Who pulled the plug on the anti-gay website www.menagainstmoffies.co.za, which appears to be the first South African website removed from the Internet because it contained hate speech?
The short answer is that nobody knows.
On Monday the site displayed this message: "This website (www.menagainstmoffies.co.za) has been suspended do (sic) to AUP violations."
An AUP violation is an Acceptable Use Policy violation and includes "material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates any applicable laws".
'We want everybody to play nicely on the Internet' Glenn de Swardt of the lesbian and gay service organisation the Triangle Project confirmed on Monday that the organisation would lodge a hate speech charge with the Human Rights Commission.
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Before the site was withdrawn, it drew links between Satanism and homosexuality and asked readers to vote as to whether "moffies" should be castrated, deported or "Sizzlered", a reference to last year's Sizzlers massacre.
The Cape Times traced the website's hosts to two American companies, ZoneEdit in New York, a free Domain Name System provider, and to Sprocket Data in Dallas, Texas, which leases out computer space for websites.
Sprocket Data's director of operations Jeff Johnston said: "I have never heard of the site, but it could have been hosted on a box that we leased to a client.
"We don't censor content at all, we say we want everybody to play nicely on the Internet, but anything illegal will be taken down immediately."
Johnston referred the Cape Times to ZoneEdit, who he said would have pulled the website.
But ZoneEdit's system administrator Dan Summer said the Internet provider number belonged to Sprocket Data: "I did get a complaint about that website, somebody who called and said it was in violation of South African law, but it had already been yanked."
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This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape Times on June 29, 2004
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