Marksonland

Keith pointed me to this post on the Topix blog where Topix.net (but not Topix.com, curiously) has been labeled a "Hostile Website" by the Zimbabwe government and thus blacklisted in the country. Topix, along with the other listed sites, is considered "Hostile" because of its apparent "long history of falsifying information on the issues unfolding in Zimbabwe and attack[ing] individual Zanu PF members on baseless accusations..."

Forgetting the irony of banning a site that is comprised solely of scraped content and UGC for having a history of falsifying information, to this news I say kudos Topix. If a government, any government, wants to ban you, it means you're having an impact. And the key ingredient to having an impact is having an audience. Power to the people and all that of course, but really, congrats to the company on growing its audience - even in a pretty place pretty far from Palo Alto - where it can have impact.

Here's hoping some more countries follow suit....