A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 03/25/03 at 17:26:01 |
| Salam, So please monitor your words and what you say. Unfortunately right now anything can be misconstrued and the next thing you know there's someone hauling you away on secret evidence...:) But seriously, alot of people are just looking to take things out of context, quote it because Muslims right now are big news. This one bro in a community said something, it was taken totally out of context and then the next morning he was on the front page!! |
| 03/25/03 at 17:38:14 |
| jannah |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| BroHanif |
| 03/25/03 at 18:53:12 |
| Salaams Why can't you block it via .htacces and allow only limited IP's through or even make the discussion board hidden, kinda like the underground. Salaams Hanif |
| NS |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 03/25/03 at 23:41:43 |
| slm, ip's are problematic we could make all the discussion boards hidden to non-citizens except one general type one open to the public, but i'd still not trust that.....? |
| Finding balance to keep Madina an Open Web City |
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| SuperHiMY |
| 03/26/03 at 07:54:18 |
AsalamAlayKum, I believe we can borrow some guidance from the following event yesterday. YellowTimes.org, was shut down for the second time yesterday by their webhosting company. Their webhost provider is U.S. based. It took a bit of digging, but I was able to dig up a url that bypasses the deleted index.php page and brought up the following announcement. The second article is commentary by Brother Firas published by ArabNews.com explaining his take on why YellowTimes.org was shut down. I think between these two statement lies a balance that is appropriate in keeping the Madina here, an open web city. ~ HiMY! ~ ------------------------------------- http://www.yellowtimes.org/print.php?sid=1208&source=avantgo Official statement regarding YellowTimes.org's recent shutdown Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 @ 15:04:26 PST Topic: News Report By YellowTimes.org (YellowTimes.org) -- We have received a large number of inquiries from readers and supporters since our web hosting provider disabled YellowTimes.org We appreciate your concerns and we want you to understand the sequence of events that led up this shutdown and we want to assure you that we are working on plans to avoid these censorship controls in the future. Our previous hosting provider, a private company to whom we pay monthly fees for connecting our web site to the Internet, took us offline on March 24, 2003. They took this action immediately after we posted some "video captures," still photos of video footage that, at the time, had been displayed and replayed on television sets around the world, with one exception, the U.S. Through a "gentlemen's agreement," of the type that is routinely invoked to protect American audiences from facing unpleasant news, these images of American soldiers now in the custody of Iraqi soldiers were voluntarily censored from American TV and from most American internet news sites. Since the mission of YellowTimes.org is to offer our readers points of view which are not available in the mainstream press, we could not in good conscience participate in the "voluntary" censorship of this unpleasant view of war's results. Our hosting provider immediately "suspended" our account, citing "inappropriate graphic material" on our site. Since we have never posted child pornography, nor any of the other materials that new federal regulations prohibit on library computers, we asked for clarification regarding the offending graphics. The provider company responded with the following explanation: "The [graphic war] images need to be removed IMMEDIATELY. We have received complaints from our upstream provider regarding the images on YellowTimes.org Once the images are removed we will unsuspend the account." After we removed the war pictures, our site was put back online. We then provided a link to another publication, New Zealand's Scoop (http://www.Scoop.co.nz), which had reproduced our brief news report including the pictures of U.S. POWs. Then, once again, we requested better clarification regarding the company's definition of graphic materials that we would, or would not be permitted to offer our readers. The hosting company sent the following e-mail to explain their position: "[Mar 24, 2003 11:52:59 AM] A: As 'NO' TV station in the US is allowing any dead US solders or POWs to be displyed (sic) and we will not ether (sic). We understand free press and all but we don't want someones (sic) family member to see them on some site. It is disrespectful, tacky & disgusting. No mother, brother, sister, wife or child should see their love (sic) one plastered all over the net wounded or dead." The host company then told us by telephone that we had to remove even our links to the images located at Scoop's site. Finally, we published online information explaining the circumstances of our shutdown. The web hosting company responded by sending us another e-mail, explaining that we had posted negative comments regarding their company, and our site was subsequently suspended permanently. We do not claim, at this time, that this hosting company has violated any legal rights in suspending and removing our account. In their acceptable use policy, they state that "adult material" is not allowed, and that they reserve the excusive right to define what is considered "adult material." We also agree with the hosting company, when they say that, "No mother, brother, sister, wife or child should see their love one plastered all over the net wounded or dead." We regularly publish editorials which condemn the politics and much of the censored information which promote the current war against Iraq, and which therefore contribute materially to the death and captivity of some Americans and a great many more Iraqis. To intentionally hide the evidence of the misery that results from the political failures and follies of powerful politicians is to contribute to the cultural blindness that permits history to repeat it most obvious mistakes, over and over again. We, at YellowTimes.org, are messengers bearing grim news of an astounding catastrophe unfolding out of sight of most Americans. Those who wish to remain blind to the vision shared by so many of the world's people should avoid YellowTimes.org at all costs. Our web site is "appropriate" only for those mature adults who aren't afraid to ask where America is going and why so many of the world's people fear the current course of U.S. foreign policy. YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated. ---------------------------------- http://www2.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24290 YellowTimes Shut Down for Telling the Truth Firas Al-Atraqchi, Special to Arab News Somebody doesn’t like hearing the truth. Okay, for a second, lets scratch that and choose a slightly less politically charged term. Someone doesn’t like to be disputed with alternative views, counterclaims, research and fact. Someone wants you, the reading public, to only gather one-sided, monotone, Orwellian dispatch. News the way they “fashion” it. Or as CNN will have you believe, the “most reliable source for news.” And so, once again, the staff at YellowTimes.org was threatened with a shutdown: “We are sorry to notify you of suspending your account: Your account has been suspended because (of) inappropriate graphic material.” Within hours, the (YellowTimes.org) site was shut down. What’s next? Martial law? An e-mail hours later was more explanatory: “As ‘NO’ TV station in the US is allowing any dead US soldiers or POWs to be displayed, we will not either.” Of course, at the time of this e-mail, TV stations across the US were allowing the images of US POWs to be brought to the public’s attention. Yesterday, Iraqi TV and Al-Jazeera, followed by Spanish National TV, Portugal’s networks and most European TV stations, aired footage of US Marine fatalities in the southern town of Nassiriya. A handful of terrified US POWs were also shown. According to the Associated Press: “Anecita Hudson of Alamogordo said she saw her 23-year-old son, Army Spc. Joseph Hudson, who was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, interviewed in the Iraqi video, which was carried on a Filipino television station she subscribes to.” There was public outrage in the US, citing the Geneva Convention on treatment of Prisoners of War, which forbids the broadcast of any footage or graphic depiction of POWs. True, the Geneva Convention does indeed include that provision. However, the outrage follows on the heels of extensive, and I repeat, extensive footage of Iraqi POWs, sometimes with cameras panning in for extreme close-ups of blank-staring Iraqi soldiers, disheveled and fatigued as they were. CNN grilled an Al-Jazeera spokesperson on the (de)merits of airing such footage yesterday. When asked by the Al-Jazeera spokesperson why it was allowed for US stations to broadcast footage of Iraqi POWs, CNN’s Aaron Brown said, “because their families wouldn’t be watching.” Not true. CNN is broadcast around the world and is available to Iraqis. There are millions of Iraqis living outside Iraq who may recognize an Iraqi POW as a family member. Notwithstanding, to say “their families wouldn’t be watching” is not an excuse. If it is a violation on the Iraqi side, then surely, it is as well on the US side. Monday’s front page of The Washington Post has a picture of an Iraqi POW being handled by US troops. As of Monday afternoon we were shut down. I do beg your pardon, no, we weren’t shut down — we were censored — pure and simple. — Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: firas6544@rogers.com |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| BrKhalid |
| 03/26/03 at 08:30:49 |
| Asalaamu Alaikum ;-) Has there been significantly more hits to the site since the start of the war? |
| 03/26/03 at 08:31:23 |
| BrKhalid |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| bhaloo |
| 03/26/03 at 21:44:44 |
| [slm] We haven't been bombed yet. :P |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 03/26/03 at 22:51:07 |
| You know what the logs are so huge I can't even download them right now because there's no more space on the server to do it!!! |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| gift |
| 03/27/03 at 04:39:03 |
| [slm] |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| BrKhalid |
| 03/27/03 at 08:46:13 |
| Asalaamu Alaikum ;-) [quote]We haven't been bombed yet. :P[/quote] Looks like you spoke to soon. The Bebzi and UCC look like a bomb site!! ;-) |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 03/27/03 at 19:31:54 |
[wlm] |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| ltcorpest2 |
| 03/28/03 at 19:37:39 |
| Posted by: Attia Posted on: Mar 27th, 2003, 4:39am i have my suspicions, but i wont say publicly. |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 03/29/03 at 04:02:39 |
| [slm] We really shouldn't be suspicious of anyone. First any Big brother has access numerous ways to read what people post here. The easiest being to log on and read em lol :) ie also people should realize nothing on the internet is imprenatable by it's very nature. it is accessible from the server level, the isp level, the networks etc etc. hey if the pentagon can hack jazeera is anything sacred? I think in life there will always be people watching us. This really isn't the problem. The problem is when what's written is taken out of context or used in a manner that we would not approve of ie. front page of NYTimes. That's the only thing I'm worried about. About whoever unknowns with whatever agendas joining and posting wack stuff --- This can be an issue, but I think that they no doubt would bring up the same stuff other people do, so we should try to address the issues instead of accusing them of being agents or whatever. |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| panjul |
| 03/29/03 at 21:45:25 |
| 03/29/03 at 21:45:58 |
| panjul |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| BroHanif |
| 03/30/03 at 00:46:46 |
| Salaams, Copyright is hard to prove when they are accessing peoples opionions on the board. They can say oh look the opionion of some Muslims on this website board is ....... and then that would be a reference to the board and that is allowed without breaching copyright rules. Especially in the UK. Lets use wisdom in what we say. Salaams, Hanif |
| 03/30/03 at 03:41:39 |
| jannah |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| deenb4dunya |
| 04/13/03 at 16:28:50 |
| I know of someone who has been lurking for awhile and wants to register. She wanted to know when registration will be back up... Deen ??? |
| Re: Reporters and others watching this website |
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| jannah |
| 04/14/03 at 20:37:58 |
| [wlm] You can tell her it's open now inshaAllah :) |
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board |