As reported yesterday, the English Defence League website has just been taken down by its provider, presumably due to a posted article about the Koran’s instructions for relations with infidels.
The service which hosted the EDL until yesterday was 1and1. It’s hard to know for certain why the company decided to pull the website, but we can make an informed guess by looking at 1and1’s General Terms and Conditions of Service:
First of all:
6. CUSTOMER OBLIGATIONS
6.1
The Customer shall:-
Ensure that it complies at all times with all relevant laws and obligations including but not limited to any licence under the Act which is applicable to the Customer and all related laws in any territory in which the Customer is situated or in which the Customer’s Website may be accessed or made available.
And then a little further down:
6.2
The Customer shall NOT:-
[…]
6.2.2
send, transmit, make available, copy, retransmit, broadcast or publish (whether directly or indirectly) in whatever form any data, information or contractual rights, material or statement which infringes the Intellectual Property Rights or contractual or statutory rights of any person or legal entity or the laws or statutory regulations relating to defamation, contempt, blasphemy, infringement of privacy or personal data rights and any equivalent or related laws in any territory in which they are or may be accessed or made available; [italics added]
As regular readers know, Muslims consider it blasphemy for non-believers to quote the Koran or publicize the truth about Islamic doctrines. So the blasphemy clause might very well explain the action taken by 1and1.
But why didn’t they at least have the courtesy to notify the EDL of their decision? Here’s a possible explanation:
- - - - - - - - -
8.4
The Company reserves the right to terminate this Agreement without notice upon any of the following events:- (a) the Charges and/or Additional Charges are outstanding for more than 20 calendar days; (b) the Customer is in breach of his obligations as set out in Clause 6.1.4, 6.1.5, 6.1.7, 6.1.9, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, 6.2.4, 6.2.5, 6.2.6, 6.2.7, 6.2.8 and 12; (c) the Customer fails, despite prior warning to remedy a breach of Clause 6.2.7. [italics added]
OK, now I get it. This is a digital-age version of Catch-22, which says that they don’t have to show you the Catch.
That’s some catch, that Catch-22.
Mind you, 1and1 doesn’t have any problems hosting www.bintjbeil.com, one of Hizbullah’s affiliated sites. Business is business, right?
Interested parties may contact the press office.
Richard Stevenson — Press Contact
Head of Corporate Communications
Aquasulis House
10-14 Bath Road
Slough SL1 3SA
press@1and1.co.uk
UK press / analyst enquiries:
Richard Stevenson, Head of Corporate Communications
01753 490 435
richard.stevenson@1and1.co.uk
Thomas Plünnecke
PR Executive
Also: a little backgrounder on the company (pdf).
6 comments:
In hoc signo vinces
Any chance of Liberty or The National Secular Society (NSS) championing this case. :)
I would have thought under the equality and diversity laws a blasphemy clause is highly contentious.
I would have thought under the equality and diversity laws a blasphemy clause is highly contentious.
Read that clause again. "send in whatever form any statement that infringes laws relating to defamation, contempt, or blasphemy in any territory where they may be accessed or made available". Any territory, including such civil rights stalwarts as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. 1&1 has explicitly made Sharia law controlling over its content policy.
In hoc signo vinces
"1&1 currently serves over 10 million domain names at its 60,000 server strong ‘green’ powered data centres. The UK headquarters is in Slough, west of London, and European customer websites are hosted in state of the art facilities in Karlsruhe, Germany."
Presumably this would make them accountable to all sorts of weird and wonderful UK and European Union laws.
Thanks for the info! They are back up today. :)
randian: 1&1 has explicitly made Sharia law controlling over its content policy.
This is the bottom line. Just the notion of "blasphemy" guidelines represents a genuine enfringement on Free Speech. While private enterprises may set any rules they like, there really needs to be an organized effort to boycott all companies who seek to stifle freedom of expression in this manner.
The fact that 1&1 is engaging in self-censorship while abasing itself to Islam should be reason enough to cease doing business with them. This sort of pre-compliance with shari'a law should always be a major alert that another dhimmi is bowing and scraping to Mecca.
One man's blasphemy is another man's devotion.
The intolerant faith of Islam blasphemes against my faith, which could be called The Honoring of Sacred Knowledge, a non-denominational, pragmatic nature mysticism, agnostic in many things, and Taoistic at many angles.
Art is a transcendent discovery, which surpasses even the creativity of the Designing monotheistic God.
Our invention of realms which never existed in Nature, -like the the discovery of how to render in 2-D the perspective of a 3-D scene- exceed the Given Reality.
Along with countless other species-wide acquisitions, from Fire to DNA.
Knowing the nobility of our flame puts an end to any Dark Age need to cripple and extinguish humanity's creativity in order to placate a Jealous, Insecure Deity.
An Infinite Impulse - universally-fertile- would hardly be unimaginative enough to resent its own offspring sharing in its divine spark.
Those naive iconoclasts- like Mohammad, et al- who try to blind mankind~ as a tool to keep its attention focused on the prophet's own Vision~ insult the Creator and deform humanity.
Islam blasphemes against me.
And all who value our human spark.
I want Islam stopped in its murderous tracks from proselytizing its hysterical brutality any further in the West.
Blasphemers!
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