Posted inMiscellaneous

South Africa: hello, hello? Can you access this blog?

3

A few days ago a regular Church of the Churchless visitor from South Africa emailed me, saying that she wasn't able to access this blog anymore. 

She's been looking into possible reasons. Today I got another message from her:

Hi Brian. So far I have ascertained that the site is blocked by 3 [Internet] service providers. My daughter who is with Telcom, our national telephone provider, government owned, is open.

Would you know if anyone else in South Africa is having the same problem? I'm still investigating but I'm finding it very disturbing. I really miss going on to the site. It was a ritual for over a year now, and very comforting to be connected with you all.

So if you live in South Africa, and you're able to read this, please leave a comment on this post indicating what ISP (Internet Service Provider) you use. That could help in figuring out what's going on. Or email me using the link in the right sidebar.

Below is how I described one possibility in a response to the person from South Africa.

This seems plausible, especially given what the woman said about "blocking," since I can see in the recent visitors map at the bottom of the right sidebar that some people in South Africa are visiting this blog, but seemingly not as many as before.

After a bit of Googling, I found that, according to Wikipedia, in South Africa hate speech is excluded from freedom of expression laws. Interesting. 
 
It’s unlikely my blog has been banned as being hurtful to religious sensibilities, but I suppose it is possible. The United States has very strong laws/constitution protecting free speech. I’ve been surprised when people from European countries have occasionally told me that something I’ve written wouldn’t be allowed in their country. So you should look into this possibility, as unlikely as it might be.
 
I also found this article about Internet censorship in South Africa.

 
It says that ISPs (Internet Service Providers) might ban a site if they get a complaint about it, to avoid the possibility of facing a legal complaint if they leave it up. So you could consider contacting your ISP and ask why you aren’t able to access my blog. 

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3 Comments

  1. observer
    Reply
    December 24, 2014,

    It will be interesting to know if there is a ban from South Africa re visiting this site. I grew up in Durban and I see that there is a visitor at the moment from Durban on your map Brian.
    I enjoy June’s comments and understand her frustration if she can’t access this blog. Hope it will be resolved for her sake.

  2. Fred
    Reply
    December 24, 2014,

    Site was down on 24th December 2014 but up and running again today – using Telkom.

  3. june schlebusch
    Reply
    December 25, 2014,

    Hi everyone…Back on line today…I have no explanation as why the site was down since Friday…odderly enough The Rant blog was open, but I couldn’t post…Don’t suppose I’ll ever know…Numerous people tried as well for me with the same result…Thanks for the support…Peace and Blessings to all for the coming year.

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