Content Wars: The Lizard Strikes Back
Charles Johnson
Mon Feb 25, 2008 at 6:25 pm PST • Views: 289
Today I received more than a dozen emails from concerned readers, informing me that the content filtering service 8e6 Technologies had suddenly started blocking Little Green Footballs at their workplaces, with a message warning them it was for “Hate & Discrimination.”
OK. Well.
So I emailed 8e6 Technologies (excuse the bragging, but you know, you gotta):
To whom it may concern:
My web site, Little Green Footballs, is one of the most reputable and popular sites on the web, and is often ranked in the top ten blogs, with more than 100,000 visitors a day. We’ve been praised by Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal, and were instrumental in breaking some very large stories, including the Dan Rather 60 Minutes memo scandal.
So I’m very disturbed to see that it is listed under “Hate & Discrimination” with your content filtering service, and blocked at many sites. I would like to request a review of this categorization, because it’s completely inaccurate and impacts many people, giving them entirely the wrong idea.
Thank you for your attention to this important issue.
And a little while ago, I received the following reply:
Hi Charles,
Thanks for your notifying us about this problem. We will remove your site from the “Hate & Discrimination” categorization. It was erroneously added to this category, and we apologize for any inconvenience. This change will go into effect in our nightly update to the filter database.
Regards,
Tom P.
8e6 Technologies
I’ll let that “erroneously added” excuse stand, and just utter a quiet italicized woot!
Frank says: