Encyclopedia Dramatica Owner May Face Charges Down Under... Despite Not Being In Australia
from the jurisdictional-issues dept
You would think after all these years on the internet we would have figured out how to deal with basic jurisdictional issues, but there are still plenty of countries who think that the laws in their country can reach over borders and be applied to people and websites in completely different countries, just because they don't like it. The problem with this, of course, is that if this is true, it automatically creates a very low ceiling for all internet communications, since they are all automatically held to the most draconian censorship laws out there. But, still, someone sees something they don't like online, even if it's from another country, and legal threats come out.The latest such example involves the guy who runs Encyclopedia Dramatica, which might be simply described as... 4chan's version of Wikipedia, or the "internet troll's Wikipedia." However you want to describe it, it's filled with content you probably don't want your mom looking at. But, it's quite an institution at this point.
But it turns out that the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC) is upset about a "deliberately offensive article about Aborigines," and is threatening to take the site's operator, Joseph Evers, to court. The thing is, the stuff on Encyclopedia Dramatica are deliberately offensive to pretty much everyone. That's the point. But the nice thing about the internet is that if you don't like that sort of thing, you can avoid it. Furthermore, Evers is in the US and isn't breaking any US laws.
But really, what good does this do for Aborigines or Australia? All this threat does is call a lot more attention to this offensive article. Prior to this most people now reading about it never would have known about it. Those who spend their time on ED would see it, but that's what they find amusing anyway. Of course, it also turns out that ED is apparently on Australia's "secret" censorship filter list, so if the gov't ever gets around to forcing ISPs to block sites, the people offended by ED won't be able to access it (and everyone else will just route around the filters anyway).
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Filed Under: australia, cencorship, encyclopedia dramatica, joseph evers, jurisdiction
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ED
Off Topic: I like tricking my epileptic friend into going to the ED page on epilepsy. It's funny to watch her twitch.
Disclaimer: I don't really do this because looking at that page makes me twitch and I can't imagine what it would end up doing to her. I've always wanted to see, but decency gets in the way of curiosity sometimes.
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Re: ED
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speaking of "twit"ching
just DONT GO THERE
ugh ban it in router or modem and dont say anything to kids
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Irony
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ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
This is considered breaking the laws once an individual or family is harassed, threatened, blackmailed, extorted, injured, harmed, property damaged, theft, trespassing, vandalized, etc. and causes trauma to the targets IN the article.
Often, people are TRICKED into (the above noted) trolling, hating, bullying, picking on, etc. on people without any reason.
I think these articles need to be reviewed by the HOST of the website and LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT. Fuck the government. The LAW has to get involved. The host will remove an article when the police tell it to. If not, the host is charged for hosting that content AND the owner is held liable for all charges implied.
Just saying. I feel that everybodys articles should be removed. It ruins online and some offline reputations (especially if your FIRST AND LAST NAME are linked and your boss happens to google you, say GOOD BYE JOB. Fired if they believe any of that BS in those articles.)
Thanks for your understanding. That's my rant.
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
Sexually-edited stolen photos, videos, etc. The users are known to do that to people.
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
And in general, people who cannot generally tell fact from fiction need a reminder that not everything is true.
Though, hey, if you wanna be the sheriff o' the interwebs, well, good luck.
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
How do you trick someone into trolling, hating, bullying, etc.? Did these unwitting criminals think they were somehow being friendly? Are they really that insanely stupid?
I simply cannot see how any web page can trick you into being a criminal-level jerk. I can see how a web site can give criminals a way to coordinate, but then so can the telephone, craigslist, classified ads, fliers, or any other communications medium. Why is ED so special?
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Re: Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
Because the webmaster openly supports this criminal behaviour. On most other websites, such plans of committing crimes or posting defamatory material will be deleted and the poster/his IP address might be reported to the police.
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Internet_is_serious_business
http://encyclopediadramatic a.com/Anti-lulz
fuck you and have a nice day
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way to mess up their lives one way or another AND encouraging online to be taken offline.. CRIME ALERT!)
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Re: ED's Crimes (the users making articles about people in a way
fuck you, you government-hating and hypocritical bastard!
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ED
On the other hand, it's just a bunch of flamebait, and hyperbolic trash-talk, and ultimately pointless. It's pretty obvious that if you take it too seriously, it's exactly what its creators want.
Then again, there is a whole generation of older people who have little understanding of the internet as a culture and don't care to learn.
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Secondly, the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission should focus their efforts on issues that actually harm Aboriginals. What people seem to forget is that opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one. Someone spouting their opinion on a private website is inconsequencial to the welfare of Aboriginals.
The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission should focus on issues that matter, like prejudice by police officers (they call aboriginals coons in all communities outside of capital cities), Aboriginals raping their own children and other prejudice by companies or institutions.
By going after this private website, you are just atttracting attention to some idiot's opinions.
According to AIUK http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=11219, I can't see any human rights that have been infringed upon, except for the Human rights of the author at ED. (Article 19, We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people wherever they live, through books, radio, television and in other ways.)
What bugs me even more is that the pages on white people, Jews, Indians, etc etc are the same as the one on aboriginals, yet my pale white Human Rights are not infringed by ED. What this tells me is that Aboriginal human rights are more important that white human rights.
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Re: Rights
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Do you know the webmaster of ED personally? Are you his friend? Can you be sure that you as a single person will never get defamed on his website? Why are you defending him?
Is it right for you say what you like when other people's life get ruined that way? I think the webmaster of ED is a sociopath that only cares about his success and not about human rights.
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That's the point, Australia has NO jurisdiction over websites that are not hosted IN Australia - no country has such jurisdiction.
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What?
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ED is a cesspool of trolling.
Trolling is to get reactions out of people. And oh did the users of ED win the internetz this time.
Pesonally, I think its hilarious.
Im australian, I found some things offensive, sure. But the real bad things I avoided.
Such as the offended page.
Australia sucks.
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Re:
If you're not careful what you say, write, type and/or post, you will get your ass handed to you.
And if you and trolls think that you and them can win the Internet this time, then you and them should be prepared to lose your and their lives for being total jerkasses.
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ED Sueage
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This makes me sick.. & sad to be Aussie
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Human Wrongs
Suppressing the true and fundamental rights freedom of expression because people might be offended, not harmed - offended (ah, diddums), is a massive ABUSE of human rights. I wish those that claim to be upholding these rights could see this.
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Re: Human Wrongs
You are allowed to express yourself, as long as you don't hurt others. ED is clearly crossing the line. Better shut up as long as you don't experience oppression daily.
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Also, this entire thing is completely pointless, becuase even if they succeed, the content will just be hosted elsewhere.
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Next time on Action 10 News
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I already knew our government had no idea how the internet works, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the HREOC doesn't either.
Let them just try to do something about a website in another country.. LOL
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This is some aussie trolling Dow Jones;
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/10/1039379819086.html
That article about Aboriginals is true if you ever visit Australia check out Darwin on dole day.
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Encyclopedia Dramatica
This same argument was used against American Indians (okay, I am part American Indian - the good part) and African Americans (okay, I am part African American - good too) and Irish (got me again) and Welsh (ouch, again!) and lately French (oooo! Great grandmother, they don't like us!), and .... but you get the point.
As Jesus said, the weak and oppressed need protection that the (realatively) wealthy and accepted don't need. (Not an exact quote, but accurate).
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Re: Encyclopedia Dramatica
~ Oscar Wilde on Uncyclopedia and ED
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I am ashamed to be an Australian
It seems that the only people who care about implementing internet censorship are the bought Australian Government and Offended Aboriginals.
I live in a small town which white people built for the Aborigines to live in, they decided to move 1km away to live in the wild like they did before European settlement, they come to town for various supplies.
My aboriginal friend was not offended by the ED article, rather he was offended that somebody wanted to perform censorship upon it.
The article speaks truth about how the Aboriginals have been culturally destroyed by the Jews.
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ED: maintained by sociopaths
I wonder if the author has checked ED thoroughly. What "The Root" wrote is true. ED disguises their criminal actions as satire and parody to get away with the laws.
ED is not harmless. Some people might believe and take things serious that are written there. It's not fiction when you get falsely called a pedophile on ED, then few days later people spit at you or punch you on the streets because of that rumour. When private information about an individual person is posted, it's obvious that it's used to incite sociopaths to harass that person. What else would the reason be?
Parents of deceased teenagers are getting harassed and have to endure jokes and mockery about their dead child which they supported for years, people with disability are exposed as freaks to get mocked and harassed as well, emos get bashed just because they are part of a music scene, people with strange but harmless sexual fetishes get stigmatized as freaks too to be shunned or harassed. Gore and gross sexual images are posted there, along with a sarcastic comment which will most probably offend the relatives of these victims. Some articles sympathize with serial killers, just(?) for shock value.
ED is NOT a harmless website. Many people could tell what happened to them because they were exposed on that website if other medias gave them a voice.
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Re: ED: maintained by sociopaths
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Are you people serious?
Just because some people are offended by content on a website doesn't mean the site owner is responsible. If that were true then I could sue Wikipedia for containing pages on Christianity...because it offends me. My friend could sue them for having pages on Hitler or the Nazis...because she's jewish & that offends her.
What would be next? Suing every blogger if you don't like what they write?
It's a slippery slope with censorship instead of using common sense, you begin to 're-write' history & delete the realities of life.
To the person referring to personal information & identifying information being revealed, everything you listed is public information. It's actually on thousands of websites if you look for it. Pretty easily too.
The Dramatica site doesn't promote offline violence any more than kids on Myspace or Facebook...which have both had deaths related to them. Encyclopedia Dramatica has not.
So excuse me, I have to go sue some websites that promote Dr. Seuss since green eggs & ham highly offend me.
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Re: Are you people serious?
You claim to have common sense but you want to sue Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham even though that author's dead. What a deluded, biased, and self-righteous jerk you are.
Are you blind to how bad Encyclopedia Dramatica is? If so, then don't blame me if you get a huge amount trouble with it.
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White People...
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dsfsd
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Re:
hypocritical much? that website's full of bullshit and so are its fans. therefore, it should be destroyed.
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Damn, the internet has become retarded
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Re: Damn, the internet has become retarded
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lulz
2. As mentioned above, so if a website has something I dislike I can sue them then?
3. As mentioned above, if you dont like ED why the hell are you on it anyways?
4. As mentioned above, this just shows how desperate the Aussie goverment is to show that Abos are somehow better then the white, black or jewish races... ED has articles on every religion and somehow only Abos page is being talked about?
5. Internet is serious business.
6. Im 12 and what is this?
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Oh rly?
BRB, making some fun abunoriginal troll sites in every country on the internet and every registrar. Have fun taking them down. :-D
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Re: Oh rly?
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Pissed off.
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Re: Pissed off.
For your information, a true ED hater wouldn't dare anyone to antagonize him or her for expressing his or her opinion. Instead, she or he would fight back.
Another reason why I changed my mind about joining your in your hatred for ED is because you support the Uncyclopedia, which I'm against as much as ED. Can you not see that it's as bad and harmful as ED?!
But don't think that I'll ever join those ED jerks against you. If you're not careful on how you behave, you'll pay the price for it.
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ED
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Re: ED
I remember this one male troll who went so far in flamin' other people online that many those folks got back at him until he couldn't take it anymore. And so, he quit.
If you don't want those same things happening to you, then you better watch yourself.
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Take it for what it is!
The not safe for work site celebrates a subversive "trolling culture", and documents Internet memes, culture, and events, such as mass organized pranks, trolling events, "raids", large scale failures of Internet security, and criticism of Internet communities which are accused of self-censorship in order to garner prestige or positive coverage from traditional and established media outlets.
ED is a site where almost every article is biased, offensive, unsourced, and without the faintest trace of political correctness. A search through its archives will reveal animated images of people committing suicide, articles glorifying extreme racism and sexism, and a seemingly endless supply of twisted, shocking views on just about every major human tragedy in history.
Take it for what it is, or don't read it!
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Re: Take it for what it is!
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how full of shit you are, you hypocritical troll. are you deluded? it's ironic that you bitched about a guy who you called a troll and a wanker when those two words describe you. if i didn't know any better, i'd say that you've been corrupted by that satirical website. do you really think that you're any better than the people who you hate? if so, you're really a self-righteous cunt, especially for claiming that that crap is funny.
so do me a favor and go fuck yourself to death.
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