Touchy Canadians and Exuberant ISP Dump 4500 Websites
Touchy Canadians and Exuberant ISP Dump 4500 Websites
Posted 12/29/2009 at 2:03pm
| by Bart Salisbury
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The Yes Men, famous as “culture jamming activists” which spoof the powers-that-be by pretending to be them, had their send-up of a Canadian environmental office website shut down at the request of the Canadian government. The shutdown, performed by German ISP Serverloft, also took down another 4500 websites that were unrelated to the Canadian request.
The Canadians, it seems, were miffed by The Yes Men’s parody (or hoax, according to the Canadian government), because it denigrated Canada’s “deplorable climate policy”. The website, contrary to current Canadian policy, was promising strict action on regulating carbon emissions. Mark Landreville, of Environment Canada, in an email to Serverloft, wrote: “We trust you appreciate the importance of avoiding confusion among the public concerning Canadian governmental affairs and that you will assist us in preventing this hoax from spreading further,” asked the offending sites be taken down, and that no others of the ilk be allowed. Serverloft, with nothing more official than the email, complied with the request, and in the process dumped, without notice, an additional 4500 websites unrelated to the parody.
The Yes Men were quick to respond, lamenting the action taken by the Canadian government, blasting its ready suppression of free speech, and wondering if the Canadian government “could instead figure out reasonable ways of responding to their growing legion of critics,” rather than shutting them down.
Image Credit: Canada
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mikeart03a
December 31, 2009 at 9:01pm
ROFL, now that's our environment minister for ya. If he isn't doing anything about helping to reduce pollution, he's reducing the number of sites on the web. Maybe he should be our new CTO instead of environment minister.
- mike_art03a
Owner, Network Admin
Michael Artelle Online Solutions
http://www.michaelartelleonline.com
michael.paiement@sympatico.ca
dullthud
December 30, 2009 at 11:05am
Who cares if it's true about the polution? The request to shut down the website was an overreaction by an insecure foreign government official, and should have been ignored, instead of being overacted upon. What did the hosting company think some powerless government dickwad would do to them if they refused to comply with the request? If it was official it would have come through the German foreign affairs office in writing, not via email. Where is their loyalty to their customers?
I
AM
CANADIAN!
DeWynter
December 29, 2009 at 3:51pm
Canada produces 2% of the world emissions and we get picked on. China and the US produce 50%. Even if Canada reduced its emissions by 50% it’s still a small fraction of our US neighbor’s production...
QUINTIX256
December 29, 2009 at 6:51pm
I'm sure its a bit larger. Canada is a major oil producing nation, and our nation only has 10x the population.
You can have your recession. I'm not participating.
DeWynter
December 30, 2009 at 9:42am
Here is a list for you. If you do some further research you will find almost the same numbers everywhere with very little variance. Our per capita is very high but we are a resource providing nation. We use very little of what we produce. We also have the second largest land mass for a country. All this must be taken into account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
compro01
December 29, 2009 at 3:49pm
Either the shutdown was nonsense or they got the sites back up rather quickly.
though the domain of ec-gc.ca is questionable. the .gc.ca SLD is reserved for government of Canada websites and the actual enviroment canada site is ec.gc.ca
nekollx
December 29, 2009 at 2:17pm
Blame Canada! Blame Canada!
With a stick right up their @$$!
They are really quite a GAS!
Blame Canada! Blame Can-a-da!
------------------------------
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dreamsburnred
December 30, 2009 at 12:30pm
Have some @#$#@ respect for us northerners, we have to respect you.
Hoster of http://canadiantechblogger.com
nekollx
December 30, 2009 at 12:32pm
A Canadian Offical over reacted, 4.5 THOUSAND sites went down, I think you can take a little joking, Soooooorry for thinking Canadians have a sense of humor, won't happen again.
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
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