An Open Letter from "Protect the Overtly Offensive Foundation"
Ever since its inception, the Internet has been a bastion of free speech and misinformation. It has been the work of a community of like-minded individuals fighting for Truth, Justice, and Freedom.
However, like all new concepts, over time the rot works its way, and what started as a fantastic concept ends up becoming bland and urbane, and, worse of all, sanitised.
So what happened to the Internet?
Due to the influence of right-wing ideologists, where there were once web sites of the wit and calibre that would make Oscar Wilde jealous, this has now degenerated into the civility and urbane conversation such as you would find in a Jane Austen novel. This has been bringing the tone of the Internet to a heretofore-unseen lack of obscenity.
Web pages of the stature of HowTo:Play the Bongos with your Genitalia, an article that attracted gourmands of lowbrow, are summarily huffed, along with all the accompanying images. And on a daily basis it becomes more and more difficult to find erotic art. This is something that we obviously cannot accept, especially when we know the depths of obscenity of which this once great and powerful institution was once able to produce.
As a result, a few like-minded members of the Internet community who've been expressing concern over the lack of obscenity have made plans to bring the tone of this work down. We have now formed the "Protect the Overtly Offensive Foundation" (POOF).
How can you help?
Below you will find an open letter that you can send to your local web page hosting administrator. Please read it, and then click to send it. You will then see a confirmation and a thank you, and this will give you the satisfaction that everything is good in the world.
Simply sign the below open letter with four tildes (~~~~) and this will be forwarded for the perusal of your local administrator. We hope that by a vigorous letter writing campaign that we can stop the way the Internet is being monitored.
An open letter to Internet administrators
Dear Administrator:
There is not much I do not love about the Internet. Since a colleague convinced me to go on-line last December, I've used it almost every day to find sources, do research, track events, report the news, and kibbutz with friends.
But over the months, the amount of censorship on the web has risen along with the number of new users. Moreover, you are aiming more of that censorship at high quality material.
Yesterday was a new low. I clicked on the website of someone who had messaged me and saw that the most obscene language I have ever encountered on the Internet, the main reason I went to this website, had been removed. It was a shock to say the least. It could have been worse – I had a thirteen-year-old in my office at the time. In the end I had to preoccupy her with a DVD of Debbie Does Dallas II.
I get that some people go online for information. I also get that the Internet does not want people to be assaulted by stupidity, all the better for millions more people like me to sign up. However, nobody should have to worry about what they will find when they open a random page on the Internet, or when they click on their favourites.
So I am asking – on my behalf and for all the other Internet users who don't want to be disappointed by their investment of time – please stop the censorship spam. Giving people an e-mail account to report censorship is a start. But this alone is not enough. Figure out some kind of anti-censorship mechanism – maybe some of the Internet 'bots that are out there can already search for this stuff. For the time being, I am randomly adding obscenities to random webpages, just in case.
I have done my share of evangelising the Internet to coworkers, family, and friends. I truly want the Internet to grow and prosper. But this is giving me second thoughts. My teenage girlfriend is on the Internet – what if she had found that bland page instead of me?
Come on administrator, don't fuck us up.
References
- Michelle Vranizan Rafter, "An open letter to£ Twitter: stop the porn spam" WordCount – Freelancing in the Digital Age, July 08, 2009 at 7:22 am (retrieved July 21, 2009 at 2:05am)
- Sada1, "Forum:UNCYCLOPEDIA HAS A BIT TOO MUCH OFFENSIVE MATERIAL" Benson's 3-D House of Pancakes, 16 July 2009, 3:39 pm (retrieved July 21, 2009 at 2:13am)
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