Mirrors and messages

There's an old saying: the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. And to the extent that laws attempt to impose censorship, the same applies. Through the ingenious method of threatening to shut down every student newspaper in New Zealand, Victoria University has managed to force Critic to pull their online copy of the "offending" story (previously to be found here) - but that just means that its moved. Matt Nippert already has a mirror up here, and in the event that Vic finds a way around his impregnable legal defence of being in New York (and thus outside NZ jurisdiction), it'll just pop up elsewhere. The effect is something like playing whack-a-mole - or, for the more classically minded, fighting the Lernaean Hydra. You squash one site, and two spring up in its place.

This is not a battle Victoria can win - but it may take their dinosaur-like lawyers and PR flacks a while to get that into their tiny brains.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to let VUW know of how much you disapprove of their actions (or, if you are a student there, how you disapprove of the way they are wasting your fees), the people to contact are:

• Pat Walsh, Vice-Chancellor: pat.walsh@vuw.ac.nz
• Jude Urlich, chief PR flack: Jude.Urlich@vuw.ac.nz

Including a copy of the "suppressed" article may make the point rather nicely.

Update: Matt has pulled his post in an effort to build goodwill with Vic. It may be back, depending on whether they continue to behave like arseholes or not. If anyone has a link to another copy, then feel free to post it in the comments.