This week the Canadian Leftysphere of Blog is divided into two sides: the BANNED and the Un-Banned. The BANNED: The Galloping Beaver, Big City Lib, Calgary Grit and Bread n Roses. The Un-Banned: Unrepentant Old Hippie (et al). When I heard that the aforementioned sites were BANNED from viewing on Agriculture Canada computers, I immediately remembered seeing a couple of hits from Agriculture gc.ca on my site meter just last week. These particular hits stood out because I always notice gc.ca's (paranoia strikes deep): I know which ones are friendlies, and Agriculture was one I hadn't seen before. They were here, and yet they decided I wasn't ban-worthy -- low traffic maybe? I am, after all, just an insignificant barnacle clinging to the hull of the HMCS Blogger as it powers its way through the cosmos of controversy and political debate. No problem.
If it isn't traffic, why were those 4 sites BANNED? It's not a matter of banning a certain platform (ie. blogger), since BnR uses Wordpress. It sure as fuck isn't a profanity issue or my scurrilous little blog would be banned squared. Popularity could be a factor -- it makes sense that the banned sites would be among the most popular with those lefties in the civil service. (My blog, sadly, is probably read mostly on shared computers in prison libraries and mental institutions, rather than places where people are expected to show some productivity.) But those can't be all they're reading in civil service land.
Leaving aside BnR, which as an occasional poster I know to be stubbornly subversive (yay!) on any issue one could name, I tried to find a common controversial thread between the 3 banned blogs that might explain things. I looked at everything they've posted over the last week or so, expecting to find a common theme somewhere... nope. We are nothing if not eclectic in Left Blogistan.
So it's still a bit of a mystery why those blogs were banned. If it can be ascertained that no right-leaning blogs were banned, it'll be upgraded to a mystery wrapped in an enigma. One thing that's clear: the Un-Banned must try harder.
|