Bloggers vs A4e - Poverty Pimps Attempt Internet Censorship
riotact | 26.07.2009 09:10 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | World
Calling all bloggers!
Poverty pimps A4e seem to be intent on starting a cyberwar after now seemingly shutting down two blogs which were critical of their shady shenanigans.
Poverty pimps A4e seem to be intent on starting a cyberwar after now seemingly shutting down two blogs which were critical of their shady shenanigans.
It's already been reported (1) that the website ‘Watching a4e‘ (2) had been taken offline by freewebs (3). According to freewebs someone had alleged 'dafamatory content, that someone seems alomst certain to have been A4e. We can now reveal it appears they haven’t stopped there in their bid to censor criticism on the internet.
New Deal Scandal (4) have had their wordpress account suspended after receiving the following notice on their dashboard:
“We have a concern about some of the content on your blog. Please click here to contact us as soon as possible to resolve the issue and re-enable posting.”
According to New Deal Scandal they are now unable to post any new material on the blog and have received limited information so far as to why. WordPress have also made this post (5) on the blog private. This post contains the information that in April of this year Neil Watson resigned from his directorship at A4e. The post can be found in the ever helpful google cache here (6).
Now this is all pretty tame stuff. Early indications suggest that A4e have contacted wordpress informing them that Neil Watson is still an employee of A4e. Nowhere in the offending piece does it say he isn’t, it merely points out his resignation taken from Company House Records as detailed here (7).
Several things seem possible. Perhaps Companies House records are wrong. Perhaps New Deal Scandal made up this rather trivial fact in the light of other more serious accusations aimed at A4e. Perhaps, somewhere, a mistake has been made.* UPDATE BELOW
Or perhaps, and most likely, A4e feel the noose tightening and have panicked, whereas wordpress have seemingly rolled over in the face of a corporate legal onslaught from a company already facing investigations of fraud.
Whatever the truth a worrying precedant is being set. If Neil Watson is still a director of A4e Ltd then a simple clairification from A4e to New Deal Scandal would not have gone amiss. From our dealings with the site they seem particularly consistent in establishing the truth before they post (even going so far as to hide potentially libellous comments) and it’s likely a retraction would have been published.
But that’s doesn’t seem to be what A4e did regardless of the truth of the matter. Much like in the case of Watching A4e, they appear to have snuck behind the backs of the bloggers to threaten the platform they published on. And so far both those platforms have backed corporate might rather than the bloggers, hacks and citizen journalists on which their empires are based.
Will this see any company with a hefty legal department able to close down criticism without debate or basic checks made to see if the information is true?
Folks the very future of what you all call the blogosphere could be in danger.
At present wordpress appear to be looking into it and New Deal Scandal appear to be attempting to glean information from wordpress as to exactly what A4e’s fucking problem is.
Perhaps the war profiteering poverty pimps are getting nervous with the prospect of that juicy Flexible New Deal contract looking ever more shaky.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this and posting new info as we receive it. In the meantime we call on all bloggers and associated internet itinerants to act in solidairty by posting information about this latest attempt to censor free speech and honest criticism on the internet.
*here’s a screenshot taken from the records at Companies House (8)
(1)
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/a4e-war-criminals-fraudsters-and-bullies/ (2)
http://watchinga4e.blogspot.com/ (3)
http://www.freewebs.com/watchinga4e/ (4)
http://newdealscandal.wordpress.com/ (5)
http://newdealscandal.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/a4e-new-deal-fraud-finance-director-resigned/ (6)
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:yzHqf3F-E3gJ:newdealscandal.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/a4e-new-deal-fraud-finance-director-resigned/+DIRECTOR+RESIGNED+NEIL+WATSON&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a (7)
http://newdealscandal.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/a4e-fraud-company-switch/ (8)
http://johnnyvoid.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/a4e_companieshouse.gif?w=500&h=251 
riotact
Homepage:
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com
Comments
Hide the following 4 comments
Free Speech costs.
26.07.2009 11:22
A4E can be exposed if you buy a small bit of space on some host who is known for allowing contentious material.
Eyes Higher
The Contentious Material
26.07.2009 16:15
2) get a large number of people to create blogs in order to upload the contentious material.
3) On a predetermined day upload the material.
Wordpress is reactive. A4e will need to find and report each item. Each time they do report it on the original blog. Providing there is nothing defamatory or illegal in the material then A4e can not prevent people from blogging it only complain when they do so. If enough blogs were to be created, Wordpress might tire of protecting the reputation of A4e as they should clearly prosecute all of the people posting if the matter is that serious.
Directors resign all the time and Companies House are obliged to report it. It is not necessarily a serious matter. There should be no need to obtain space on a server that specifically hosts contentious material in order to report it. That places a perfectly reasonable statement into question by associating it with "contentious material".
The matter of fraud against the public purse is serious and worthy of reporting. If Wordpress decline to allow such blogging then they might wish to make that clear in their terms and conditions.
Another Anonymous
not just A4E
27.07.2009 14:06
Keith
Careers Development Group
28.07.2009 16:37
These unemployment training scams are little more than fraud on the public purse. At a time when public spending is being cut, why is this waste of public money allowed to continue? It cannot be through lack of complaints as Job Centres regularly receive complaints about CDG.
At CDG, unemployed sit around all day bored stiff. Bullying and intimidation is rife. CDG will quite willingly fabricate false charges against their critics.
If forced to attend a CDG boot camp, people are worse off. There is restricted computer access. Computer use is monitored. Computers are old-style VDUs under fluorescent lighting, non adjustable chairs, all of which leads to health problems including eye strain, headaches and back strain. Newspapers and trade journals are lacking. Often far from home where one could be looking for work.
If you are reading this, talk to your fellow inmates. Encourage them to complain at their local Job Centre and back them when they do.
CDG was so frightened of criticism on Indymedia that they barred people from reading any of the material. This dramatically back fired. Old hands ran off hard copies and handed them out to newly arrived inmates.
Some people have been sent back to CDG for the third time. What an appalling waste of public money.
If you are on New Deal and being given a hard time, ask awkward questions. Ask why is public money being wasted. Ask how many complaints. Ask for data on the number of people who have got jobs. Ask why no monitoring is taking place. Ask why complaints are being ignored. If you get no answers, file a Freedom of Information request.
Read the New Deal small print. You can do an educational element instead of a scam training course. Say you wish to do the educational element.
An independent investigation into these spongers who are milking the unemployment system is long overdue. What is the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office doing? Are our MPs too busy milking their expenses to notice a blatant fraud under their very nose?
Keith