Comments

  1. robro says

    Well, there was that free amateur “porn” for Rush earlier today. That word could have triggered an automatic block setup by a lazy sys admin. Then, of course, there are all those pictures of and discussion about cephalopods.

  2. kevinalexander says

    Or the administrator is an RTC but couldn’t give the real reason.

    Kind of clever, he thinks, to do a little censorship with added insult.

  3. skepticmd says

    Pharyngula has been blocked on my institution’s intranet for a while now. I use that to determine if it is a interesting site or not!

  4. Seize says

    PZ, this is actually an incredibly common tactic that’s used against lefty blogs, and prevents readers operating behind any kind of web filtering software from viewing your blog. There are several enjoyable rags which I’ve given up on viewing on my work breaks entirely because some particularly obnoxious trolls like to flag every new post as pornography. I don’t know if there’s any quick way to check if you’re blacklisted as “adult content” for different filters used by workplaces and schools, but it might be worth it to nip this behavior in the bud now lest it become a regular thing.

  5. J Bowen says

    I am blocked from all of FTB at work. I believe it said it had something to do with spirituality of all things.

    I can still get to the old Pharyngula, but that’s no fun.

  6. Rip Steakface says

    I’m blocked from FTB at school for this being a blogging site. The problem? SCIENCEBLOGS ISN’T BLOCKED. HERP. DERP.

  7. liebore says

    A former employer of mine used to block atheist sites at work by classifying them as “Occult.” All it takes is one fundie IT security admin who realizes heathens neither want to self-identify nor do they want to draw attention to their personal use on the Internet. Mind you, I was never able to find a blocked Christian website, no matter how extreme they were.

  8. says

    My work occasionally bans specific pages at FtB, but not the whole site. I think it’s an automatic keyword trigger – “free amateur porn” would most likely do it. (I can’t check because I’m home sick today.)

  9. Jessa says

    FtB Pharyngula is blocked at my work, under the categories “Alternative Spirituality/Occult” and “Political”.

    All other blogs on FtB are unblocked, as is SB Pharyngula.

  10. shouldbeworking says

    The net nannies blocked NASA and the geological survey last year because of inappropriate adult content. I am a high school science teacher. Can anyone say “dirty rocks”?

  11. DLC says

    Now kids, Nanny will keep you from harm. . . and anything else Nanny finds objectionable, even if Nanny hasn’t even read it yet.

  12. changeable moniker says

    Ditto at the Place Of Work™, on the grounds of “Political Activism / Alternative Spirituality”. Too many posts about woo and Rs, I think.

  13. Ray, rude-ass yankee says

    I discovered that freethought blogs has just recently become blocked at my work too. Something about “no business purpose” Hah! like I use my computer at work just for business purposes! Oh wait, I guess they think that’s all I should use it for. How odd.

  14. gragra says

    It’s funny, I get 60 minutes a day of FtB, of course I never use all 60 minutes…..

  15. Naked Bunny with a Whip says

    I do most of my web surfing from work over an encrypted connection to home, but I’ve also never run across a blocked site when browsing locally. There are advantages to working at a company where the sysadmins can barely manage how full the server hard drives are.

  16. Naked Bunny with a Whip says

    Something about “no business purpose”

    All internet domain access requires permission forms to be filled out in triplicate.

  17. piero says

    Come on, PZ. You know full well that slimy, pluritentacled creatures were depicted on your blog exclusively to satisfy the prurient interests of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.

    And I won’t even mention the sucking devices on the tentacles, which migh well have been expressely addressed to Bachman.

    Own up, PZ: your blog is but a facade for a sinister plot to debauch and pervert the most valuable and chaste people in the USA.

  18. consciousness razor says

    Own up, PZ: your blog is but a facade for a sinister plot to debauch and pervert the most valuable and chaste people in the USA.

    Yes, absolutely. Thanks again, PZ.

  19. seanhart says

    You can’t have evolution without sexual intercourse, it is the subtextually pornographic.

  20. says

    Um, when I’m at work, I usually, y’know . . . WORK. I know that there are people who enjoy fucking off and getting paid for it, but IMO they’re a bunch of dishonest assholes.

  21. jefrir says

    Charles, those of us with decent employers get these things called breaks when we can do stuff that’s not work. Sorry you’re apparently missing out on such luxuries.

  22. puppygod says

    @26 seanhart

    You can’t have evolution without sexual intercourse, it is the subtextually pornographic.

    Just a nitpick – yes, you can have evolution without sex, and indeed evolution was around for billions of years before sexual reproduction, ahem, evolved.

  23. ChasCPeterson says

    I thought to remark that somebody finally found that pic of PZ’s nipple he so foolishly posted back in the day, but now I can’t find it anywhere.
    I think I now know why ‘pharyngula.org’ redirects here, though.

  24. cjmitchell says

    FTB has been blocked at one of my offices since it first started up, but Scienceblogs isn’t blocked at that office. Anything from YouTube, even embedded, is blocked, and it recognizes some blogs as “blocked: blogging” while it leaves others alone.

    At my other office (I am a contractor) FTB is safe but Scienceblogs gets an error (not a blocked) page. I’m not sure if the error page might refer to issues with the site’s coding. This error seems to happen suspiciously at just a few sites, including SB and Daily Kos. YouTube, however, is fully accessable, as is pretty much every blog I read.

    Are these people entirely incapable of having consistency? As long as I have both offices, I guess I can work something out.

  25. gbjames says

    I had a similar experience at a local Toyota dealership (Andrew Toyota in Milwaukee, if you are interested). Their customer wifi service blocks anything related to Planned Parenthood, birth control or abortion for reason: “Abortion”. It blocks sites about atheism for reason: “Occult”. I discovered this one day when waiting for my car to be serviced. I tried to get to Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution Is True” site, found it blocked, and started looking for other blocked sites.

    IT MAKES ME CRAZY.

  26. TimKO,,.,, says

    CharlesSD,
    Thanks. I was really hoping for an asshole to come along and get sanctimonious. You are so morally superior to me! Guess I’ll twiddle my thumbs while I wait for customers. Would that please you, sir?