Quackometer silenced!

I have a confession to make. I find the tawdry spectacle of the Diana death inquiry quite fascinating. On the one hand we have evidence from numerous witnesses which stands up to fiercely objective scrutiny and on the other we have the ridiculous conspiracy theories of a bereaved father. The believability of the claims from all sides is rigorously investigated and eventually, one hopes, the truth of the matter will become clear. Essential to this process is the fact that all arguments are subjected to equal scrutiny and assessed by a panel of jurors.

The bereaved father has a long history of writing letters to newspapers and hassling pillars of the establishment to support his lurid allegations. However far from being silenced by the sinister hand of the state he, as his is right, is allowed to make baseless claims with little fear of sanction. However, he is being derided as a clueless fantasist utterly bereft of reason and decorum over his beliefs and nobody in their right mind takes him seriously any more. Now imagine if he could censor these opinions and prevent free discussion purely by the act of penning an angry letter, allow his conspiracy theories to propagate unchallenged? Would we want to live in a society where emotional fantasists can silence criticism and delusional beliefs go unchecked?

Now what does this have to do with the Quackometer? Well the Quackometer’s spineless webhosts, Netcetera, have capitulated to the deranged ravings of Mr Obi, as referred to here, and have taken down the Quackometer. All of it. Without exception.

This is comparable to the ludicrous situation imagined above. Except it has actually happened. In response to a request by Le Canard Noir for a rational assessment of Mr Obi’s witterings they have struck down the Quackometer and issued this facile and foolish excuse.

Thanks for your comments. We do not wish to be in a position where we could be taken to court, and incur the loss of time and expense that would involve. Consequently Netcetera have decided to suspend the Quackometer website, with reference to our Acceptable Usage Policy, the first part of which is quoted below. The full policy can be found on our website www.netcetera.im/SiteInfo/AUP/

“Acceptable Usage Policy

This policy is subject to change, without alternate notice, so please check regularly for updates. This policy is in addition, and considered part of Netcetera’s Terms and Conditions.
Netcetera will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
1) Web Hosting
1.1) Netcetera reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer’s access to any or all services provided by Netcetera, where Netcetera decides that the account has been inappropriately used. Netcetera reserves the right to refuse service and /or access to its servers to anyone.”

We will prevent public access to the site as of noon today 18th February 2008. You will be able to access the content to be able to transfer it to another host if you so wish.

We will hold the content available to you for 30 days, and then we will remove it from our servers.

Regards

I am deeply concerned that a reputable webhost will so easily capitulate to the demands of a fraudster who has been struck off his professional register by the GMC for unprofessional conduct. All the Quackometer has done is to aggregate several factual newspaper articles and wrapped it up with some analysis. There are no accusations made against Mr Obi that were not already in the public domain, no facts that were not proven, not to mention the fact that the offending article was reproduced dozens of times across the internet. Also, as Le Canard Noir says:

They have not said how my usage was unacceptable except that they are being inconvenienced by a deranged quack.

Can any quack with a grudge silence criticism just by being a bit of an arse? Now the issue of acceptable content on the internet and the role of webhosts and service providers in allowing access to it is a tricky moral and legal area but it is hard to see how taking down a site dedicated to exposing quackery, lies and half truths based on the rantings of an utterly discredited fraud is acceptable. If anything Netcetera should have been proud of Le Canard Noir’s attempts to make the world just that little bit more rational and just a little bit harder for quacks to deceive the public.

This isn’t the case of a credible individual holding a gun to the head of Netcetera in the form of a grievous and legitimate complaint it is a man in a chicken suit successfully robbing a bank while holding a giant inflatable banana and farting loudly.

*edited to fix wrong webhost, apologies to netcetra, slaps to netcetera*