Tuesday, September 05, 2017

Writer's Block

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WarOnGuns Correspondent Henry sends:
A couple months ago, I had occasion to access your blog while I was logged in to some public hotspot (Burger King, the local hospital, I don't remember). I was surprised to be greeted by the [above], which I saved and then didn't come across again until I was cleaning up my files today.
Weapons sales my ass.
When pursued, the actual category appears to be "Websites that feature the legal promotion or sale of weapons such as hand guns, knives, rifles, explosives, etc." Maybe "legal promotion" means you talk about them in anything less than a completely negative manner.
I submitted a reclassification request suggesting you be reclassified as an "advocacy organization." You can do so as well, here.
Thought you'd like to know.
You bet I would.  Having chronicled how major search engines control their news feeds to omit information that doesn't amplify the "progressive" narrative (and then eject what slips through), and how social media blocks off other avenues for spreading the word, it's instructive to see a window I wasn't watching has been boarded up as well.

Curious -- look how they rate a website that talks about guns ad nauseam, but from a different "perspective":


It's not like Michael Bloomberg has news feed troubles, is it?

Fortiguard certainly has an unwarranted high opinion of themselves:
Our researchers scour the cyber landscape daily to discover emerging threats & develop countermeasures to protect more than 320,000 @Fortinet customers globally.
That's some "scouring" I've seen in my first two encounters.

Shall we see what their crack "researchers" say when pointed to reality?  Here's the response Henry received:

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So instead of "weapons sales," they've updated it to "weapons."

Really? Go ahead and "scour" for yourself to see how you do against "professionals" who charge for their "services."

And then there's this bit of hand-washing:
Note that FortiGuard Web Filtering Service categorizes websites, but it is your IT manager who decides what categories to block or allow. Therefore, if you would like access to the site, please contact your IT manager.
The IT Manager is depending on your categorization, dumb-@$$!

I suspect the original designation was due to some anti snitching, but this lame response tells me Fortiguard "researcher" laziness, incompetence and bias let that through without verification and rather than doing the right thing, has shifted this blog to a category that's still likely to be blocked.

UPDATE: The squeaky wheel gets the grease.


That's still not the right catgory, but at least this one is less likely to get blocked by anal retentive wi-fi filters.

Thanks to those who supported this.

Aaand... another Update:


Bugs?



8 comments:

Bob Mueller said...

Here's the message I just sent along with my reclassification request:

War On Guns is if anything, a political advocacy site regarding firearms. It presents a reasonable, fair, and balanced counterpoint to the idea that all guns are always bad. It seems reasonable that if sites like Everytown are classed as General Organizations, and The Brady Campaign classed as Advocacy Organizations, then sites that cover the same material should be classified in the same manner, even if they advocate in a different direction. To do otherwise seems to indicate an agenda, and calls into question the impartiality and thus the usefulness of filtering software like Fortiguard.

Even the NRA website is listed as an Advocacy Organization.

Please reconsider the classification of War On Guns. It should properly be classified as either a General Organization or Advocacy Organization.

Henry said...

“Not to be confused with Advocacy Groups and Political Groups.”

Because Everytown for Gun Safety couldn’t POSSIBLY be one of those other two, right?

Fortinet claims to be headquartered in Sunnyvale CA (isn’t that where Buffy’s Hellmouth is?) but I suspect it's relevant that they slipped up and spelled “organisations” with an s the second time.

Bob Mueller said...

Just got an email back from Fortiguard and they've changed the classification. You're now a Political Organization.

David Codrea said...

Thank you- I tweeted them the link when I posted this-- hopefully public shaming and contacts like yours and Henry's caused someone to get his rear end handed to him in the interests of reputation management.

Plus I see they expedited it. At the time I wrote this, it was still listed as "weapons sales" even though they said they'd changed it to 'weapons." Their fine print said changes might take a while to show on the site.

Mack said...

I tried this:

* http://www.fortiguard.com/webfilter?q=waronguns.blogspot.com

Result: Category: Weapons (Sales)

What gives?

Mack said...

David,

Would you PLEASE review the Ratings History?

[SNIP]
WF Rating History

Sep 5th, 2017 @ 02:35:14 PDT
updated as Weapons (Sales)

Sep 5th, 2017 @ 11:55:14 PDT
updated as Political Organizations

Sep 5th, 2017 @ 11:05:18 PDT
updated as Advocacy Organizations

Dec 28th, 2014 @ 05:15:06 PST
added as Weapons (Sales)

Jan 27th, 2010 @ 03:21:12 PST
removed as Personal Websites and Blogs

Jan 23rd, 2010 @ 10:32:00 PST
added as Personal Websites and Blogs

Mack said...

David,

Just to illustrate how retarded they are, try entering into their search box:

1) ammoland.com

2) www.ammoland.com

Henry said...

So five days later, your blog rating is (back to) “Weapons sales.”

To quote James Brady, trying to talk sense to these folks is like barking up a dead dog’s butt.