Banning is as popular these days as it was in the days of the Inquisition.
In my opinion, the more influential the banner is, the more unethical it is to the banned, if the banned is banned for no other reason than power-politics.
This is valid in case of Sensei's Library, the BGA, GoBase and AGA banning me and my software, but also in case of perhaps the most evil company in the world today - Google.*
Google deliberately deceives us with pre-destruction images of Fallujah, but has now banned http://uruknet.info/ as well, in an attempt of censoring the truth about what happened there - the wholesale slaughter of many thousands of elderly civillians with nerve gas, napalm and white phosphorus.
Of course Google is just following orders, as they did in China. Liberty and freedom are so precious that we lost it before we even fully gained it. There is no such thing as uncensored news. People never learn. Hitler - an Austrian - banned everything and everybody. Another Austrian is now banning me, and has erased all mention of my software on his public Go Wiki. At the moment, it is banned, in Austria, to discuss the historical details about the persecution and dying of the Jews in Austria.
Banning, banning banning, and people never learn. My point: Banning a voice, an opinion, an outlook, banning information is never ethical.
Banning is fascism, plain and simple. When a community leader bans an individual, by that very act, the rest of the community is subjected to fascism (= the use of force) as well.
Strange that Arno Hollosi is Austria's top ePrivacy advisor. He is the country's "people chipper", so to say. Strange that he never learned from the mistakes of his fellow countryman Hitler. When people like him are the masters of our information and censor at will, we should protest, rebel and work on alternatives instead of slavishly accept that we are banned from reading certain information. It's not just one person who is banned, all are banned from being exposed to that person's views.
If we do not defend our liberties, we do not deserve them at all. We get the leaders we deserve, whether they be our elected representatives or those that run the websites we visit.
Banning is in vogue, and because it's sheepishly accepted by 99.999% of people in the "free" West, I predict that we will live under fascism before my generation (1965) dies.
Every single person who accepts censorship of thoughts, information, opinions is not just subjected to fascism, he/she is consenting to it. And the more influential, the more powerful he who bans, the more unethical the crime of banning is.
Fascists usually meet bad ends. Mussolini was found hanging upside down on a meathook. Hitler shot himself. Saddam was hung on a rope. The Shah of Iran was ousted. Not to mention the French, Russian and Cuban revolutions. Yet, we never learn, neither the banners nor the banned-from-reading-the-works-of-the-banned. Without our efforts, tyranny will prevail. They do not want you to know the truth. They do not want you to know that there is an alternative. "They" are puppets, and their masters are those who stand to gain financially from censoring your right of information. "They" are the "morality knights", "they" are those who have the genetical flaw of wanting to control what you think, by controlling what you read. In that respect, the "banners" of today are no better than the Spanish Inquisition of yesteryear. Only the law prevents them from the wholesale slaughter of those who's opinions or actions they don't like.
*If they have no qualms helping to cover up mass-murders and systematic torture by fascist governments, surely they can't be trusted with your name, address and all the searches you ever made? Not to mention the fact that Google has an utter contempt for the law -like Copyright and Libel law.
