Scary Site Blocking Announcement Threatens 750,000+ Sites

[silicon_toad2000]

http://torrentfreak.com/scary-site-blocking-announcement-threatens-750000-sites-131231/

Scary noises coming out of the Russian telecoms regulator responsible for the blocking of file-sharing and other ‘banned’ content suggest that it will target a number of foreign ISPs with total censorship if they fail to take down unfavorable content. In addition to European file-sharing friendly hosts and DDoS protection companies, US-based CloudFlare – a company servicing at least 750,000 sites – is also on the blacklist.

Sites are currently being blocked all around Europe, mostly via court-ordered procedures such as those actioned in several countries against The Pirate Bay.

However, there are other censorship mechanisms coming to the forefront. Developments in Italy mean that from April blockades against file-sharing sites will be initiated without the need for a court order, a worrying development and a slap in the face for due process.

In addition to the common High Court injunction, in the UK there is now ‘voluntary’ site blocking being carried out by ISPs in the form of parental controls that are activated by default. They have already caused outrage by blocking children’s anti-abuse charities and are bound to cause even more trouble during the new year.

Once the site blocking genie was let out of the bottle it was only a matter of time as to when it would cause a proper disaster. Worryingly, a new announcement coming out of Russia is an indicator of what kind of damage could be caused if the wrong people are given access to the website kill-switch.

[White Stripes]

soon Tor will be the standard way to surf the web....

[silicon_toad2000]

is there anything that's been invented in our history which hasn't been sought to be controlled by governments once widely adopted

[GhostShip]

Cloudfare is linked to the pirate bay If I remember a recent article correctly so the rest of the sites are simply seen as collateral damage.

The censors line up and try to make the right noises of justification but the fact is they are abusing the system and in Russia we have already seen them trying to sanction youtube for hosting pussy riot videos that criticize the Russian president Vladimir Putin.

If folks don't fight back and soon in a vocal fashion we will lose the webs freedoms and have no one to blame but ourselves.