You know, I'm beginning to panic over the state of society in the U.S. I am at a deli/coffee shop in the Pittsburgh, PA USA area. This establishment has free wi-fi access, which is good. Sonic Wall content filtering service is in use, this is very bad. A couple of weeks ago I was having trouble researching strings for my guitar and my viola because any page that had "g string" in it was filtered out (Okay, I'll admit that once I figured it out I had a good laugh over that one). I also noticed that the popular blog Talking Points Memo was being blocked.
This has me very perplexed. The only thing that I can think of is that Mr. Marshall blogged once or twice about John Kerry breaking a guitar string. I really couldn't find anything on that website to offend anyone except some actual analysis of current affairs. Today I discovered that the site for the Christian Science Monitor (a well-respected national newspaper) is also being blocked by this service. This publication prints many "cutting edge" articles about science, religion, politics and world events. I can see no reason for this website to be blocked by the Sonic Wall Service. Maybe it had an article about the mating habits of raccoons or something a while back and now the site is blocked.
I'm beginning to think this sort of content filtering is nothing short of censorship. One site I'm sure is wrongfully blocked is www.penisland.net. Though that one is totally understandable. (I got that link from The Dave Barry Blog).