I’ve received more than two dozen emails today from people telling me that their company has suddenly begun blocking LGF, because the Websense content filtering system had added LGF to either the “Advocacy” or “Racism/Hate” category. (I have reports of both reasons.)

Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and many other left-wing hate sites were never blocked, of course.

But I also received the following email from Websense:

I’m writing to clarify recent reports that Websense had classified the Little Green Footballs Web site as “racism/hate.” At no point was this site classified as “racism/hate” in our customers’ databases, meaning at no point would this have been a reason for a block.

At the request of one of our customers, Websense yesterday reevaluated its classification of the Little Green Footballs Web site, which had been classified for a week under “advocacy groups.” Today the site is classified as “news and media,” which is standard for blogs that are political in nature. Customers using Websense either have or will receive updates starting within the next few hours, changing the classification from “advocacy groups” to “news and media.”

Yesterday, some bloggers sent an inquiry to our Database Operations team asking under what category the site was classified. Because some of the content may be considered racist by some, it was classified as “racism/hate” for a few hours. Again, this was never sent to our customers. Due to our routine checks before databases are distributed, Websense detected this misclassification and changed it to “news and media” before the database was distributed to customers.

Hopefully this clarifies any concern here.

UPDATE at 4/4/07 2:30:28 pm:

A reader emailed a screenshot showing that as of a few minutes ago, LGF is definitely still listed on the Websense site under “Speciesism and Mindcrimes.”

Another reader emailed a screenshot with the following note:

Okay, now I call BS! Attached is a screen capture of my LOCAL Websense Database query (downloaded last night) against my Bluecoat web proxy at my organization. I have taken the liberty to obscure any identifying information should you wish to post it.

Bottom line, some politically motivated member of their database team thought he could get away with misclassification, and slipped it in. Now they are covering their tracks after being threatened for their blatant and obviously politically motivated misclassification.

This Jpeg proves it DID GET SHIPPED OUT!

Is Websense playing a little fast and loose with the truth? I’ve now received notes from people who work at companies such as Merrill Lynch and Deloitte & Touche who say LGF is unavailable at their offices.

UPDATE at 4/5/07 8:22:05 am:

The Lizard Army gets results: Websense Update: Block Removed.