Update: Wow that was quick! OpenDNS has rejected the Hate/Discrimination tag. I was expecting that their review policy would be much more difficult.
As much as I appreciate the Recommends and a brief visit back to the Rec List, please unrecommend this diary to make way for others that are more appropriate now.
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Last week my employer announced a plan to start filtering web access and my first thought when I saw the announcement was "how long before DKos was blocked?" Like most workplaces, my employer has a proper use of company resources policy that is broad enough to let them do that sort of thing and I really don't have a problem with them doing something like that.
So yesterday the axe fell, but not for the reason that I expected...
My employer is using OpenDNS to filter web access and according to their announcement they would block inappropriate content such as "gambling, games, peer-to-peer, adware, pornography and sites that promote hate/discrimination." When I got the notice that www.dailykos.com was blocked it stated that DKos was blocked because it was a Hate/Discrimination site. WTF? Sure enough I checked OpenDNS' domain tagging page and this is what I found http://domain.opendns.com/...
Apparently OpenDNS uses some sort of community moderation where users can nominate sites for certain categories and other members vote Yes, No or Don't Know. Some OpenDNS user named speakeasyinc nominated DailyKos as a Hate/Discrimination site and it looks like as of yesterday enough other members said Yes and so DKos is now blocked (because my employer chooses not to allow sites with a Hate/Discrimination tag).
Hey, if my employer doesn't want to allow political sites, I'd grumble but it's certainly within their rights. However, apparently someone with an agenda took it upon themselves to use the OpenDNS system to try to block a site (or sites) that they don't approve of the political message. Take a look at the way that OpenDNS classifies these prominent conservative sites: Red State, LGF, Free Republic.
My question is "how do we get the classification changed?" I admit that my first thought was to set up an OpenDNS account myself and start nominating conservative sites as Hate/Discrimination sites but as satisfying as that might be that's not consistent with my liberal principles. If I don't want my rights taken away the solution isn't to take away others rights.
Final update:
phenery has a diary up titled Help Fight Right-Wing Censorship at OpenDNS that lists a bunch of sites that an OpenDNS user is apparently trying to get listed as Hate sites. Let's not let that happen - go check out phenery's diary and see what you can do...