Military Blocking Progressive Websites

Posted on Mar 7, 2006

Wonkette: We were originally going to say that we don’t actually believe that we here at Wonkette are being “censored” by anyone just because military computers in Iraq are blocked from viewing our site. We were going to point out that, yes, we’re blocked from more than one workplace (though, thankfully, not too many), often for non-human reasons such as automated filters that don’t look too kindly on words like “assfucking.” The hyperbolic Call to Arms tone of the original post was just that—hyperbole. We even got emails from US Military spokespeople kindly explaining that soldiers and marines are allowed to check their email (though only through their .mil addresses, we think, and they all come out signed “Irving Washington"), and we were going to tell everyone to calm down, etc. etc.

But our embedded operative who sent us the initial heads-up sent an update.

Unfortunately anonomizers don’t work out here (never have). Anyway, I had a few minutes today and thought I’d look and see what else was banned on the Marine web here. I think the results speak for themselves:

* Wonkette - “Forbidden, this page (http://www.wonkette.com/) is categorized as: Forum/Bulletin Boards, Politics/Opinion.”
* Bill O’Reilly (www.billoreilly.com) - OK
* Air America (www.airamericaradio.com) - “Forbidden, this page (http://www.airamericaradio.com/) is categorized as: Internet Radio/TV, Politics/Opinion.”
* Rush Limbaugh (www.rushlimbaugh.com) - OK

Full post

Elsewhere: .

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