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Thursday, 4 December 2008

The blog host, the blogger and the blogged

I don’t like what I’m seeing over at MediaWatchWatch.

It appears the blog host WordPress has shied away from hosting some cartoons that happen to depict a historical figure.

Oh, that’s a bloke called Mohamed, by the way.

MediaWatchWatch tells us, “Wordpress.com has suspended the account of an Indonesian blogger for publishing cartoons of Muhammed which the Indonesian government deemed ‘very inappropriate’.”

The blog had cartoon strips that had stories about Mohammed’s sexual adventures, including one with his stepdaughter-in-law.

“[T]he stories appear to be lifted wholesale from Islamic holy texts, so the objections are no doubt to do with the actual depiction of Mo and a reluctance to have his sexual shenanigans publicised,” says MediaWatchWatch.

If you type the blog name, lapotuak.wordpress.com into your browser you – at the moment, anyway – get a message saying, “This blog has been suspended or archived for violation of our Terms of Service.”

But MediaWatchWatch’s owner, the Monitor, points out that it’s not in breach of the terms of service because the cartoon strip that’s being objected to is not defamatory.

And that should make all bloggers worry – including us here at PT. What if Blogger, our host, decided to do likewise when we mention some hairy-faced geezer who launched what has turned out to be a benighted religion that wants to spread its censorship and inequalities the world over?

How long before that last sentence will be disallowed?

1 comment:

  1. A question if A'isha was a boy would mohammed have been a catholic ?

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