Banned by the Beast

L

lively

Joined
Nov 9, 1999
Messages
215
I was over on Rade Hawkins' web site checking out the forum and they have a great topic going on Banning. There's a company out there called surfwatch that is banning by means of filters. And guess what search word is included in their ban. You guessed it,,,Knives. Any web site that has this foul word in their description is banned. If you want to see if yours has been targeted check out their site. http://www1.surfwatch.com
If this disturbs you maybe you should e-mail them a piece of your mind.
 
yes, unfortunately for all of us, knives are made by the same evil people who make guns, all for the express intent of inflicting harm on small children for no apparent reason. we can all thank the president and her husband for bringing this lucid revelation to our attention. VOTE FOR GEORGE IN NOV!!!!!!!!!!

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http://www.mayoknives.com


 
Do you think George is going to do anything to help us? His dad sure didn't.
frown.gif
I think I'll throw my vote away on Keyes.
smile.gif


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For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:23


 
Well George did just make Texas a concealed carry state not long ago, so he should be a little more understanding of us than the sheeple are.
Maybe if he gets elected we whould send him a knife. It would be pretty cool if we could convert the president into a knifeknut
wink.gif

Until somehting cool like that happens were screwed with not being able to find the sites we want on half of the search engines.
They even block out things like Columbia River knife and TOOL. Whats next
confused.gif


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We got a five dollar fine for whining
We tell you before you come in
So if it ain't on your mind to have a good time
Y'all come back and see us again.- Chris LeDoux
 
I find the possibility appalling....

Just tried my site in their -test the filter- and found that my site is not blocked, yet... Hope they don't learn from the test...

This sure seems the way of things, but we can't let it undermine our passions.

Dan
Hannon Bearpaw Knives http://www.freeweb.pdq.net/dhannon/hannon.htm
 
My site made it past the filter also..I agree with the hope that the test doesnt get me blocked.It is hard enough to promot your site without ideot's like them blocking us!!!!! Just my opinion,Bruce Hey I will make the Knife if we think we can get it to the President,Or we could make another pass around for him!

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The Soul of the Knife begins in the FIRE !!!! Akti # A000223
 
I'm banned of course. Fact is that is good news and bad news. If you are not banned, it means your key words are not set up so a search for *knives* will find you by the major search engines. My advice is to amend your key word listing on your site until you are banned, then you know that people who don't use that filter can find you.

There is always a silver lining. I really don't think people who use that filter are likely to buy my knives anyway, so why waste the bandwidth?

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Jerry Hossom
www.hossom.com
 
I took the word knives off of the meta tags in the html for my home page and then checked out the surfwatch site and now I'm not banned. But now I won't turn up in the search engines under knives. I think I would rather be banned too Jerry.

[This message has been edited by lively (edited 05-11-2000).]
 
Ouch! I must have done something wrong in the metatags. I have knives in my title, in my description and in my tags. But, still pass the filter. If I search on knives in altavista, some umpteen thousand pop up. They won't find me anyway. If I search the engine on my title (including "knives") I find my page.

Maybe the best of both?? Not likely...

Dan
Hannon Bearpaw Knives http://www.freeweb.pdq.net/dhannon/hannon.htm
 
Yeah! That's the spirit!
That's what I wanted to say but didn't. Good for you Darrel! I wish now I didn't pull my punches. Were you an extra in Braveheart? Men don't follow titles, they follow courage.

[This message has been edited by lively (edited 05-11-2000).]

[This message has been edited by lively (edited 05-11-2000).]
 
You got that right Darrel! It sounds like censorship to me,done by those who think they know whats best for all of us.Alot of people don't care about the gun issue,but sooner or later they will come after what you hold dear.So email them and tell them if they think repressing information is a good thing,then maybe they should relocate in China.I would hope to think the U.S. is still the land of the free.Anyway this is one of my first posts,since I usually just lurk.I hope it goes through
smile.gif


Rick Hinderer
 
i got about 50 guns..does that make me red neck enough....plus my gun safe is as big as my fridge......btw...george came out and said its not the guns its the people when the guy went into the church and blew away a bunch of praying kids....i am sure hes on our side...(i hope)
 
The site starts out with a rather interesting declaration

"SurfWatch is active in the Citizens Empowerment Coalition, a large and diverse group of Internet users, businesses, nonprofit groups, and civil liberties advocates who share the common goal of protecting the first amendment and the viability of the Internet as a means of free expression, education, and commerce."

Now I should point out that Canadians are exposed to the US constitution more than our own constitution but I fail to see how a censorship site purports to protect the first amendment.

Apparently, knives come under their core category of 'violence'. Although my site is listed under several search engines and uses the word 'knives' in title, content and keyword metatags, I am not blocked.

They do have a utilty by which you can request a site be reviewed for blocking or unblocking. It would be interesting if someone who was blocked, submitted a well written request for review, pointing out that the site has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with sport, education, craftsmanship and e-commerce.

I have to agree that parents need a tool to monitor their kids activities on line. If you do a search for "sex with flaming goats", you will probably get a response like "too many hits" - "specify colour of goat".

The task of designing a useful filter for those parents would be daunting indeed. I'd sure like to know if Surfwatch is willing to listen to the voice of reason.



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Rob Ridley
Ranger Original Handcrafted Knives
 
Well put Rob.

Precisely why I tested the filter on my webpage. I intended to submit for removing the ban block if my site was indeed blocked. Logic and common sense should prevail. If not, anger will only set the lines more firm.

I'm here to promote a favorite pass time and continue the line of those that can learn to respect the gifts given us.

Dan
Hannon Bearpaw Knives http://www.freeweb.pdq.net/dhannon/hannon.htm
 
They just will not look at knives as tools will they? And forget about Art. Art Knives? They would call that an oxymoron. I dought that this company cares about our kids or anyone else for that matter. They are just bottom feeders who rely on the publics histeria to make a buck. Capitalizing on fears and paranoia. If parents just took the time to talk to their kids and get into their lives more often there wouldn't be these type of outfits poluting our society. I have two teen age daughters and when I see their attitude changing I sit them down and have a long talk about things with them. They hate it at first but I keep talking and usually after a couple of hours we are hugging and crying and expressing our love to each other. Love and only love can break it down. There are no substitutes!
 
Wow Darrel!

Thanks for that great lesson on how to get around the vulgarity filters on the forums. May I suggest you get off the testosterone supplements. Viagra is much safer.

A few points need to be made. While screaming "commie pig" and listening to "The Voice of America" on shortwave radio used to be very much in fasion, the cold war is over. Restricting freedom of speech has nothing to do with communism in particular. It is found from communism (extreme left) to fascism (extreme right) and everywhere in between including most democracies at one level or another.

Your post has left an image in my mind of you holding two huge art knives (I think they are Hibbens) over your head and chasing liberal parents and schoolteachers out into New York harbour, past the Statue of Liberty to begin their swim to China (I know - wrong coast - but the imagery works)

Perhaps you should look up the word "moderate" as in moderator.

Oh yes - for your information, it is already illegal to throw people out windows except in Alaska and Montana where the movie industry has lobbied to retain the practice for the remake of old westerns.




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Rob Ridley
Ranger Original Handcrafted Knives
 
I find it irritating when the groups that are upholding censorship are called "Liberal". I'm considered a liberal by most, but I consider myself to be more of a radical. I don't own a gun, but I believe that everyone should be able to. An armed society is a polite society. But only the more oppressive society bans the useful. England has put itself into that category. The US is on its way, and I think this frightens all of us. Banning the word "Knives" or derivitives thereof is irrational, and it's also a fear reaction. There are very few sites that have the kind of material that they're looking to ban that have the keywords in question, so what set this off?

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Oz

"This is your life, and it's ending; One minute at a time."
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
Some interesting stuff here...

As a group I think that we should keep a cool head and that we don't play to an emotional argument...although I know how most of you feel about your guns and knives...I won't tell your wives.
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But, the problem of the stance taken by the liberal mind that believes to control violence we only need to control weapons is that they assume that weapons beget violence. What a foolish belief. All of us know that violence is a problem of the individual. We don't solve anything this way, except maybe the efficiency with which crimes are committed. In addition, if we take away weapons, then we take away the ability for the individual to defend him/herself from such crimes. The lack of an armed population can also lead to crimes by the government or worse anarchy which history has proved over and over. To solve the problem of violence we don't need regulation of rights, we are wrong in thinking that government regulation of rights will ever solve such problems. The American government was established long ago to uphold the belief that the individual has certain rights. Of course it was the belief of these men that resposibility had an obvious role with respect to these rights. And I think this is where the liberal mind prevalent in our government has failed us. The belief that rights can be given without the expectation of responsibility. The individual with the right to bear arms must ultimately be responsible for his actions should he violate the right of another or worse take his/her life. It is not the responsibility of the gun maker. If fact, it seems to me that the government should shoulder some of the blame in this failure, due to the mindset and regulations they have failed to enforce that are currently in place. In the case of the right to bear arms, the purpose of regulation should be to grant rights to the individual by the enforcement of responsibility on those who violate that right. The current thought is take the stance that we must regulate the right in order to solve the problem. I find this funny since in most court cases they enforce it by looking for responsible parties!

Case in point: I am in Jonesboro, AR...remember the shooting about 2 years ago at the grade school? The courts just now threw out the case where the prosecuters were trying to make the grandparents of the children responsible for the crime because it was the grandfather's gun. The children broke into the grandparents house and broke into the grandfathers gun case to get the weapons! I was glad to see it thrown out after a year and a half in court. Don't get me wrong, these were horrible crimes, but we do the children who committed the crime, the victims, the victims relatives, and society a disservice if we continue to think this way. The problem won't be solved...it will get worse!

When will the madness end?

jj

[This message has been edited by jeffj (edited 05-12-2000).]
 
There's that word again. "Liberal".
Banning weapons and especially censorship is an ultimately conservative act. Both "Liberal" and "Conservative" groups do it, though. What does this tell us?
Both groups are afraid, and therefore take action, any action, to try to make things better. They just don't check the cause of what's making things bad to begin with.

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Oz

"This is your life, and it's ending; One minute at a time."
http://www.freespeech.org/oz/
 
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