A few weeks ago, Internet search
engine Lycos pulled its financial support of animal rights web provider
|Envirolink.Org| after a story about some of the extremist sites on Envirolink,
such as the Animal Liberation Front Information Site, circulated on the
web. Since then animal rights activists have been screaming up and down
that this is censorship, even though what happened was no different than
the results of animal rights activists’ own boycott activities — Lycos
decided to stop supporting speech it that its customers disagreed with.
This week the Animal Liberation
Front revealed just how committed it is to freedom of speech when it announced
the creation of an “Internet Division.” In a Sept. 21, 1998
release, ALF announced it would begin hacking web sites, sending mail
bombs, launching viruses, initiating denial of service attacks and other
unsavory methods to bring down the web sites and Internet access of those
with whom it disagrees.
In its release, ALF said,
In this day and age when most large animal abuse establishments have
a presence on the Internet they see the world wide web for selling their
blood products and for pushing their warped ideals to the masses. As
other warriors free animals from concentration camp [sic] around the
world, we will take the war to the Internet.
What’s next for these people, public book burnings of medical textbooks?
Source:
“Animal Liberation Front Announces New Strategy: Internet Division,”
North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, Sept. 21, 1998.