How Outoilet was blocked by Vodacom and MTN

MickeyD said:
In these types of cases I support this action.
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I am not sure myself. I'll have to find out more about the situation personally.

I am still unsure what this site was able to offer children and paedophiles that Mxit and other general multimedia message services cannot, aside from the fact that it seemed to be 'secret'.
 
Grep said:
The problem being is that these sites crop up all the time and now you have netnanny deciding what you can or can't do. Lets hope I am wrong.
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No dude what happened here is bang on, sounds like horrid website. Glad they took action.

Fix up kwazulu
 
Dangerous precedent, but reasonable in this case. Plus it was voluntary, not censorship enforced by someone with a stick.
 
Ok now we only need to repeat this with Facebook....i'm sure you'll find those kind of activities on Facebook also :D
 
The intent is honorable but the execution is totally wrong. If this site is so bad then the law should have been brought in. It is not a case for lobbyists, neither (especially) not in the domain of ISP's to block sites. It's a real slippery slope .. do you really want your ISP to decide what you can or cannot access? What for example if the lobbyists were muslim and you not, or vise-versa? Do you really want that? This was wrong the law should have been allowed to step in.
 
This is an interesting case. If it was local one could have issues a TDN, but since it is not local and contains illegal content (I did not follow the case and make an assumption here) what is the quickest route to solve the problem?

I would however like to see a more formal structure in future, but the problem with that is that the process may become so bureaucratic that the best route will again be to simply get the ISPs to block it proactively.
 
One of the most significant consequences of the success of this campaign, aside from the blocking of the sites and the removal of some of their financial reward, was the extent to which it demonstrated that industry self-regulation can work.
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This is indeed a slippery slope, but I still prefer "self-regulation" to "the law". Maybe it is because I am cynical and/or ignorant, but the less government is involved in... well, anything :), the better!
 
It is complete ignorance if you think this addresses the problem!

Nothing has happened to the people behind it, they got away with what they did. They will carry on doing what they do, cutting off some website is just a minor inconvenience.

Censorship doesn't fix the problems.
 
rpm said:
This is an interesting case. If it was local one could have issues a TDN, but since it is not local and contains illegal content (I did not follow the case and make an assumption here) what is the quickest route to solve the problem?

I would however like to see a more formal structure in future, but the problem with that is that the process may become so bureaucratic that the best route will again be to simply get the ISPs to block it proactively.
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The question remains about the line though? Where is it drawn? There are many other places on the internet where illegal things happen - should they just start blocking them all (this would be most of the internet by the way, including Mxit, 4chan, the pirate bay and even facebook)? I agree the site sounds horrendous, but this unilateral action scares the bejeezuz out of me...
 
At the time, the consensus seemed to be that the only effective route that could be taken was via criminal proceedings: laying a charge with police, who would refer the matter to Interpol, who would refer the matter to the Russian authorities, who would be asked to investigate as well as close down the site. The Publications Control Board was also expected to initiate proceedings.
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How long would it have taken if they had to follow this route?

I fully agree that what happened (to block the site) was not 100% correct but in certain cases exceptions need to be made. How to regulate this is the huge issue. As mentioned earlier, will advertisers and ISP's now buckle every time pressure is brought to bear on them?

I think (and hope) not.
 
Should there be a recurrence of this in future, I would also like to see a formal structure being followed. In this instance however, I believe the correct decision was made. I first saw the site a month ago after hearing a bunch of guys talking about it randomly in the street. I'm not one for morals and all that kumbaya stuff but this site needed to be shut down period.
 
nut123 said:
The question remains about the line though? Where is it drawn? There are many other places on the internet where illegal things happen - should they just start blocking them all (this would be most of the internet by the way, including Mxit, 4chan, the pirate bay and even facebook)? I agree the site sounds horrendous, but this unilateral action scares the bejeezuz out of me...
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Agreed - which is why one would like to see basic guidelines for these actions. The trick is obviously to keep bureaucracy out of it - which is where the challenge comes in.
 
MickeyD said:
How long would it have taken if they had to follow this route?

I fully agree that what happened (to block the site) was not 100% correct but in certain cases exceptions need to be made. How to regulate this is the huge issue. As mentioned earlier, will advertisers and ISP's now buckle every time pressure is brought to bear on them?

I think (and hope) not.
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In a world where bored housewives can easily dictate Woolworths business decisions, I wonder.
 
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