Hovind the Censor

I saw this on the JREF forum.

This wasn't new news to me but it does put a digital face on the actions of Kent Hovind.

It seems that his organisation has claimed that people who are critical of him are using copyrighted material.

Now if you have never heard an argument from Hovind then I direct you to this site (it's mentioned in the JREF forum thread already linked to). And then to this page that refers to copyright. It also, if you are like me, gives you the impression that he seems very punchable, at least his voice does anyway.

Now all this would normally conjure up the old DMCA is screwing people over.

But it seems to get worse from here.

This Wired blog points out that a group has been banned over this. Now personally I doubt that the reason was that it complained about it's videos being pulled down, but I suspect that it might have been because of all the spurious complaints by Hovind's group.

Good news is that they have not been banned but it is an annoying thing to know that people like him and his organisation can use spurious claims to remove opposition.

If I remember correctly the Internet is now the place where people can say whatever the hell they want. If people want to claim that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time then they can, but they have to remember that their claims are still open for people to disprove, debunk or counter.

Was this what people perceived the Internet to be? A place where people's views are silenced because they differ from someone else's?

If that is the case then I guess all the scientists could come up with a way to get rid of all the bad science sites...



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