For those of you who have been around the web for a very long time, you’re likely familiar with various error codes that a web browser could generate. One example is 404 which is what you get when you follow a broken or dead link.
You can now add error code 451 to that list which is meant to highlight web pages that have been blocked for legal reasons. In other words pages that are censored. The number comes from the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 where a dystopian society burns books which effectively silences the population. But the code itself was the brainchild of Tim Bray, co-author of the XML specification. It was approved this week by the Internet Engineering Steering Group. However it is optional, so the impact may be limited for now. But it is a good first step towards transparency on the Web.
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This entry was posted on December 23, 2015 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags censorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Error Code 451 To Highlight Censorship On The Web
For those of you who have been around the web for a very long time, you’re likely familiar with various error codes that a web browser could generate. One example is 404 which is what you get when you follow a broken or dead link.
You can now add error code 451 to that list which is meant to highlight web pages that have been blocked for legal reasons. In other words pages that are censored. The number comes from the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451 where a dystopian society burns books which effectively silences the population. But the code itself was the brainchild of Tim Bray, co-author of the XML specification. It was approved this week by the Internet Engineering Steering Group. However it is optional, so the impact may be limited for now. But it is a good first step towards transparency on the Web.
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This entry was posted on December 23, 2015 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags censorship. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.