The SPICe (Stop Philippine Internet Censorship) Campaign is a new blog BBN Partner Abe recently told me about through his personal blog. It promises to “shed light and make everyone aware of the bane that is Internet censorship.” Writer WyLd X asks that you “Join me in this fight to keep the Internet an open medium and not be pigeon-holed by traditional bureaucratic garbage.”
Whether or not the recent Boy Bastos controversy served as an inspiration (SPICe only cites the EFF), it will be interesting to see what dirt The SPICe Campaign digs up. WyLd has already featured an apparently raunchy site undergoing some scrutiny, talking about demographics and sharing his own experiences as a web publisher.
The Philippines is a paradox in many ways. Slum towns flank modern business districts. There are hundreds of local dialects, but most Filipinos have at least basic proficiency in English. We like to think that some members of the Philippine senate don’t have a good grasp of the online world. Yet their website makes full use of RSS and PDFs.
That’s right: So long as any politically-motivated blogger subscribes to the Philippine Senate RSS feed, they’ll be notified of new Philippine Senate press releases. The senate website also has a searchable database of bills, resolutions, acts, and government partnerships, all in PDF format.
Never was discussing, supporting, or criticizing our elected officials’s policies so easy! It was Loren Legarda’s Boy Bastos press release that clued me in to Mark Verzo’s legal problems.
My original post on boy bastos being shut down is just part of the interesting discussion over the whole issue.
The Warrior Lawyer has been earning links for his post on freedom of expression balanced with the anti-porn section of the revised penal code of the Philippines. It condemns
“the authors of obscene literature, published with their knowledge in any form; the editors publishing such literature; and the owners/operators of the establishment selling the same.”
Who sets the standards of obscenity and immorality? An American judge saying “I know it when I see it”? What about magazines like FHM and even Men’s Health, which, no matter how you look at it, contains content that many people would find offensive. Why do they escape scrutiny, or at the very least continue to operate unchecked? Is it because they stay just a hair below explicitness?
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Have you heard what happened to boybastos.com?
What about the new iPod Touch and the death of the Foleo?
Ever visited Roxas City, the hometown of this blogger’s mum?
Glanced upon the visual reminder of the 2nd Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards?
Seen Lignon hill from thousands of kilometers above?
Felt the heat of Cebu’s fashion explosion?
Discovered Splendicity’s contests through Style Manila?
Teary-eyed from Sophie’s smoky eye tetralogy?
Tried escaping from the stereotypical mother-in-law?
So many questions, so many answers! Only on The Bayanihan Blog Network.
A few days ago, Senator Loren Legarda issued a press release asking authorities “to find ways to shut off boybastos.com.” The user-driven porn site responded with a dare, and eventually apologized for “taking a break“, blaming traffic overload. Yesterday, National Bureau of Investigation (the local version of the FBI) served Mark Verzo, apparently the owner of the domain boybastos.com, with a search warrant. They went through his house and confiscated equipment, while a rep was at hand to provide some soundbites for the TV viewing public:
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