Numerous independent reports are indicating that Norton Symantec is branding a host of men's rights websites as "known hate websites", including our parent group AVoiceForMen.com. MRA London is officially the UK branch of A Voice for Men, and at the moment, it does not appear that our own website is affected, but we are still relatively new.
A non-exhaustive list of sites blocked by their Norton Internet Security product include:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/
http://ncfm.org/
http://www.angryharry.com/
http://www.manwomanmyth.com/
http://www.mens-rights.net/
http://www.mensactivism.org/
http://egghead.adamsspace.com/
http://www.antimisandry.com/
http://www.the-niceguy.com/
http://counterfem.blogspot.com/
http://markymarksthoughts.blogspot.com/
http://masculistadvice.blogspot.com/
http://www.rulymob.com/
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/
http://equalbutdifferent.blogspot.com/
http://mensrightsboard.blogspot.com/
http://failuresforgodesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.antifeministtech.info/
http://theantifeminist.com/
http://no-maam.blogspot.com/
http://www.mgtow.com/
http://mensrightsedmonton.com/
A Voice for Men is not a "hate site", nor is its UK branch, MRA London, which has a membership of both men and women and includes gay men and members from all races. For example, Erin Pizzey, the woman responsible for setting up the world's first ever women's refuge is both an editor of A Voice for Men and a member of MRA London. A summary of her achievements can be found on her MRA London profile page.
MRA London is an activist group, formally affiliated with A Voice for Men, originally set-up to conduct non-violent protest on behalf of men and boys in order to raise awareness of the hidden prejudice and misandry they face in society. We are men and women who stand up for the human worth of all males, irrespective of race, sexual orientation or social status—from the oppressed school boy of the feminised education system, to the ostracised fifty-something man who lives alone and drinks cider from a plastic bottle. We believe in equality between men and women, equal rights, equal responsibilities and, most importantly, equal human worth. However, we believe that it is males who are being marginalised and disadvantaged in today's society.
We would like to strongly suggest to Norton Symantec that it should rethink its policy of deciding which websites its users can and cannot visit based on its own skewed interpretation of morality.
News enquires should be directed to paul{at}avoiceformen.com.
12 comments:
I understand that we have to fight--maybe I'm looking forward to it--but please let's not bow down, justifying and explaining ourselves to these political correctness, capitalistic, conformist drones. Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) said, "Es mejor morir de pie que vivir toda una vida arrodillado" [It is better to die on your feet than spend an entire life on your knees].
Norton Symantec is on the side of money and government favors--that is the beginning and end of it--unless the company CEO is a woman, which would not surprise me.
I am a member of a couple of organizations on that list, and I'm not going to drop out--I will probably join a couple more, if i can just fit some of my fiction writing and weightlifting in. I need to work off this constant case of piss-off.
However, I will look elsewhere for my antivirus products and anything else that Norton makes. Their programs are bloaty and expensive anyway.
This compares to German courts (Amtsgericht Düsseldorf)abolishing the right of free speech and fining people (1000 Euro) for speaking out against feminism.
However, it requires action. Make this bow to state feminism performed by Norton a reputation crisis for Norton. Share this post in every social network you can think of.
No, I don't 'want more Norton'.
I use the free version of AVG which may be downloaded here. There is a paid version too but the free one has worked fine for me so far and they have not tried to limit me in any way.
http://free.avg.com/gb-en/homepage
Maybe these sites could display a 'banned by Norton' logo as a badge of honor. This would publicise the censorship while at the same time gaining some 'bad boy' appeal.
I would suggest that we not only stop using Norton but tell the company why as well. The only thing they really care about is money.
True. I did just that on ScienceFiles. However, when you look into management literature, apart from making a loss, loss of reputation is feared most by companies. Hence, an effective weapon is to "spread the word", to link post like this, tweet, facebook-it, digg or linked-in it, so that it will be counted by sides doing nothing else than counting tweets and the like and providing users with ranking lists... make it viral. And in the end, Norton will have to do and say something about it.
Having had a day to think about this, I don't think it really matters whether what Norton do. In the end, their action is drawing attention to AVfM, NCFM and the others.
In any case, I suspect Norton will quickly see sense on this and remove these websites from their "hate" category of blocked sites. I also suspect that AVfM, along with the list above, were submitted to Norton as "hate sites" by radfems and, in that sense, they have been a victim in this also. I think the real mistake Norton is making is allowing themselves to be partisan between groups of people of strongly differing opinions by offering, what is effectively, a "morality judgement service".
For what it's worth, my suggestion for a free anti-virus replacement is "Microsoft Security Essentials".
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/pc-security/mse.aspx
I think there is more to that than simply bringing attention to AVfM or other sides. I is just that companies like Norton simply do not have to censor what people will see in the Internet. I consider this as a gross violation of freedom of speech and a trojan horse for totalitarianism. Norton says it provides protection against viruses, so the company should provide just that and leave the thinking to its customers who are quite capable to judge, whether they see a particular side as a hate side or not.
This is about controlling access and preventing people from getting unwanted information, so its not just about the men's movement.
AVG Free isn't sturdy enough for many people - the last year or so I've been using PandaCloud, which is also free & not had any problems with it. Especially good for laptops & netbooks, as it does most of its work online, 'in the cloud', so doesn't use up your computer's processor. Whenever I set up a new computer the first thing i do is take off Norton & put that on.
Now with even better reason than before.
Sorry, can you give a link, is this not just a region of Germany?
Symantec Norton have deviated so far from the beaten track Peter Norton himself would not recognize it. I ditched them more than a decade ago and have encouraged countless others to do likewise.
The company is a bloated, greedy machine peddling useless software that doesn't even catch half the virus and malware floating around. All the software does is freeze your machine and gobble up system resources.
Switch to AVG or Avast! Both are free and either will do a far better job than Symantec can ever dream of.
Post a Comment