Astaro Web Filtering Software Categorizes Mere Rhetoric As A Hate Site, Blocks Student Access
A senior from a Colorado high school emailed us this morning to tell us that his school's web filtering software is blocking Mere Rhetoric:
Hey Omri... Apparently some think that your blog constitutes some form of political extremism. When I tried to access it through my school's network, I was amazed to find it blocked.... you might find it of interest that the huffington post is not as of yet blocked.
Screencap:
Just as an intellectual exercise, here is a very brief list of arguably relevant differences between Mere Rhetoric and the Huffington Post:
(1) The Huffington Post recently published a photo of a US Senator that was photoshopped to paint blackface on him. In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to publish racist photos.
(2) The Huffington Post recently featured a cartoon focusing on stereotypically-drawn Jewish figures who eagerly plan to "kill everything that breathes". In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to feature either cartoons with hateful drawings or accusations involving ancient, shadowy, genocide-planning global cabals. Our posts about Hamas's and Hezbollah's and Iran's genocidal intentions don't count - copying and pasting their press releases isn't an "accusation".
(3) The Huffington Post recently hosted a disturbingly enthusiastic thought experiment describing the electoral advantages that the Democrats could gain from another terrorist attack on the US. In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to brainstorm GOTV strategies that rely on the mass murder of civilians.
(4) The Huffington Post recently provided space for a conversation that began as just your typical Leftist collection of lurid and wide-eyed anti-Israel conspiracy theories - but that then somehow devolved into dark suggestions about an Israeli "master plan". In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to deploy rhetoric that is historically implicated in the construction, legitimization, and justification of the Nazi Final Solution.
And that's before we get to the HP's consistent cheerleading for Mearsheimer's increasingly creepy fascination with the Jewish State... Listen, snark aside - this is kind of absurd. Mere Rhetoric is most reasonably somewhere between center-right and right on the political spectrum. We support a two-state solution and the prosecution of genuine war crimes. We supported disengagement when it was happening and we supported Kadima's realignment plan back when there were actually people advocating it. That there are also posts describing the geopolitical, cultural, and moral justifications for a secure Jewish homeland cannot be a justification for accusations of political extremism or hate speech. Quite the opposite - the right of a UN member to continue existing in peace is almost the definition of a centrist position, regardless of whether that member is Israel or not. We understand that there are people on the Left who can't distinguish between our positions and the positions of genuine extremists – if you're looking at Earth from light years away, Los Angeles looks like Tokyo. But we also don't think that those people should be determining what students get to see.
We've written Astaro to request a description of what triggered the "hate" site categorization. Their form promises a response within one business day, so hopefully we'll have more information soon. We're inclined to believe that there's a perfectly innocent explanation for this (no sarcasm intended - these tasks are automated, and we use many of the same words as genuine hate sites... and that's without considering quotes). But the alternative - a politicized attempt to move acceptable discourse far leftwards - is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
UPDATE: There is at least one innocent explanation for this fiasco. It could be that Astaro's text-parsing algorithms can't understand sarcasm. In which case they should under no circumstances let them loose anywhere near the blogosphere.
UPDATE 2: Chances of deliberate agenda-pushing growing dimmer. Astaro's filters don't seem to have any problem with LGF, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, Hot Air, of PJM. Our best guess is that one of these three things pissed off their spider:
(1) we were criticizing a hate site, and copied and pasted a block of text from it as an example
(2) we were criticizing a hate site, and we inserted a hyperlink to the site so that readers could see it for themselves
(3) we were in the middle of a really bitter diatribe and wrote something that was meant to be taken as sarcasm - a rhetorical device potentially lost on Astaro's robot
Anyway, we can't do much about this situation until they give us some sort of response. We're going to stop our speculation until we get a little more data.
Hey Omri... Apparently some think that your blog constitutes some form of political extremism. When I tried to access it through my school's network, I was amazed to find it blocked.... you might find it of interest that the huffington post is not as of yet blocked.
Screencap:
Just as an intellectual exercise, here is a very brief list of arguably relevant differences between Mere Rhetoric and the Huffington Post:
(1) The Huffington Post recently published a photo of a US Senator that was photoshopped to paint blackface on him. In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to publish racist photos.
(2) The Huffington Post recently featured a cartoon focusing on stereotypically-drawn Jewish figures who eagerly plan to "kill everything that breathes". In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to feature either cartoons with hateful drawings or accusations involving ancient, shadowy, genocide-planning global cabals. Our posts about Hamas's and Hezbollah's and Iran's genocidal intentions don't count - copying and pasting their press releases isn't an "accusation".
(3) The Huffington Post recently hosted a disturbingly enthusiastic thought experiment describing the electoral advantages that the Democrats could gain from another terrorist attack on the US. In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to brainstorm GOTV strategies that rely on the mass murder of civilians.
(4) The Huffington Post recently provided space for a conversation that began as just your typical Leftist collection of lurid and wide-eyed anti-Israel conspiracy theories - but that then somehow devolved into dark suggestions about an Israeli "master plan". In sharp contrast, Mere Rhetoric has consistently declined to deploy rhetoric that is historically implicated in the construction, legitimization, and justification of the Nazi Final Solution.
And that's before we get to the HP's consistent cheerleading for Mearsheimer's increasingly creepy fascination with the Jewish State... Listen, snark aside - this is kind of absurd. Mere Rhetoric is most reasonably somewhere between center-right and right on the political spectrum. We support a two-state solution and the prosecution of genuine war crimes. We supported disengagement when it was happening and we supported Kadima's realignment plan back when there were actually people advocating it. That there are also posts describing the geopolitical, cultural, and moral justifications for a secure Jewish homeland cannot be a justification for accusations of political extremism or hate speech. Quite the opposite - the right of a UN member to continue existing in peace is almost the definition of a centrist position, regardless of whether that member is Israel or not. We understand that there are people on the Left who can't distinguish between our positions and the positions of genuine extremists – if you're looking at Earth from light years away, Los Angeles looks like Tokyo. But we also don't think that those people should be determining what students get to see.
We've written Astaro to request a description of what triggered the "hate" site categorization. Their form promises a response within one business day, so hopefully we'll have more information soon. We're inclined to believe that there's a perfectly innocent explanation for this (no sarcasm intended - these tasks are automated, and we use many of the same words as genuine hate sites... and that's without considering quotes). But the alternative - a politicized attempt to move acceptable discourse far leftwards - is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
UPDATE: There is at least one innocent explanation for this fiasco. It could be that Astaro's text-parsing algorithms can't understand sarcasm. In which case they should under no circumstances let them loose anywhere near the blogosphere.
UPDATE 2: Chances of deliberate agenda-pushing growing dimmer. Astaro's filters don't seem to have any problem with LGF, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, Hot Air, of PJM. Our best guess is that one of these three things pissed off their spider:
(1) we were criticizing a hate site, and copied and pasted a block of text from it as an example
(2) we were criticizing a hate site, and we inserted a hyperlink to the site so that readers could see it for themselves
(3) we were in the middle of a really bitter diatribe and wrote something that was meant to be taken as sarcasm - a rhetorical device potentially lost on Astaro's robot
Anyway, we can't do much about this situation until they give us some sort of response. We're going to stop our speculation until we get a little more data.
