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    The Pirate Bay shames Anonymous attacks on Virgin, says DDoS is 'a form of censorship'

    The Pirate Bay shames Anonymous attacks on Virgin, says DDoS is 'a form of censorship'

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    Criticism over a recent Anonymous DDoS campaign that hit Virgin Media after the ISP blocked its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay is coming from an unusual source: The Pirate Bay.

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    The Pirate Bay
    The Pirate Bay

    Criticism of a recent Anonymous DDoS offensive that hit Virgin Media after the ISP blocked The Pirate Bay is coming from an unusual source: The Pirate Bay. The renowned torrent tracking service, while disagreeing with the actions, is nevertheless asserting that censorship can not be fought with more censorship, and has implored the various branches of Anonymous involved to cease their attack on the ISP in a post on their Facebook page.

    We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us.
    So don't fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.

    The outrage may indeed be misdirected: in November of last year, a group of ISPs including Virgin refused a request by the British Phonographic Institute to voluntarily block their customers from accessing the site. It wasn't until after a recent ruling from the British High Court that the law forced ISPs to comply. Virgin Media itself followed the court order, but insisted that "changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price."

    The Pirate Bay also offered its own advice:

    If you want to help; start a tracker, arrange a manifestation, join or start a pirate party, teach your friends the art of bittorrent, set up a proxy, write your political representatives, develop a new p2p protocol, print some pro piracy posters and decorate your town with, support our promo bay artists or just be a nice person and give your mom a call to tell her you love her.