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About a week or two ago I discovered that my web site was being censored and since then I have discovered more of my files - web pages - have been subject to censorship. Two articles and six video introductions were blocked which meant anyone trying to read those articles or see those videos had either a page not available or page forbidden result but even that was not apparent unless you made repeated efforts and knew what to look for and where, instead you would just get a strange page from another web site, my ISPs home page and no explanation. Now that is unsatisfactory, to provide valid information in the form of a web page and to have it censored without good reason and for that censorship to be more or less secret or at least not communicated, not to the viewer who tried to see that page and not to the author of that page.

On top of that I hardly want viewers, visitors to my blog or web site to be taken away without my knowledge.

After some research I concluded that the censorship is done by a "Filter" as the ISPs call them and these look for certain words and if they find those words - during the parsing of the file before it is allowed out of the ISP - then the whole file is blocked.

I discovered this by inserting dots, these: . in other words full-stops or periods. I put these in the middle of certain words like ch.ri.st.ia.n so that it would fool the censor program or filter.

That way I stopped the eight files that were censored from being blocked.

But, you can imagine, I want to write articles for people to read and I don't want to spend a large or even a small amount of my time checking to see if they have been censored.

As a writer of ideas, thoughts that I consider to be important, it is annoying to be subject to this obstacle but, if I think about this I come to some conclusions and one is that as a writer I don't want to be sidetracked from the thinking of my own ideas into thinking about ideas which have no value and have no validity and this censorship is exactly that and moreover, it exists because that is what readers rather than writers have allowed to happen, and so it is for the people who understand the meaning of this to do something about it and never for the writer to take this extra burden upon his shoulders.

So, as from now, I will be writing less about serious issues which should concern each thinking adult and more about things which are far less likely to be automatically censored.

I can almost see the objections that I will summarize thus "You ought to fight for your right to freedom of expression" Really? How about I turn that around a little "Why do you pass the buck to me?"

I already know about the things that I write about - what principle is at stake here, mine or yours, or maybe not yours but my would-be readers, my right to express my thoughts or your, or their, right to read them? If I don't write them, acknowledging the censor's power, then I have lost nothing but if my words have any value to those who might have appreciated reading them then the loss is their's isn't it?

Then why exactly should it be me who is more concerned or more obliged rather, to struggle against that oppression (of thinking valuable ideas and sharing them)? Is there some impediment that readers or would be readers have that I as a writer don't? Is such an imaginary impediment a good reason for me to take up the cudgels on the reader's behalf? I don't think so.

Thinking - I know, is hard work. In order to get good results years or even, in my case, decades, are devoted to it. If others don't want to acknowledge any value in that and go along with censorship then exactly why should I be bothered about it enough to add that to my workload, an entirely unpaid workload by the way, when it is people in power and the general public that allows them who bring such censorship into being.

I actually don't even want to write this, I don't even want to write about it at all, and why should I. I am not being petulant at all but practical and moral.

There are plenty of people in society who understand the principles involved here, some big organisations even with paid full-time executives and so on, and so, especially bearing that in mind, I refuse to be drawn in.

The bottom line is that this censorship IS here and has affected me directly and I don't like it but others have allowed that and are actually going about making it a lot worse too. I refuse to give it any more time of day and I intend to step aside and write far less about any issues which will turn the censor on to block my articles again.

This is not my loss. I will continue to spend lots of time just thinking about these important matters. The loss is to those who would have liked to have read some of my more astonshing assertions and thoughts and I guarantee that, in some instances, that is a huge loss too.

That said. There are enough articles here that make my thoughts clear and enough food for thought to prompt anyone who is interested to begin thinking about some of these things. So it is not a total loss but just a new direction or new focus. This is not a personal or antagonistic article against anything except towards the fact that this stupid censorship is actually here and being applied to some of the most important ideas that can ever occupy an intelligent persons thinking. That is more a sad observation and I do feel antagonistic towards that mind-set, that mental-culture that now prevails out of, I suppose, a kind of fear, a fear of somebody saying something that others will either be offended by or will be frightened by and not, definitely, because of any hate-stirring and hate-stirring goes on and goes on very powerfully too, unchecked and unchallenged. How ironic that such hate mongering can be uncensored and my article be censored. To me that is insanity.

By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
30 May 2007

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