In December 2010, Perking the Pansies was blocked by the Turkish internet police. I threw a hissy fit at the prospect of a firm hand on my door knob, a frisk by a frisky conscript and instant deportation. It all turned out to be a storm in a çay cup. Tens of thousands of Google blogs were instantly blacked out because they all shared the same IP address with a couple of Turkish websites that were infringing copyright law (laughable when you think that Turkey is flooded with counterfeit goods). As a result, my inconsequential ramblings were simply caught up in lazy censorship – the scatter gun approach punished the innocent and the guilty alike. My blog became, as the Americans say, ‘collateral damage‘. I had to shut up shop at Google and move lock, stock and barrel to new premises at Word Press.
Well, bugger me. It’s happened again. This time, the idiotic censors have targeted my personal website, jackscott.info, which I use to promote my book. I’d like to make some PR capital out of this by claiming anti-gay discrimination but, alas, I can’t. The circumstances are exactly as before. This time, it seems porn and gambling sites were targeted. I found one site sharing my IP address called Jail Bait; sounds like a particularly nasty little corner of the web. Ban illegal sites by all means but it can’t be beyond the wit of these petty bureaucrats to deal with offenders individually, instead of pulling the plug on thousands of innocent sites just because it’s easier.
I’m pleased to write that the problem has now been resolved by changing my IP address with my domain registrar. What a palavar.
Perking the Pansies 
Bureaucracy and irrationality are prevalent the world over, I see. Glad you were able to handle it quickly.
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How pathetic. But if bureaucracy is that dumb, it’s sometimes quite easy to deal with it…
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What with this and the current fiasco about healthcare, life here is getting a little ridiculous isn’t it? I sometimes have to remind myself why it is that I actually I love this country.
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Sometimes I despair, often I laugh but usually I just shrug my shoulders.
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What a nightmare! I suppose if it happens again you now know what to do. And now I know too. So thank you. I live in Moldova and don’t know if they even have an Internet police, but its best to be prepared.
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If they haven’t now, they may in the future. All govts (even in the west) are terrified of the power of the unfettered internet.
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with your own domain name; using the WordPress.org platform as opposed to .com and self-hosting means that you should have no problems unless they target you specifically – unlike these blanket IP/platform shut downs.
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I’m thinking of transferring to dot org for the blog. We’ll see. This time it was my personal website that was affected rather than the blog.
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