on Scienceblogs' blogs, the problems appeared to disappear spontaneously after a few days, apparently with no help from the webmaster.

(8) Kevin Vicklund -- frequently charges on another blog that a comment on that blog was posted by me under a false name. He has also been a frequent commenter on this blog, taking advantage of my no-censorship policy while he promotes censorship on other blogs.

(9) "Rilke's Granddaughter" -- a commenter on Panda's Thumb who is guilty of the same crime as Kevin Vicklund. Posted a few comments here in the first few weeks of this blog.

READ MORE

Comments censored elsewhere -- a new feature

.
Please read the rules before entering comments.

Rule change -- I have decided to allow comments on any subject. This rescinds Rule #5.

Often, when I am reading a post or a comment on a blog (or other website) where I have been or expect to be censored, I want to respond to some article or comment but I don't feel that my response is worth a whole article on this blog. Therefore, I decided to set up this post here where I can post responses to those other blogs without creating whole new articles. I feel that it is only fair that I allow visitors to also post responses here to other blogs where they are censored or expect censorship. Please follow these rules (listen up, Voice in the Wilderness):

(1) Do not respond here to any comment posted here -- this feature is not intended for long discussions. If you feel that you must respond to a comment posted here, try to do it in the other blog, either quoting or linking to the comment here.

(2) Follow the usual rules of commenting etiquette, i.e., avoid posting anything that is unlawful, threatening, extremely abusive, tortious, obscene, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy.

(3) Do not respond here to articles where commenting is closed to all. My main purpose here is to counter some bloggers' unfairness of allowing some reasonable comments and commenters but not others.

(4) Do not post vacuous comments here, i.e., comments that just say that the original author is wrong or stupid -- or something like that -- and nothing more.

(5) (this rule has been rescinded) Try to stick to topics that have been discussed on this blog. A list of topics is in the post label list in the left sidebar.

(6) Try to create a direct link to the article or comment that you are answering. Direct links to individual comments in comment threads can often be created by clicking on a particular feature in the comment, e.g., the comment number on Panda's Thumb and the time & date on this blog. The format for turning text into links (i.e., creating "embedded links") is shown here.

(7) Because visitors here may not be up to speed on what you are responding to, you might add here a brief introductory or explanatory note that you would not put in your comment if you were posting it on the other site.

A permanent link to this feature has been posted in the left sidebar.

Also, I will create a list here of blogs and other websites that are known to practice arbitrary censorship.

This is sort of reverse censorship -- maybe a first for the Internet!

READ MORE

Law journal paper by Wexler cites censorial Panda's Thumb blog

A law journal published a paper by legal scholar Jay Wexler that cites Panda's Thumb, a blog that has a bad reputation for arbitrary censorship of comments and commenters. A Panda's Thumb article says:

In an article forthcoming in the Washington University Law Quarterly, Prof. Jay Wexler responds to the arguments of Prof. Francis Beckwith on the constitutional issues involved in the teaching of Intelligent Design. It’s a good article that will help the efforts of evolution’s defenders—and, as an added bonus, Wexler cites posts from the Thumb and allied blogs in his footnotes! (bold added, exclamation sign in original)

Panda's Thumb's arbitrary censorship is described here.

Needless to say, blogs that do not allow open debate should not be cited in any scholarly journal.

Popular blogs that get many thousands of visitors daily -- e.g., Panda's Thumb, Uncommon Descent, Pharyngula, and Dispatches From the Culture Wars -- are major public forums like newspapers and as such have a particular obligation to allow open debate, but none of the aforementioned blogs do.

Furthermore, blogs that practice arbitrary censorship should be ineligible to receive blogging awards. However, Pharyngula received a 2006 award for best science blog and Panda's Thumb received a 2005 Scientific American magazine blogging award and an award for being a finalist in a 2006 best science blog contest.

READ MORE

More on Internet censorship

Here are the latest news and ideas:

New hacker's tool for fighting Internet censorship

This is a follow-up to this post. The psiphon hacking program was supposed to be available on December 1, but the psiphon website now says that the user guide will be released in March. I don't think that the program is of much use without the user guide.

Blogging awards

As I said before, one of the biggest problems with Internet censorship is that they don't just ban you, but they also ban your ideas. To change that situation requires changing the whole Internet culture -- and one of the best ways to help change the Internet culture is by changing the criteria for giving blogging awards.

The Panda's Thumb and PZ Myers' Pharyngula blogs proudly display logos for blogging awards that they have received. Two less-deserving blogs could hardly be imagined. How in the hell a blog that is not an open forum can get a blogging award is beyond me. Organizations that make these blogging awards should have some minimal standards for the finalists in regard to censorship of comments:
(1) No arbitrary censorship -- censorship allowed only for comments that are extremely offensive, harassing, etc.
(2) No IP address blocking (blog services should not even offer IP address blocking)
(3) Comment moderation feature must be turned off
(4) No cutoff of comment threads
(5) No "bathroom walls" (Panda's Thumb's term) -- off-thread places for dumping undesired comments
(6) No registration required to post comments (registration procedures often cause problems even where censorship is not an issue).

Also, the awarding organization should have a censorship complaints department.

Ed Brayton's blog

Not only is Ed crazy (maybe I should call him "Crazy Ed" -- I can't decide what to call him), but some of his commenters are crazy too. "Dan," a law teacher who is a friend of Ed's, began a polite on-topic comment with the following statement:

Ed: I'm not sure if this is the direction you want this thread to move in; if not, feel free to delete this.

Now that is the most abject, kowtowing, groveling, bootlicking, brown-nosing statement that I have ever seen on the Internet. It just goes to show the mindset of a lot of the people who comment on Ed's blog. BTW, "Dan" is the jerk who responded with nothing but invective in an answer to my argument that FRCP Rule 12 gives judges the authority to dismiss cases where the plaintiffs reject offers of out-of-court settlements that would provide relief equal to or greater than the maximum relief that could be provided by the court. It was at that time that Crazy Ed banned me permanently from his blog.

READ MORE

Hypocrites at Pander's (sic) Thumb complain about censorship on Uncommon Descent

An article on the Panda's Thumb blog complains about censorship on the Uncommon Descent blog. Those lousy hypocrites over at Panda's Thumb have some nerve. Though my comments on others' blogs have generally been polite, on-topic and not frivolous, I have been deleted and banned on Panda's Thumb and on the personal blogs of Panda's Thumb bloggers Ed Brayton, PZ Myers, and Wesley Elsberry. Uncommon Descent of course practices censorship too, but at least UD does not make any bones about it, and UD, unlike Panda's Thumb, does not get blogging awards -- PT received a 2005 Scientific American magazine blogging award and was a finalist in a 2006 contest for the best science blog. One of the ugliest practices over at Panda's Thumb is moving comments to a website called "The Bathroom Wall," where the comments are forgotten and ignored. "The Bathroom Wall" is just a gimmick the PT bloggers use to pretend that they are not practicing arbitrary censorship when they really are.

The name should be changed to Pander's Thumb -- a blog that panders to Darwinists who like to keep a thumb on critics.

READ MORE

New hacker's tool for fighting Internet censorship

The "About Me" subheading on this blog says, "My biggest motivation for creating this blog was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and various other Internet forums," so obviously the subject of Internet censorship is a very important one to me. For several months, I used "anonymous proxies" (e.g., hidemyass.com) and false names to get around Panda's Thumb's efforts to block my comments, but I finally gave up because the PT staff was trying to block my ideas as well as me. Also, I found that some websites -- e.g., Wikipedia -- have developed the ability to detect and block anonymous proxies. This was a particular problem in my efforts to wage edit wars on Wikipedia. One could of course ask a friend to forward a message, but that would require bothering a friend. However, software has now been developed that can turn any computer into an anonymous proxy. An article in the New York Times says,

By CHRISTOPHER MASON
Published: November 27, 2006

TORONTO, Nov. 21 — Deep in a basement lab at the University of Toronto a team of political scientists, software engineers and computer-hacking activists, or “hactivists,” have created the latest, and some say most advanced tool yet in allowing Internet users to circumvent government censorship of the Web.

The program, called psiphon (pronounced “SY-fon”), will be released on Dec. 1 in response to growing Internet censorship that is pushing citizens in restrictive countries to pursue more elaborate and sophisticated programs to gain access to Western news sites, blogs and other censored material . . . . . . .

Psiphon is downloaded by a person in an uncensored country (psiphon.civisec.org), turning that person’s computer into an access point. Someone in a restricted-access country can then log into that computer through an encrypted connection and using it as a proxy, gain access to censored sites . . . . . .

“Now you will have potentially thousands, even tens of thousands, of private proxies that are almost impossible for censors to follow one by one,” said Qiang Xiao, director of the China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley.

Instead of publicly advertising the required login and password information, psiphon is designed to be shared within trusted social circles of friends, family and co-workers. This feature is meant to keep the program away from censors but is also the largest drawback because it limits efforts to get the program to as many people as possible.

The software is also designed to allow users to post on blogs and other Web sites like Wikipedia, which has been a problem for some other anticensorship programs.

Banning commenters is often done by means of IP addresses. One of the problems with IP-address bans is that often several people share the same IP address or IP address range. Anyway, I don't need to get into a long discussion of IP addresses here.

Of course, one of the drawbacks of the "psiphon" program is that the computer you are using as an anonymous proxy must be logged onto the Internet. Another drawback is that the site you are hacking may eventually learn the IP address of the computer that you are using as a proxy and block that address. However, a lot of people are logged onto the Internet most of the time and you could have several Internet users to choose from. Also, "psiphon" of course cannot prevent your comments from being deleted after posting or being held up for "moderation" before posting (but psiphon should prevent your comments from being singled out for moderation).

The "user guide" and the source code are not yet available on http://psiphon.civisec.org/ but should be available soon -- the program is scheduled for release on December 1. I am looking forward to seeing how effective it is as a means of bypassing commenter bans.

READ MORE

Panda's Thumb sucks

Panda's Thumb has 26 bloggers (called "contributors" or "crew" members on PT and called "team" members by blogger.com) and might also employ outside blog administrators, but either they are all ignorant about IP addresses or they don't care about the bad consequences of blocking IP addresses.

Rule 6 of the Panda's Thumb Comment Integrity Policy says:

6. Posting under multiple identities or falsely posting as someone else may lead to removal of affected comments and blocking of the IP address from which those comments were posted, at the discretion of the management.(emphasis added)

Panda's Thumb of course sometimes uses IP address blocking for other violations of PT's commenting rules.

An article titled "Why IP banning is useless" says:

Many proposals for eliminating comment spam are focused on banning or throttling comments from the IP address of the spammer. This is fundamentally flawed because it assumes IP addresses are both unique and hard to come by.

Banning an IP address can have severe consequences. Many ISPs (including AOL) and companies use a proxy server that makes it appear as if all users are coming from a single (or a handful) of IP addresses. By blocking an IP address, you might be preventing a substantial portion of AOL users from commenting.

That's how I was initially banned from PT -- I am an AOL user. The preceding article also says,

The other problem is that IP addresses are very easy to get or fake for spammers who care about such things. There are hundreds of ("or," not "of" ?) thousands of open proxies that will let anyone direct Web traffic through them. When I’m using an open proxy, my IP address is effectively masked.

The "open" proxies -- e.g., hidemyass.com -- are better known as "anonymous" proxies. Seeing the PT staff's obvious frustration as they continued their futile efforts to block my comments sent through these anonymous proxies was great fun. I think the next thing I'll do is subscribe to an email forwarding service to further hide my identity.

Ed Brayton, who runs his own blog -- "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" -- in addition to being a blogger on Panda's Thumb, has posted this blog article that shows his own ignorance about IP addresses.

No reputable blogger or blog service would block IP addresses. The only practical way to control comment content is to either delay the posting of comments until after inspection (this is called comment "moderation") or delete undesired comments after they are posted.

In addition to blocking IP addresses, the PT bloggers also arbitrarily delete comments and cut off discussions in the middle by closing threads. And PT's infamous "Bathroom Wall", where Panda's Thumb's bloggers dump comments on the pretext that the comments are "off-topic" when the real reason is suppression of ideas that the bloggers don't like, is -- in PT's own words -- "a PT tradition." Comments moved to the Bathroom Wall are generally ignored and moving comments there disrupts discussions. I have never seen any other blog or other Internet forum that has anything like the PT's BW. The BW is just a gimmick that enables the hypocritical PT bloggers to practice censorship while pretending that they don't.

I observed that Panda's Thumb got a 2005 web award from Scientific American magazine, so I once hoped that SA magazine could be persuaded to pressure PT into showing some minimal integrity that would show PT to be deserving of the award. I gave up on that idea when I discovered that the editor-in-chief of SA magazine, John Rennie, is himself a fanatical Darwinist crackpot who tried to persuade university presidents to sign a petition supporting Darwinism.

The irony of all this censorship crap that occurs on the Internet is that it undermines one of the Internet's great advantages -- a tremendous potential enhancement of the free exchange of ideas. It used to be that most of us ordinary citizens got almost no opportunity to publicize our views -- maybe once in a blue moon a newspaper or magazine would publish a brief letter from us or we would get a brief opportunity to comment on a radio talk show. But with the Internet, people are able to -- or would be able to, if it were not for all this drat censorship -- publicize comments of any length at any time.

This blog is well over a month old and now has about 30 articles on controversial subjects, and I am still waiting for the lousy sleazebags at Panda's Thumb to take a potshot at it.

READ MORE

Censorship on Panda's Thumb and the AOL Message Boards

Panda's Thumb is probably the biggest, most active blog dealing with the evolution controversy. Its staff members are Darwinists or neo-Darwinists. I have frequently been banned from Panda`s Thumb, forcing me to change my posting name there several times, and many of my posts there have been deleted. Though I personally consider arbitrary censorship to be a very bad idea, I nonetheless concede that blog owners and staffers have the right to practice it, but I expect Panda`s Thumb to be more tolerant because it received a web award from Scientific American magazine. PT's staff claims that I was banned and deleted because I was using multiple names, but the opposite is true -- I used multiple names because I was being banned and deleted. I was afraid to tell the truth because I figured that PT's staff would get even madder at me if I accused them of arbitrary censorship. It makes no sense that I would go to the trouble of preparing long posts -- including a lot of time spent on research -- and then invite deletion of the posts by using multiple names. I think that one of the reasons why I was banned was that the many heckling reply comments I was getting that contained nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks were creating a nuisance.

America Online has been practicing arbitrary censorship on the AOL message boards by deleting posts and occasionally suspending AOL members ( I was suspended at least once, and had to call up AOL just to log back on ). I feel that AOL has no right to do this because the AOL message boards are semi-public rather than private forums and because most of the commenters on these boards are paying AOL members ( non-members can comment by obtaining an AOL email address through http://www.aim.com ).

My biggest motivation for creating this blog, "I'm from Missouri," was to avoid the arbitrary censorship practiced by other blogs and Internet forums. Censorship here will be avoided -- there will be no deletion of comments, no closing of comment threads, no holding up of comments for moderation, and no registration hassles. Comments containing nothing but insults and/or ad hominem attacks are discouraged. This blog uses a free blog service, http://www.blogger.com

My non-response to a particular comment should not be interpreted as agreement, approval, or inability to answer.

A bit of trivia about the slogan, "I'm from Missouri -- you`ll have to show me": "Show Me State" is the official state nickname of Missouri. The nickname shows that Missourians are proud of the slogan`s skepticism. Many decades ago I saw a BBQ sauce brand named "I'm from Missouri," but at the time I did not know that the name had a double-meaning ( the name also reflects the fact that Kansas City -- most of which is in Missouri -- and St. Louis are famous for BBQ ).

READ MORE