Independent News Site Fraudulently Blacklisted by Internet Explorer After Negative Bill Gates Article

Friday, November 5, 2010@Activist Post

Is the Internet Blacklist already being enforced via web browsers?  Microsoft's Internet Explorer recommended that visitors should not access Activist Post today, claiming the site contains threats to outside computers.  First, we want to assure all of our visitors that this is blatantly FALSE. Our site does not contain any viruses, malware, or data-harvesting capabilities.  We have a voluntary and confidential sign-up mechanism for our free weekly newsletter, which apparently now falls under the category of illegal data mining according to Microsoft.

Our website runs on a Google Blogger back-end which immediately declines any material that may be "malicious."  This back-end also makes it easy for us to scan our entire site for potential viruses or other problems.  This scan is, and always has been, 100% clean.  Furthermore, our technical team ran a check at Website Grader which tests various aspects of a site, including cleanliness Activist Post scored a 97% (FAR above the average).  Yet, Microsoft has taken an anonymous tip from a user as enough evidence to deter access to our site.  Meanwhile, other browsers such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox have similar malware protection, yet none of them flagged Activist Post today.

What's interesting about the timing of this possible censorship is that it comes on a day when we posted an article that reflects negatively on Bill Gates.  It appears that his empire carries out vendettas by deterring access to websites not favorable to their overlord.  We did receive a complaint through our contact form from a reader listing the e-mail address: office@heavenaboveyourlife.com.  This email address is not valid and the domain is not currently registered.

All of the information about the cleanliness of our site, and the potential false tip, was easily obtained by our tech staff within minutes.  Why couldn't a behemoth like Microsoft do the same?

This appears to be the latest tactic the establishment will use to shut down access to alternative voices, making visitors believe that the site is "harmful" to their computer.  We have been informed by Microsoft that this is basically a guilty-until-proven-innocent situation, since we certainly weren't contacted to counter any claim in advance of the warning they posted. 

Internet Explorer users represent 42% of our visitors, while representing a similar overall market share.  For alternative sites that are 100% user-funded through visiting sponsors and donations, this can be a damaging blow that has the potential to force people out of business.  Welcome to the free market of ideas.

Our technical team is working hard on restoring our site to Internet Explorer users.  Presently, it is fully accessible and safe to view from Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari.  In protest of such shenanigans, we hope that readers will drop IE and use a different browser, as this type of censorship is likely to continue from the Gates Gestapo.  One can also send a statement to Microsoft that our site has been clean in your experience.  Click HERE to submit.

UPDATE:  We're hearing reports that site accessibility with Internet Explorer has been returned.  If you continue to have problems accessing our site with that browser please do the following: In Internet Explorer go to the Tools menu, select "Smart Screen Filter" and choose to "Turn Off Smart Screen Filter."  After completing this, accessibility should be returned immediately.