A Letter To O2

Here's the response I sent to one of the representatives of O2 that contacted me in regard to their blocking of this site. No reply as of yet.

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Hi Bob,

thank you for your reply, it was a good deal more courteous than I had expected, so that was appreciated.

The two explanations I have received from you and others at O2 for why my anti-hate, pro-equality website should be - somewhat bizarrely - listed under O2's 'HATE' classification are as follows:

1) It “includes anti-feminism and covers hostility to individuals or groups on the basis of gender”. 

OK so, first off, these are obviously two separate things: feminism, after all, is not 'women'  or even 'equality', any more than 'communism' is 'the working classes'. It is simply a political ideology, like anarchism, libertarianism, communism, capitalism, fascism, whatever, with its own particular beliefs, goals, and agenda. To criticize a communist regime does not mean you hate the working class. To criticize radical feminism - a political and social movement with, after all, an enormous number of male adherents - does not mean you are spreading hatred of women. The two things simply do not follow.

On top of that, labeling criticism of any political ideology as 'hate speech' can only help push society towards a situation in which all political criticism is silenced, under the guise of concern that somehow, somewhere, someone might be offended.

So that's a huge flaw - or at least a grievous misunderstanding of 'anti-feminism' on the part of the O2 policy-makers - right there.

2) The second explanation I received was:

"The ‘hate’ category is a very broad category that covers a range of topics. Any web site that is shown to be displaying aggression to any person or group of people will be assigned to this category. Your site includes information about domestic violence and feminism. And whilst you’re campaigning against this rather than advocating it, the category would remain the same. This is to prevent people under the age of 18 from viewing any content related to ‘hate’."

Again, this makes very little sense: as I have written to you before, if you can point to anything I have written on my website in which I am "displaying aggression" to anyone I will a) be very surprised, & b) be happy to take it down, as I am unaware of it being there in the first place.

The question that logically follows on from both these is, of course: are ALL sites that cover the topic of domestic violence being blocked or only those that mention violence against men and boys? Checking your 'website status checker' site I found popular feminist sites such as
http://manboobz.com/ and
http://feministing.com/
that daily express extremely hostile, hateful and insulting opinions towards all males - regardless of their beliefs or actions, or the groups they belong to (though especially those asking for equal treatment in the eyes of the law), as well as regularly writing about domestic violence - are not blocked but free for anyone - including children - to see at will.

I have not checked yet whether any of the even more radical feminist websites are being allowed through the filter, but if that is the case then plainly this is a prejudiced and partisan silencing of freedom of expression, and I and others will have to begin taking steps to publicize the situation and bring such bias to the public's attention.

Also, even more seriously, domestic violence support sites such as
www.dvmen.co.uk/
& sites for divorced fathers trying to deal with family court such as
http://www.fathers.bc.ca/ and http://f4jquebec.org/

have also been blacklisted and blocked by O2, which is extremely disturbing, as these are resource centers for people in genuine need, being stopped from accessing help and support by a censorship policy which appears to be skewed, arbitrary, blatantly flawed and in all probability unlawful.

A statement on this matter would be appreciated, though I know you probably have very little input personally over the decision-making - I don't want to make you think I'm trying to try hold you individually responsible for the actions of a entire corporation.

Anyway, thanks once again for taking the time to reply,

Best wishes,

L. Byron

Boycott Norton / O2 / Symantec

So I found out a week or two back that Trigger Alert is on the list of Men's Rights sites that are now being blocked by O2 & Symantec.

The list now includes more than 100 sites & is growing, so I wrote to the company to ask why I was being blacklisted & received two very polite, illogical & Kafkaesque replies telling me my blog had been classified a 'HATE' site(!) due to its critical analysis of feminist ideology & occasional glance at the reciprocal nature of domestic violence in order to better understand it & thereby lessen its harmful effects on all society.

Yep, that's all the 'hate' you need these days, it turns out.

In another age, this Orwellian doublethink twaddle would actually be funny, & this very post dismissed as a particularly far-fetched piece of dystopian satire. And the people in that age would laugh if they heard someone believed it was actually true, & probably say to one another "You couldn't make this shit up!".

But no:

I note, by the way, using O2's own URL checker, that this is not also being applied to a good number of radical feminist sites that actually DO quite openly & unashamedly hate one whole half of the human race & disseminate false information about interpersonal violence only to exploit the fear & hysteria that generates to further their own particular ideological goals just about every single day.

Funny, that.

Anyway, this is just a brief one to urge you to boycott any of those three names if you have dealings with them at all, in the name of free speech.

It's not a big ask, anyway, as Norton is by some distance the worst piece of bloatware it has ever been my misfortune to come across & the first thing I've taken off of every computer I've ever bought. In terms of mobile/cellphone coverage, there are plenty of other alternatives out there these days to O2 so it's very little trouble to switch providers.

Even if you are not in a position to do this yourself at present, please spread the word - twitter is apparently a good one but social media generally is a good way to get the light shone on the shady politics of internet giants. Remember - it may be us today, but could be you tomorrow:

First they came for the Jews,

& I didn't speak out, because I wasn't a Jew

Then they came for the communists,

& I did nothing, because I wasn't a communist

Then they came for the gypsies,

& again I said nothing, since I wasn't a gypsy 
Then they came for the religious,
& I said nothing, because I was not religious
Then they came for the athiests,
 & again I would say nothing, because I never called myself an athiest,

Then they came for my neighbours,
& I said nothing, because at least it wasn't me.

Then they came for me

And there was no-one left to speak out

*

One last thing: if you have this site bookmarked or linked, please change to:

www.triggeralert.blogspot.co.uk

if you do not have it down as that already, as the blogspot.co.uk domain is apparently still free from this ridiculously misguided censorship at present.

That's all for now, thanks for stopping by.

Normal service will be resumed shortly.