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Pirate Party Banned From Social Networking Site

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Fri May 01, 2009 03:26 PM
from the you-can't-buy-publicity-like-that dept.
Censorship Government Politics
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that as the European Parliament elections loom, StudiVZ, Germany's largest social networking site, has opened up to political parties for election campaigning. That is, if you aren't the Pirate Party. "The other political parties were allowed to have a special account to show they are an organization and not an individual. The Pirate Party, however, was not allowed to have one and instead operated on a standard user account registered by an individual. StudiVZ noticed that the Pirate Party account was not a "real person" and despite it having a thriving network with hundreds of followers, it was summarily deleted. This means that it is impossible for the Pirate Party to have a presence at all on the largest social networking site in Germany." Update: 05/02 19:17 GMT by T : Reader riot notes: "FYI: I just translated the press release to English."
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  • Oh well (Score:4, Insightful)

    by timeOday (582209) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:31PM (#27792331)
    Once you hoist the Jolly Roger, you excuse yourself from polite society. Isn't that sort of the point of being an outlaw?

    • Re:Oh well (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Tikkun (992269) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:51PM (#27792571) Homepage
      They're not outlaws. They're for amateur librarians and are anti-monopolist. Just because they believe that laws today are unjust and want to reform them doesn't make it right to exclude them from political debate.

      Would you really want social networking sites to prevent the ALA from having their say because Barnes and Nobel decided that libraries are killing the publishing industry?

      • The Pirate Party aren't revolutionaries because they aren't fighting for anything in particular, just against something (which is almost as vague). In the case of the American revolution they had quite specific ideas about how things should work, not just "down with England". And actually revolutionaries also excuse themselves from polite society, so I'm not sure what your point is anyway.

        • Re:Oh well (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Daimanta (1140543) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:21PM (#27793517) Journal

          "The Pirate Party aren't revolutionaries because they aren't fighting for anything in particular, just against something (which is almost as vague)"

          People who fought against prohibition weren't revolutionaries because they weren't fighting for anything in particular, just against something.

          Your comparison does not hold up.

        • Re:Oh well (Score:5, Informative)

          by Djupblue (780563) on Friday May 01 2009, @06:04PM (#27793881)
          "The Pirate Party aren't revolutionaries because they aren't fighting for anything in particular" That is just plain wrong, the Pirate party is fighting _for_: - A reform of copyright law - Personal privacy - Abolishion of patents In each case the Pirate Party has very specific ideas how things should work. // An actual active member of the Pirate Party, so shut up or we'll throw you over board! AAAARH!

  • Aye (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 01 2009, @03:34PM (#27792375)
    One such member was quoted saying

    "Aye. We just want to run for pARRRRRRlament!" No ninjas were found for comment.
  • Except that they are more about civil liberties then they are about hijacking ships off the Somalian coast.
    It does not matter what your party name is. If you have a sufficient sized following and your trying to get into power to improve your country why should you be treated any different than the rest of the political parties?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lucas_picador (862520)

      If you have a sufficient sized following and your trying to get into power to improve your country why should you be treated any different than the rest of the political parties?

      Here's a hint: they probably don't let white supremacist or neo-Nazi parties sign up for accounts, either. Because expressing those kinds of opinions about how to "improve your country" is illegal in Germany. Which may offend American 1st-Amendment sensibilities, but given Germany's history, I can't say it's such a crazy policy.

      So

        • Had Hitler not been imprisoned and seemingly "martyred" for his beliefs, he wouldn't have written Mein Kampf, and the Nazi party, unable to find a martyr to rally behind would slowly fade away ...

          Agreed. Henceforth, we shall stop imprisoning people who do bad things, lest they become martyrs to the cause for which they were imprisoned, thus creating a fascist movement dedicated to (murder/rape/jaywalking). Indeed, we should instead imprison those who do GOOD things, creating martyrs who will inspire virtue in the populace! And all men shall walk on the water, and swim upon the land. Huzzah!

          In other news, your historical counterfactual is ridiculously overstated, as is the argument it tries to support. Look, I'm not an advocate of censorship, but I understand its appeal to Germans, who understand fascism and the cultural forces giving rise to a bit better than, I daresay, you seem to. America today is much closer to fascism than Germany, despite the wonderful (I mean that sincerely) protections for speech afforded by the US constitution.

          Note also that this story is not about government censorship, but about some guys running a website that shows you ads and sells your personal information in exchange for letting you talk to your friends and post pictures of your boobs. As The Dude would say: this isn't a First Amendment thing, Walter.

            • Clearly they don't understand very much, because if they did they'd see that censorship is a tool that's very useful to totalitarian regimes, and a dual purpose one to boot: silencing opposing points of view and hiding their own crimes & vices.

              Again, I don't disagree with you. But are you really going to stand up and defend the right of the Hutu Power guys running the radio station to broadcast the locations of Tutsi "cockraoches" to the roving machete-rape squads? And if not, then where is the line being drawn between reasonable and unreasonable censorship? Is Lou Dobbs calling for Mexican immigrant concentration camps on FOX News closer to the Hutu Power boys, or closer to Thomas Jefferson? I think it depends on context: if the US were to see an drastic upswing in hate crimes targeting immigrants, I can see how curbing that kind of incitement could be justified. Germany has a very specific context when it comes to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, obviously. I live in Canada, which has much more restrictive hate-speech laws than the US, and yet there seems to be more accountability, transparency, and free discourse up here than in the US (where I grew up), and people are much nicer to each other as well. My primary reason for opposing hate-speech laws in the US is because I know that they would be drafted and enforced to protect specific politically powerful interests, rather than marginalized groups. I really do think that this is an area where the right balance struck by the law depends a lot on context.

  • Big mistake, StudiVZ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locke2005 (849178) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:48PM (#27792527)
    Prepare to be boarded by the cutthroats and brigands of The Crimson Permanent Assurance!

  • WAIT A MINUTE! (Score:5, Informative)

    by AlgorithMan (937244) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:04PM (#27793389) Homepage
    Not ALL Parties are allowed on that social network (StudiVZ) - only the ones which are currently in the Parliament... which the Pirate Party isn't... I'm angry about the lockout, too, but this report is just plain exaggerating!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Red Flayer (890720)
      Well, the established parties have always tried to make sure they get to squeeze out minority parties, fake or not.

      In the US, we have an institutionalized two-party system that has acted to make it nearly impossible for a third party to gain major influence; the party registration and ballot rules help ensure it. The same kind of thing happens elsewhere.

      What I wonder, is if the Pirate Party in Germany has actually fulfilled the regulatory requirements for being recognized as an official political party.

      • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)

        by phantomfive (622387) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:04PM (#27792719) Homepage Journal
        From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

        Officially registered pirate parties exist in Spain, Austria, Germany and Poland, while those in the USA, United Kingdom, Argentina, Finland, and Australia are currently unregistered, but active.

        They have actually run for a state election in Germany, although only receiving .3% of the votes. It is possible the social networking site is unaware that the Pirate Party is an actual party: nothing I saw in the article indicates otherwise. It is also possible that the company is unaware of what's going on, and the entire situation got lost in bureaucracy. It was likely just some support person who deleted the account for violating the terms of service.

        For the most part I agree with the platform of the Pirate Party, but it gives the impression that their primary purpose for existing is to support piracy of songs, software and movies, which I don't support. Their marketing department could probably use some work.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by phantomfive (622387)
            That's not helpful. It makes your party look like a bunch of nutcase radicals. Think of ELF: it is true that taking care of the environment is good, but setting fires and destroying property as a way to get your point across doesn't help at all.

            A reactionary party that goes to the opposite extreme is as bad as the original evil. If you want to change copyright, you are going to need at least some of those pro-copyright lawmakers to help you (unless you can completely take over the legislature, which if

            • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Darkness404 (1287218) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:45PM (#27793137)

              That's not helpful. It makes your party look like a bunch of nutcase radicals. Think of ELF: it is true that taking care of the environment is good, but setting fires and destroying property as a way to get your point across doesn't help at all.

              Whenever laws are unjust, about the only way to change them is through "radical" ideas. Just look at blacks in America after the civil war, they sought to maintain the old order of things in the south and nothing really was done that improved the lives of black Americans, until the civil rights movement where a few "radicals" were needed to bring about change. Same thing with copyright. And no one is going to have any property burned or lives lost with the abolition of copyright, save for perhaps the publishers who were on the way out anyways and served no real purpose.

              A reactionary party that goes to the opposite extreme is as bad as the original evil. If you want to change copyright, you are going to need at least some of those pro-copyright lawmakers to help you (unless you can completely take over the legislature, which if that is your goal, looking like a nutcase radical won't help you much either). To get those lawmakers on your side, you're going to come up with something reasonable.

              But if the Pirate Party can get enough seats, it would prove that many people do care about copyright and the end result would be copyright is weakened or at least not strengthened. If you have a small to medium amount of people who are willing to shoot down any proposed legislation that strengthens or doesn't weaken copyright, you will have no choice but to try to work with them or face many, many, many angry letters/calls/e-mails.

    • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)

      by MozeeToby (1163751) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:48PM (#27792517)

      The Pirate Party is hardly a 'fake' political party. It has a well developed platform including protecting privacy (on and off the internet), copyright reform, and patent reform. In the 2006 elections in Sweden it recieved 34,918 less than 9 months after it was founded, making it the 10th largest (out of 40) political party in the election.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by dbrutus (71639)

        Maybe a link to the US pirate party platform [pirate-party.us] would be helpful for those who are incapable of googling.

        • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Heddahenrik (902008) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:11PM (#27793449) Homepage

          Strangely, the soon-to-be second largest party in Sweden, Piratpartiet, seems to disagree with you. Why are you against free culture?

          Maybe you say that culture isn't free to produce. We know that; it's you who are stupid. Why are you against free culture?

          Because filesharing is stealing? No, it isn't. Why are you against free culture?

          Because the ones producing content have to be paid? No, they don't have to be paid. Why are you against free culture?

          But then no content will be produced? No, that is a lie. Why are you against free culture?

          Because you like putting annoying kids in jail. OK, I can't argue with you there, but it's a quite expensive solution.

        • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Informative)

          by SwedishPenguin (1035756) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:23PM (#27793553)

          I can't speak for our German sister party, but as a member of the Swedish pirate party, I can assure you that the Pirate Party is not a fake party.

          It's a party that has developed and gained support due to the increasingly anti-democratic attitude of our elected parliamentarians. Last year, parliament voted for a law giving a government institution the right to wiretap all international telecommunications traffic without warrant, suspicion and with minimal public insight. This year the IPRED directive was implemented with the added bonus (for record executives) that private corporations could go to court on their own (and not through the police as is common practice) to request information from ISPs on who was using a specific IP at a specific time. I'm sure you haven't missed ACTA if you've read /. with any regularity. The data retention directive will be implemented in Sweden this fall.

          The Pirate Party is against all this. While the party is also of the opinion that non-commercial file-sharing of copyrighted works should be legalized, this is really sort of secondary. In order to enforce a ban on filesharing, you have to implement a totalitarian state that can monitor what every person does all the time. This is in our opinion NOT acceptable.

          And many agree with us. In the first poll for the upcoming European Parliament elections, we got 5.1% of the vote, enough to grab one seat, with the Pirate Party not even being an alternative presented by the pollsters, and we are now the fourth, soon the third largest party in Sweden with over 42,000 members.

        • Re:I'm sure... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Sir_Lewk (967686) <sirlewkNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday May 01 2009, @05:30PM (#27793599)

          You may not value their ideas as much as they do, but that is certainly no ground for asserting that they are not a "real" (whatever that's supposed to mean in this context...) political party.

          I could assert that Socialist parties are not "real" parties because "It's just a bunch of people that want to live off the system for free, regardless of any other consequences", but I would be terribly unjustified in doing so.

        • Re:I'm sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by nog_lorp (896553) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:34PM (#27793635)

          It is easy to belittle those with viewpoints different then yours. Are you from the US? Are you a member of either of the major parties? What jokes - the "we just want to tax and spend like crazy and limit personal freedoms" party VS the "we just want to have ZERO taxes and totally dismantle all forms of government" party. I would say they are as fake as they come.

    • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:4, Informative)

      by iamhigh (1252742) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:39PM (#27792431)
      But it's a private website. It is the website's call if they want to ban pirates or ninjas. I do some coding for a social networking site and we will delete accounts if they don't meet our guidelines (the site targets a specific audience, and we want it that way). The 'net is a big place... big enough to allow site owners the right to keep out unwanted parties. Don't like the site's way of doing things, go elsewhere. It isn't like there aren't a dozen social networking sites trying to fill the big boy's shoes.

      But I'm an asshole I guess, as I have also never seen the problem with an apartment not renting to people with kids, or restaurants not seating kids, but that is illegal.

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MrMista_B (891430) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:18PM (#27792843)

        Will you delete a site that /does/ meet the guidelines, but you have a /personal/ grudge against?

        That's whats going on here.

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:19PM (#27792853)

        But it's a private website. It is the website's call if they want to ban pirates or ninjas.

        And it is our call if we want to take them to task for it. This freedom of speech thing works both ways.

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sortius_nod (1080919) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:58PM (#27793833)

        I think there's a difference between a member doing something against the TOS and a member that you don't like, or have been told to not like. This, to me, is a political deletion, has nothing to do with getting rid of bad members.

        I'd hazard a guess that your site isn't thriving if you can't tell the difference between a personal dislike and someone breaking the rules of your site. Where I live, if this happened, the site owners would find themselves infront of the ACMA quicker than you can say "politically unjust act".

        Yes, you are an "asshole" as you said, but you're also an idiot too... but they usually go hand in hand.

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Interesting)

        by painandgreed (692585) on Friday May 01 2009, @06:03PM (#27793875)

        But it's a private website. It is the website's call if they want to ban pirates or ninjas.

        It depends on what the political contribution laws are in the said country. Once a company starts allowing some political parties their services for free while banning them to others (like the Pirate Party which is a registered political party in Germany IIRC), that might be seen as an endorsement or contribution and could be in violation of some laws dealing with political contributions.

              • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Interesting)

                by trewornan (608722) on Saturday May 02 2009, @04:02AM (#27797047)
                In the UK it's the British National Party (quazi Nazis), membership of this party precludes you from employment in the government, police, etc. Vile as they may be, they are a legitimate political party and legalising discrimination against them is even more vile, as well as the most dangerous precedent imaginable. Unfortunately this policy is actually quite popular in the UK - the sheeple will get what they deserve in the end I guess.

    • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lucas_picador (862520) on Friday May 01 2009, @03:50PM (#27792551)
      Sorry, maybe I misunderstand your comment, so let me make sure: are you seriously comparing the account deletion policy on a social networking site to the Nazis? Please tell me I've misunderstood. Please.
      • Also, just to clarify: yeah, I think this is a dick move (although I'm too lazy to read the details, so I could be wrong). But then, I remember Facebook having a whole passel of election-related gizmos last fall that only included the Republican and Democratic parties. As a supporter of neither of those parties, I naturally took this as further validation of my belief that Facebook is a stupid toy run by and for trivial people. You know what I didn't think, though? That FACEBOOK = NAZIS!!1!

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by vertinox (846076)

        Sorry, maybe I misunderstand your comment, so let me make sure: are you seriously comparing the account deletion policy on a social networking site to the Nazis? Please tell me I've misunderstood. Please.

        Also (and I almost forgot), by not mentioning Nazi's by name he also includes the DDR (East Germany) who basically did the same thing to non-communist political parties.

        There are plenty of people alive the lived under them and remember a time when openly joining a political party other than the Communists m

        • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:4, Funny)

          by lucas_picador (862520) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:32PM (#27792989)

          There are plenty of people alive the lived under them and remember a time when openly joining a political party other than the Communists meant jail time.

          Dude, totally! And like, someday Germans will get to tell their kid about how joining a party other than the officially sanctioned ones could, like, totally result in not being able to get your Facebook feed updated with official party event invitations! You could only get invitations to events from some other person setting up a non-official facebook group for the party, which meant you wouldn't get the little blue background bar invites in your facebook feed! And sometimes the javascript didn't work right to update your Twitters, so you'd totally have to get it sent to email instead! Dark times, dude, dark times.

          I'm sorry, but: do you really not feel that these comparisons are maybe just a little bit silly?

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:4, Insightful)

        by nightfire-unique (253895) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:18PM (#27792847)

        Sorry, maybe I misunderstand your comment, so let me make sure: are you seriously comparing the account deletion policy on a social networking site to the Nazis? Please tell me I've misunderstood. Please.

        One can compare and contrast many things, regardless of their relative value.

        I can compare a penny to a dollar coin. A dollar coin is worth one hundred times more than a penny.

        But they are both money.

      • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Interesting)

        by AlgorithMan (937244) on Friday May 01 2009, @05:11PM (#27793445) Homepage
        As a german I can tell you - the political situation here is BAD! censorship is back, surveillance is back, corruption... never left

        the lockout of the pirate party is just a small puzzlepiece of opposition-oppression, but all in all - yes - we are headding for the fourth reich...

      • First, they came for the tweeters but I did not complain because I was not on twitter. Then they came for the facebookers but I didn't speak up because I didn't have a facebook account. Then they came for the myspace douchebags but I didn't speak out because I wasn't on myspace. When they came for the slashdotters, there was noone left to speak up for me.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by murdocj (543661)

          Well the first thing the National Socialists did when they came to power was shutdown all the Christian Democrat and Socialist newspapers and arrest their party leaders.

          So when this private social networking site takes over Germany and shuts down the Pirate Party, you'll have a valid comparison.

    • Re:Zeitgeist (Score:5, Funny)

      by MarkvW (1037596) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:00PM (#27792657)

      Oh yeah, its a really short step from the denial of internet access to wholesale slaughter and genocide.

    • Godwinned.

    • That's not the end of it. Those goddamn Nazis running the German government have also banned the National Socialist Party.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by hyanakin (1545359)
      are you confusing "Pirate Party" and "The Pirate Bay"?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Chabo (880571)

      Second, this particular "victim" has perhaps the largest-trafficed site in the world. They don't need any help.

      Pirate Party != The Pirate Bay

      Especially true when speaking of the German Pirate Party. The Swedish Pirate Party has a slightly closer association.

    • Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gurps_npc (621217) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:15PM (#27792823)
      You have made a rather innane error. You think the purpose of Democracy is to make the correct choice - to pick the best person or the best policyu. WRONG!

      The purpose of Democracy is two fold.

      1. To reduce civil wars.

      2. To force the government to at least TRY an pay attention to the nees of people besides those directly in power.

      First, if you have enough men to fairly win a civil, then you should have enough men to win an election - with much less casualties. In other forms of government, you might have 90% of the population hating the leader, but without democracy the only way to remove them is to fight and die.

      Second, a democracy requires the government to consider what everyone else thinks. In most other forms of government, who )(*&@ cares what the peasants thinks.

      P.S. There is a third benefit that happens often, but not all the times. Democracies usually have voting fairly often, so it speeds up the process of removing the incompetent, as compared to many other forms. But this is not always the case.

      • Re:Oh boo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)

        by holophrastic (221104) on Friday May 01 2009, @04:49PM (#27793203)

        But that's precisely my point. I don't care what peasants think -- especially when I'm a peasant. Democracy doesn't force government to consider the needs o the people, it forces government to consider the vote of the people.

        So if someone has an actually good idea, but it requires, oh, I don't know, a grade ten education to understand, then it can never happen because people won't vote for it because they don't understand it.

        So then you start electing people who sound intelligent, not people who actually are intelligent. Those two tend to be inversely proportional.

    • Sweet! So far this thread has produced comparisons between a social networking site's account deletion policy and both 1) the Nazis (see above) and 2) the Stasi. Can I get a Joseph Stalin up in here? Some Genghis Kahn metaphors? Or have those already popped up below my filter level?

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