The Web's Most Controversial Web Sites

The Web's Most Controversial Web Sites
Jun 4th 2009 at 2:01PM

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/pictu...pictureid=2116

"Where free speech once saw a debate over "clear and present danger," the Internet has given us a new ethical conundrum between what constitutes free speech and what's just plain dangerous. We at Switched[.com] put our heads together to come up with the most controversial -- not hateful, not absurd, not out-of-left-field, but conversation-starting -- Web sites around. Our discovery? There are a lot of dopes out there with bad ideas. But hey, this is America. You have the right to be stupid."

Featured as #6 in their web-based slideshow, ThePirateBay.org, SurfTheChannel.com, and even YouTube.com are listed as "site(s) in question" for their continuous struggle in balancing fair-use and intellectual copyrights.

Switched.com's ultimate stance: "These sites have forced corporations like Hulu, iTunes and Netflix to come up with better ways of making money. The pros and cons of file-sharing have been analyzed in greater depth than here, but the bottom line is file-sharing gives you viruses. There are so many better alternatives, so we feel like these will evolve on their own."

Of course with business leaders such as Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton--who has recently condemned the Internet as a corrupt means of instant gratification--and with continuous onslaughts of copyright infringement accusations, are media industries really up to the task of evolving into newer and more non-traditional markets?

:view: View: Switched.com's The Web's Most Controversial Web Sites
:view: View: Sony Pictures CEO hates the Internet

Well China must think every site is bad check this story:

Chinese Officials Block Twitter, Flickr and Other Services

Quote:

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China has been struggling lately to keep up with the rapid changes and ever-increasing amount of novelties in the digital land in the form of the legal challenges these ‘premieres’ present.

To the shock of many but to the anticipation of some, the popular Twitter has met in this country a similar unfortunate fate as YouTube. Michael Anti, a Chinese blogger and former New York Times researcher, had seen this coming: “Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of Youtube descends on it one day.”

According to Alice Xin Liu (in a Danwei post), Chinese net sensors have blocked Twitter. Michael Anti underlined some differences with respect to the Chinese Twitterland vs. the English one – the former being funnier than the latter because “a Chinese tweet can have three times the volume of an English tweet, thanks to the high information intensity of the Chinese language.” He further noted that “140 Chinese characters can make up all the full elements of a news piece with the ‘5 Ws’ (Who, What, Where, When and How). But the joy of the Chinese Twitterland is more fragile, and I hope that it will live longer in this country.”

Well, his fears have materialized with the new censorship that swallowed Twitter as well.

The list of services Chinese authorities have outlawed goes further including: Flickr, Bing, the new Microsoft search engine, “probably for autoplaying Youtube videos when you put your mouse over them,” Live and Hotmail.

There’s a China Digital Times post listing the websites whose access has been blocked by Baidu.

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Well I'm so glad I don't live in China, wonder if this site is blocked?

They censor everything.

Might as well ban Internet access, I mean really... :eyeroll:

They almost have to.......if they censor Google that's pretty much the internet, but I bet they still have Usenet access :lol:

I stayed in China for some time last year and it was hell trying to surf the internet with the censorship...They do have throngs of local websites which are crazily popular there though, although I couldn't understand a thing :D

My gf can't even watch youtube while she's visiting China.

Those ppls still live in the stone age. They can't censor the net effectively....

Thanks for the read!
Interesting

I think I'd go mental if i moved there and lost "all" access to dah net..

Satellite Internet anyone?