[governance] Twitter to add to Balkanization of the Web

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<CAMz5XN5g-f+NaiBgyMVia=Fph4EURdaauEF_QSwH9YWC6xiUtg at mail.gmail.com>, at 
10:18:33 on Fri, 27 Jan 2012, Deirdre Williams 
<williams.deirdre at gmail.com> writes
> If content is blocked, to my understanding the user has no way of 
>knowing unless s/he is aware of that material from another source. It's 
>the same thing with 'Interception of Communications' surveillance - 
>unless one finds out, after the fact and from another source, there is 
>no way to know that it is happening. And therefore there are no grounds 
>to complain and to invoke the law. What we need is the virtual 
>equivalent of the click created when a third party picks up a telephone 
>receiver to eavesdrop on a conversation. Then we can complain and the 
>law is helpful.

This is a cause of much debate in the UK, regarding what's known as a 
"splash page" to display instead of the actual content, to inform the 
viewer that it's been blocked (access denied). The alternative is to 
'pretend' the page doesn't exist at all, and display a generic "Not 
found" message.

I'm not going to comment on the merits (or demerits) of that approach.

However, if you've been told about content by being given a link (either 
explicitly from another website or correspondent, or impliedly via a 
search engine) and that link returns "Not Found", one conclusion it's 
possible to draw is that the content has been blocked, and enquiries can 
be made from the source of the link.
-- 
Roland Perry

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