Facebook Blocks Users From Mentioning BugMeNot.com 448
ThinkingInBinary writes "The other day, I was trying to mention bugmenot.com in my Facebook status, and I discovered to my horror that Facebook blocks the phrase 'bugmenot.com' as "abusive" in status updates, messages, and presumably any other communications on the site. Facebook isn't even listed on BugMeNot, as they requested that logins for Facebook be blocked. This is pretty ridiculous, as I can't even send my friends a message mentioning bugmenot.com!"
That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
On Slashdot, I can mention [abusive language filtered] or even [abusive language filtered], why can't I do it on [abusive language filtered]?
Total [abusive language filtered], I say.
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Years ago I recall a tracking system at a place I worked where the text field was parced as code. It saw the word "in" apearing in the sentence in text as an INSERT and the word preceeding it as a variable in which it would insert the word following, then truncate everything else.
Thus the phrase
THERE IS A FIRE IN THE BUILDING! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES
would show as
THERE IS A THE.
Later this was repaired and the designer went on to work developing web design at
Facebook....
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, but anybody who has tried to post code, logs, or something atypical of normal prose on Slashdot has probably run into the lameness filter at one point or another and had to either "massage" it to sneak it past the filter, or simply delete that part of their comment.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
would be ridiculous...if it were actually true... (Score:4, Informative)
...but it's not. I just entered "bugmenot.com" in my FB status line and it worked just fine.
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
On Slashdot, I can mention cocks and cunts or even fucking assholes, why can't I do it on Facebook?
Total shit-eating-pigfuckers, I say.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
This is why we can't have nice things [slashdot.org]
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of the clbuttic filtering mistake [thedailywtf.com], which is mbuttively worse. I think you should rebuttess the severity of this.
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:4, Funny)
wow! mine's hunter2
what's that look like to you?
too bad bash.org is still down.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just be happy they didn't also make you wear a yellow star on your sleeve.
Godwin's law [wikipedia.org] has been invoked. This discussion thread is now dead. Anonymous Coward loses.
Re:Fuck Godwin (Score:5, Informative)
Godwins Law
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
That is the entirety of it.
Re:Fuck Godwin (Score:5, Funny)
And by extension, the probability of misusing Godwin's Law approaches two.
Wait....
Anonymous Cowards Law (Score:3, Funny)
As a
Re:That is ridiculous (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, it's been updated to "redacted" for the current administration.
The difference is, now all the swear words are left in, but the facts are covered up.
Yes you can (Score:5, Insightful)
This is pretty ridiculous, as I can't even send my friends a message mentioning bugmenot.com!
Of course you can, you just can't use Facebook. Which is probably for the best anyway.
Good point, parent (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowing a single corporate entity to control your communication is a bad idea. I suggest this new thing called "email", which is offered by a large number of different providers, and not censored by most.
Re:Good point, parent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes you can (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I'm trying very hard to get incensed here, but I just can't work up a reason to care. Oh noes! I must say "Bug Me Not website" when talking about BugMeNot! Horror of horrors! Shocker of Shockers! Quick, make a comparison to Nazi totalitarism! Facebook is like... Hitler, that's it!
Conspicuously absent is any mention of negative actions taken by Facebook. They didn't close his account, they didn't sue him, they didn't kick his dog. They didn't do anything other than remove a link to a site. Whoop de do. Try typing a URL into Youtube comments sometime and see how far you get.
Re:Yes you can (Score:5, Funny)
Why does a dog always have to be kicked? Why can't it be a cat or a rabbit?
Now, I understand why it wouldn't be a snake or a lizard. One a snake would a)slither away or b)bite the bejesus out of you and a lizard would probably just flick its tongue and scamper off.
But can we just leave the dogs out of it? This message is not brought by PETA.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does a dog always have to be kicked? Why can't it be a cat or a rabbit?
The purpose of the dog being kicked is to show how bad something is... Dogs are awesome, so anyone who kicks dogs is bad. QED.
Cats, on the other hand, are demon spawn of Satan, and should be kicked.
Re:Yes you can (Score:5, Funny)
Oh sure you joke about it, but if you read anything written in Germany while the Nazis were in charge you'll find that bugmenot.com is missing from all those writings as well.
Re:Yes you can (Score:5, Informative)
Uhhhh, the 1st only applies to what the US Government can't do, not to what a private company can do with it's free service.
With that, I hope you were being sarcastic.
Gather 'round Papa Jefferson, kiddies. (Score:4, Insightful)
Time for remedial Civics, once again. I swear, it's like public schools are even working any more...
The First Amendment wasn't written in a vacuum. It was part of a centuries-old conversation in Europe that took place amongst people like Milton and Rousseau. Let me distill centuries of thought and arument down to a sentence for you.
Hiding the truth is bad.
It's bad when the government does it. It's bad when companies do it. The more power an entity has, the worse it is. Free men should be unafraid and unashamed to speak their minds. Anyone who tries to squelch that speech is evil.
The cure for bad speech is more speech. There needs to be free and open debate on everything, and when there is, only the Truth is strong enough to prevail.
We don't like censorship in this country. We don't like men who try to muzzle people. We don't stop the KKK by forbidding them to speak. We stop them by calling them a group of inbred idiots and laughing at them.
If you want to do public business in this country, then you need to learn to understand the rules. We don't squelch speech here. The Bills of Rights is merely a list of examples. It was made explicit that our freedom in this country is the DEFAULT setting.
It's not that since the First Amendment pertains to government, then companies can squelch speech. It's that nothing GIVES companies the right to do it.
If not even the government has the right to stifle conversation, then it's for damn sure that mere companies can't either.
Re:Gather 'round Papa Jefferson, kiddies. (Score:4, Insightful)
Time for remedial constitutional interpretation, too.
Hiding the truth is bad.
Yes, but that doesn't mean it's illegal.
It was made explicit that our freedom in this country is the DEFAULT setting.
Including the freedom to limit discussion within your own private sphere of influence. If someone wants to talk about raping and pillaging in war-torn African countries, they're free to do so, but if you don't want to hear about it in your house or shop or blog, you can edit it out and/or tell them to leave.
It's not that since the First Amendment pertains to government, then companies can squelch speech.
Yes, it is. Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech. Even this is not without limits--there are many areas in which the exercise of "free" speech is restricted in particular environments for the good of others. No constitutional right is absolute.
It's that nothing GIVES companies the right to do it.
You don't need a law granting a right to do something, unless that particular right is held by someone else and the law enables you to do something that would otherwise be illegal. You need a law telling you that you cannot.
You don't have a freedom of speech right in a private environment, and that includes a website that does not belong to you or to the people. Period. If you don't like it, you're free to start your own website without those restrictions.
Re:Gather 'round Papa Jefferson, kiddies. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, did you fail Civics or what?
The Bill of Rights only lays out what the Government can't do. Exercising powers granted through property rights isn't censorship. No speech was even squelched here. A specific term has been labeled by a filter. The service can be discussed, it can even be linked to through other means - you just can't use "bugmenot.com".
I'm sure you have no problem with this type of thing for your spam filter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your ignorance astounds me.
We take potshots at the cops as they retreat.
We take potshots a JBTs, not cops. Law enforcement, not CRIME PREVENTION as so many think the police are tasked with, is the fulcrum which civil disobedience gains its leverage from. If a LAW is unjust, the people revolt against the LAW - and agents acting on ENFORCING that law. The entities ABIDING by that law are dealt with through other methods such as boycott.
The Revolution was started when a bunch of cops shot at tax protesters in Boston.
The revolution was started when BRITISH SOLDIERS, not cops, shot at tax protesters in Boston. If you knew anything abou
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the best filter anyways... as you are still (currently) allowed to use "bugmenot" without the .com so you can still say "bugmenot website" etc...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? I tried "bugmenot.com" as my status just before typing that comment, refused...
Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content
Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.
However, that is for http://www.new.facebook.com/ [facebook.com] but switching to the old one, does allow you to use it, but as anyone who has a Facebook profile should have noticed (if they are using the old one) it has a Notice at the top, saying that it will be manditorily switched to the new one "soon"
New Facebook will soon be the only Facebook
Soon, we'll be switching Facebook over to its new design. You can see it ahead of time.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. If you don't have a person's email address, then they're not exactly your 'friend', are they? Yeah, everyone has 500 friends these, they're just that popular! Yet how many of these friends would they trust their housekeys to?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All of them really, since only the ones I really trust actually know where I live in the first place.
Whats even more annoying with fb and myspace (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, given that one is a website that you don't have to use, as against a country in which you live without a huge amount of choice, I'd say that analogy is absurd.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'd say that analogy is absurd.
Of course it is. Not a single vehicle was mentioned, nor is there any similarity between the subject argument and roads, vehicle taxes or anything else related to transport. It is obvious that /. is going to the dogs....
That's impossible (Score:4, Funny)
Re:That's impossible (Score:5, Funny)
30 seconds is the different between (Score:5, Funny) and (Score:-1, Redundant).
I think moderation should switch to (Score:Gold Medal) and (Score:Silver Medal) so late punsters don't feel so bad.
Re:That's impossible (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but do we take away the (Score: Gold Medal) from the Chinese posters who lied about their karma bonus?
Re:That's impossible (Score:5, Funny)
I think moderation should switch to (Score:Gold Medal) and (Score:Silver Medal) so late punsters don't feel so bad.
The trouble is if your karma's not the best; "funny" will neither increase nor decrease your karma, while iinm "redundant" is bad for your karma. So if you're going to joke, it's best to make sure you have damned good karma. Not only is there the "redundant" danger, you can (and I often do) get modded "troll" or "flamebait" by the humor-impaired (or maybe because the joke's just not funny).
If you just got done metamoderating you can post anything you damned well please ;)
I don't understand the term "karma whore", whouldn't a karma whore be someone selling karma by modding people up for money? If you're trying to gain karma wouldn't that make you a karma john? According to some arsewaddles in town called PORA who are trying to stamp out prostitution, the poor little whores are victims. So please, stop victimising karma whores by modding them up!
Oops... I'm offtopic. Damned prostitution union will kick me out!
Do we have any karma pimps?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to try really really hard to get bad karma. I've told a lot of bad jokes that get modded down and I've never seen my karma drop below excellent. So yuk it up, if you ever have anything marginally worthwhile to say, you're karma will be pegged at exellent.
I can't get to bugmenot.com at work either. (Score:4, Interesting)
Access to this web page is restricted at this time.
Reason:
The Websense category "Hacking" is filtered.
URL:
http://www.bugmenot.com/ [bugmenot.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Bypassing 15 pages of annoying registration to read a newspaper online is 'hacking'? Who knew.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
One well-known filter also blocked the Audubon society.
I bet most of you can guess why [audubon.org].
Slashdotted? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Slashdotted? (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for the update. I was really concerned there for a moment.
What Bug Me Not is (Score:5, Informative)
Just for reference for those who may also be blocked or otherwise can't get to it...
You know all those sites where you have to register for a free account in order to access the content, sites where there's no real logical reason why you should have to register for an account except for the purpose of them harvesting your e-mail and personal information?
What Bug Me Not does is provide usernames and passwords for registrations that people have created and uploaded to their site that you can use to access content without giving up your personal information.
Perhaps a simple example would make it more clear. Let's say you go to some news site, and they insist that in order to access the site, you register for a free account. Of course, they want your name, address, and e-mail address. Even after you fill out your information, they drop you a registration e-mail that you have to validate. Then, and only then, you can access the site.
If you don't want to go through these hoops or give up your information to them, what you can do instead is go to Bug Me Not. Punch in the site name, and voila, you get a username and password you can use to access the site that someone else has already registered. If one doesn't exist and you're motivated enough, you can register one (probably using a service like Mailinator) and provide the username and password so that the next schmoe that comes along that needs one will have it.
There's also a nice Bug Me Not Firefox extension [mozilla.org] that will automagically fill in the information for you so that you don't even have to bother going to the web site.
The only problem, as someone else mentioned, is that if you're behind a content filter, some companies tag Bug Me Not as a "hacking" site. (As is Mailinator, usually.) Obviously, some people have trouble with the concept of people who don't like giving out their personal e-mail addresses or other personal information just to read a frickin' article.
Validation (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that a lot of sites require you to actually verify the e-mail address. When you sign up, it sends you an e-mail with a link you must click before your account is valid. Until you click on it, you can't log in.
If you put a fake e-mail address in, you don't get access. Thus, the needs for services like Mailinator [mailinator.com]. But Me Not is an end-run around this entire process. You don't have to register anything; valid account information is already provided for you.
FBmenot.com (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:FBmenot.com (Score:5, Interesting)
or write a letter.
Try it, it's fun. I even bought a fountain pen. It feels nicer than a biro, or typing on the keyboard.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm writing to inform you that you should visit this very useful website called bugmenot.com. You can visit it by going over to your computer, opening a browser window, typing in "http://www.bugmenot.com/" (without the quotes!) in the address bar and hitting enter.
I hope you enjoy it!
Sincerely,
KewlDude1774
Re:FBmenot.com (Score:5, Funny)
"Try it, it's fun. I even bought a fountain pen. It feels nicer than a biro, or typing on the keyboard."
I would, but my scanner is broken so I have no way to email letters.
I have the workaround! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I have the workaround! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
42^3, that is very cool. Thanks for pointing out that article on spaces.
I don't have any mod points, but if you're coming through Chicago anytime soon, let me know and I'll buy you a polish and a beer.
another "Do more evil" clone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:another "Do more evil" clone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:another "Do more evil" clone? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. If you've looked at their redesign that will be implemented soon, you know what I mean. They basically split the functions of the site across 4 or 5 pages instead of just the one, so now you have to click more to see the same amount of content. The whole redesign is made to get more page views of their ads.
I hate it, but I'm old. I remember when the internet and the WWW came to suburbia back in the mid 90s. Almost all internet sites were free, if you had the hardware to access them, just like facebook.com is right now. It's free.
Somehow, someone who has no understanding of economics managed to convince themselves that facebook.com was worth hundreds of millions for investment. It's not. It never will be. It's a free website that has some cool widgets and lets you keep up with your friends. It's not like they have a patent on social networking.
Here's what will happen. Facebook will have to continually make its interface more intrusive in order to please their investors and advertisers. As that happens, they will loose users. Eventually another site will pop up that has the same functionality as facebook.com only without all the BS. People will begin to use it, and the internet circle of life continues.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
sorry man, no lion (Score:3, Funny)
The investors lose big and have to sell their 2nd and 3rd homes, yacht, and their "investment grade" artwork at a loss. They retire early, move to farm country and spend their days trying to convert their old Saab from college to run on vegetable oil, while being supportive as their kids are in substance abuse rehab/divorce proceedings.
Advertisers nihilistically resign to their 9-5 fate. They start cheating on their wives after football season is over for excitement and then develop Erectile Disfunction whe
Strange Definition of Abuse (Score:2)
Not true? (Score:2, Interesting)
I just updated my current status to "bugmenot.com" and posted a note with the title and content of "bugmenot.com" and both got through fine.
Maybe Facebook saw this post and did some fast damage control.
Re:Not true? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wrote a long note about BugMeNot and facebook's censorship, and it posted just fine.
An hour later (now), I checked facebook and my published note has vanished. Gone without a trace. No warning, no e-mails, nothing, it's just not there. I'm putting up another note about censorship (without using the BugMeNot phrase this time) to see what happens.
Regardless of what happens, I will be cancelling my facebook account by the end of next week. This is absolutely ridiculous.
Comminity vs. just facebook. (Score:2)
Just as many people who are ProChoice and will never have an abortion, or even advocate that anyone should. It is more about principal then actuality. It is about the rights of the site owners, if they want a login page and not have full anonymous access that is their choice. The Old BBS's of the 80's and 90's almost all required you to create a login account and sometimes call verified you back. BugMeNot is an attempt to bypass the website owners will to use the site. As well it also has logins for many P
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's their prerogative, but it's kind of ridiculous to expect somebody that just needs to read one answer on one occasion to have to create a log in.
It's not like sites covered by bugmenot are typically pay sites anyways, most of them just have the arrogance to think that somebody is going to come back after being treated like that.
As far as I'm concerned it's perfectly understandable why sites that allow posting would require a log in to post. But to require a log in to read free articles is a bit tough
Re:Comminity vs. just facebook. (Score:4, Informative)
There were some significant expenses involved in supplying the service. An incoming phone line and high speed modem for each "node", rows of computers, file servers, networking - and all of this could only support a limited number of simultaneous users.
What we were trying to stop were the people who would register several accounts in order to use more online time - preventing others from being able to log in. The whole point of verified user accounts was just that - to insure that the resources of the BBS were shared fairly.
Things are different now; not many of us here remember when a good 9600 baud modem cost $1000. Multiply that by 25, then add the monthly charges for 25 phone lines, etc.
We couldn't just "add more lines" to support every person who wanted to use the system for as long as they wanted, so limiting the amount of online time was necessary. Verified user accounts were there to insure that everyone got their share because some felt it was their right to take more for themselves.
These days you can put up a website that does most of what a BBS did, support thousands of simultaneous users - and do it for far less than the cost of one of those modems. The sites that require registration (and don't verify that the registration is legitimate)- their motives are questionable at best. The information they're collecting has a very low signal to noise ratio due to services like Bug Me Not and the basic truth that most people fill those registration forms out with false information. Sometimes I suspect that those news sites require registration "because all the other news sites do it"...
honestly (Score:4, Insightful)
there is no reason why they cannot do this. it is their website, their policy. of course they will piss some people off, of course they went ahead with this filter fully aware it would bother some people
on the flip side, you are not a zombie craven to facebook. it is entirely in your power to use some other service. facebook is not the end all be all.
there was geocities, tripod, xanga, friendster, myspace, and now facebook. it is time for you to simply discover the next social networking app in a long line of apps that come and go every couple of years
Re:honestly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:honestly (Score:4, Insightful)
They can do whatever they want. Likewise we can complain and make fun of them for what they do all we want. If nothing else it lets others know about what the companies policies are and sometimes it may even make the company change their policies.
Companies are run by humans and sometimes they make mistakes or underestimate how much people don't like something. If you don't let them know then how do expect them to know? Magic? Telepathic elves trapped in the basement?
Re:honestly (Score:5, Funny)
I, personally, agree 100% with circletimessquare when he says:
But some would beg to differ. For a counterpoint from a simpler era, let's turn to a user named "circletimessquare", back in early September, 2008, who wrote [slashdot.org]:
Clearly, the debate over corporate dominance has bitterly divided friends, families, and even individuals.
who the fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's this thing called the "firehose", where you can actually VOTE STORIES UP OR DOWN. Of course, it doesn't work in IE6 but then again, what does?
Now "bugmenot" is overloaded (Score:2)
Well, their traffic is up. I can ping them, but HTTP connections are timing out.
News Flash (Score:2)
For instance MSN Messenger will outright reject any message with 'mediafire.com' in it.
The answer is to just not use Facebook. Ever.
Begin the obfuscation (Score:2)
Right, because simple text blocks always are enough to prevent people from sending dicey messages. That stopped the spammers, right?
If you'll excuse me, I have to check out this bugm3n0t.c0m site, I hear Facebook just Streisanded it into higher popularity. (What? Oh, that's been a verb since 1987 [newspaperarchive.com] actually)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
From your 'blog':
"... it's appalling for Facebook to block anyone from even mentioning the site -- it's plain and simple censorship, and it's unacceptable!"?
Why is it 'appalling' and 'unacceptable'? You do not own Facebook, and when you created an account, you pretty much waived your rights. If I recall correctly, Facebook is still a privately-owned company. They can block whatever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want.
If you don't like this policy, familiarize yourself with the Terms of Service [facebook.com] before you sign up to similar services.
You're always free to build your own alternative to Facebook; until then, you want to play in their playground, you play by their rules.
workaround (Score:2)
type b u g m e n o t . c o m
or moc.tonemgub (specify that it should be typed backwards)
or, the first letters of:
better understand great monstrosities explicating new otherworldly titrations
plus a period
plus the first letters of:
commotion obfuscates mysteries
works for me (Score:4, Informative)
I just tried throwing "bugmenot.com" into my status update and it showed up on my wife's account.
perhaps the best way to unblock things is to submit them to /.
Re:works for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the best way to advertise is to submit to Slashdot that somebody has blocked you. Interesting.
The also ban .. (Score:3, Interesting)
bugmenot isnt the only site they refuse, they also have censored BME Zine .com [bmezine.com]
im so glad facebook looks out for us.. i wonder if lemonparty is banned?
Leet Your Way Around It (Score:3, Funny)
8u9mEn0t.C0m
or
bu6m3n07.c0m
or (really throw Facebook)
|}|_|6|\/|3|\|0+.(0|\/|
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
|}|_|6|\/|3|\|0+.(0|\/|
Or, perhaps, the even more leet
bugmenot (dot) com
ownership of information (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook users seem so confused. Facebook, Inc. *OWNS* the website facebook.com - they can do basically whatever they want with it. tough cookies.
the basic premise of physical property is that if you do work on something and make a new thing, then you own it. own meaning society agrees you have exclusive rights to control where and how a thing is used. we have all sorts of other modern day legal and monetary things that also mean you own things, like titles and deeds and receipts. largely, these ideas of ownership have spilled over into the information, too, and rightly so - controlling the use and application of certain information for limited time helps society a lot. many of the current out-of-control IP systems are a bit slanted toward big organizations, but still, all in all IP is a good thing.
people own their personal connections to other people. you made them. an individual is the only person who know how another has treated them, how well they like them or hate them, if they would invite them over to a party next Friday. except, of course, if a person decided to give that information away by publishing it on a global communication system. once you do that, you don't own it any more, then it's like loose change on the sidewalk.
so when you join facebook, you give away your information, your connections to other people. and this is valuable stuff - it's no wonder pie-in-the-sky valuations for facebook are over $15B and growing. If asked to sell the same information, people simply wouldn't, they would and have simply keep it private, and rightly so.
that said, I made a facebook profile. I resisted it for years, but when we wanted to build a app to reach people, the facebook platform worked really well. I still see it as an inequitable exchange, though - Facebook makes explicit and public the information that is valuable to the individual when held private. In doing so, most users give far more to Facebook than they receive in return. it's just business.
Bugmenot got useless... (Score:4, Interesting)
...as soon as they allowed others to block sites from bugmenot.
They killed the point of using them.
Nowadays more and more sites are blocked on bugmenot.
So much in fact that I uninstalled the Firefox* add-on.
Does anyone know an alternative?
Preferably one that's offshore and will not bow to any idiot sending them a complaint.
* The Firefox spell checker does not know the word "Firefox"? WTF? ;)
Re:Bugmenot got useless... (Score:4, Interesting)
"* The Firefox spell checker does not know the word "Firefox"? WTF? ;)"
Hilarious. The iPhone will correct your capitalization for you so it's iPhone and iPod.
WARNING hidden IFrame in the bugmenot link (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WARNING hidden IFrame in the bugmenot link (Score:5, Interesting)
What's going on is that the people that run BugMeNot "astro-turfed" Slashdot, who when they read "censorship", immediately wet their pants all over the non-story without checking it out. Note that a number of Facebook users have said that they had no issues at all with Facebook and BugMeNot?
Very good effort on BugMeNot's astro-turf effort. A+ in fact.
Re:WARNING hidden IFrame in the bugmenot link (Score:5, Interesting)
I know the story poster in person - we're both at CMU. The story is actually an attempt to send unique IP addresses to a certain site for an academic assignment. The details of the assignment are here [scienceoftheweb.org]. (Warning, PDF.)
Works on "old" Facebook, but not "new" (Score:5, Informative)
UsefulNot (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that BugMeNot will block logins for web sites that request it, what good are they? Why mention them at all?
Re: (Score:2)
BugMeNot: it's dot com!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you Homestar!
Re:Freedom is an illusion... (Score:5, Informative)
At the risk of getting the hook set in my mouth, I am going to dive in and take the big risk that you know that "Freedom of Speech" only refers to the law that Congress can't abridge it. [usconstitution.net]
I'm sure you realize that it doesn't at all stop private people or entities from abridging "freedom of speech" (sometimes called 'freedom of speach') all they want?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
you know that "Freedom of Speech" only refers to the law that Congress can't abridge it. [usconstitution.net]
A valid point in the U.S. but what does it mean to the majority of humanity?
Re:Freedom is an illusion... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not true at all. You're thinking of the First Amendment. The First Amendment is a particular feature of the US Constitution and doesn't have any legal force in other countries or apply to non-governmental entities in the United States. (By virtue of the 14th Amendment, it applies to the States as well as to the federal government.) "Freedom of Speech", on the other hand, is a value that exists independent of the US Constitution. Freedom of speech is guaranteed in the constitutions of many other countries and in such documents as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [un.org], Article 19 of which reads:
Re:Freedom is an illusion... (Score:4, Insightful)
But at one time, the First Amendment, along with the other liberties guaranteed by our Constitution, were a shining example to those who sought their own liberty while living under authoritarian rule. In my lifetime, America was really a beacon of liberty for the world.
Thanks to fearmongering and the heavy-handed lovers of power, those days are gone, probably forever. We're not the "shining city on the hill" that Reagan spoke of anymore. In fact, he was one of the ones who started the ball rolling down that very hill.
Oh yes, ridiculously simple! (Score:3, Insightful)
All one has to do is simply use something other than facebook.
And of course convince every single one of your friends, family, relatives, and work associates who's connected to you on facebook to ALSO leave, and all re-congregate at the new site of your choice.
This of course forces them to convince every one of THEIR friends, relatives, coworkers, etc to change to the site of YOUR choice. And so on and so on.
Because you didn't like the fact you can't post "bugmenot.com" specifically.
Yeah, that should be a