MichaelSims, Domain Hijacking and Moral Equivalency
I should have mentioned this earlier, but with the Federal censorware law CIPA being argued tomorrow, it's important now.
Attorney Jonathan Wallace has a new account of the domain-hijacking of the former Censorware Project domain by the former webmaster, Michael Sims (yes, this is the same Michael Sims who works at Slashdot).
Some choice quotes, from Jonathan Wallace (i.e., he wrote this, I didn't!):
... hundreds or thousands of links which were put up elsewhere to Censorware Project content during our hey-day now, when followed, lead to Michael's denunciation of the group.
In short, this is a colossal and continuing act of malice by our former webmaster, Michael Sims. ...
Astonishingly, there were no consequences to Michael, as far as I know, for taking down the Censorware Project content and redirecting its substantial web traffic, first to a page which said the group no longer existed, and now to his rant against its members. We had some internal discussions about suing him to get the domain back.
If the ACLU's webmaster had trashed the organization's site, I think everyone would pretty well recognize he was a Bad Character and Not To Be Trusted.
See also the initial statement of Censorware Project (search the page for "flipping out").
And if people think this is trivial, note Michael Sims in his "colossal and continuing act of malice" has already derailed a great deal of my censorware work, and may lead in part to losing the DMCA censorware exemption. He's that destructive.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in activism , censorware | on March 04, 2003 11:58 PM (Infothought permalink) | Followups
