Atlanta Vampire Alliance [AVA]

[Merticus]

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=74379d19-555c-42d6-8be5-83ba89804248&k=22667

Edmonton web host asks vampire website to leave in wake of Montreal shooting
Shannon Montgomery, Canadian Press
Published: Thursday, September 21, 2006

EDMONTON (CP) - A Canadian web-hosting company has dropped a vampire-themed site after media reports linked the perpetrator of a Montreal school shooting that killed one woman with the site VampireFreaks.com.

Edmonton-based HostOnFiber.com has asked the online magazine Some Lives Are Different to find an alternative host within 30 days.

"This last week there was a Columbine-like incident that occurred here in Canada in Montreal," Andrew Snook wrote in an e-mail to the zine's webmaster, who goes by Sapphire online.

"The shooter had been actively involved in a vampire website (VampireFreaks.com). After hearing about this, I had a look at their website and found it dark and inappropriate."

He wrote he then realized www.slad.net was also vampire-themed.

"I was shocked to see the type of content that you have on your site. While I see that you have some warnings and require your members to be at least 18 years of age, we would still prefer not to have this type of material on our servers."

Some people have called for stricter monitoring of the Internet after it was discovered that Kimveer Gill, who shot and killed one woman and injured almost two dozen people at Dawson College in Montreal last week, posted threatening comments and pictures of himself with guns on several websites.

Slad.net bills itself as a site for "real vampires," among other things. It provides information on how to "feed" on the blood of others, including tips on keeping safe from blood-borne diseases.

Sapphire says in a post on the site that "it really sickens me that the vampire, gothic, and other alternative communities are being bashed and ultimately punished because of someone else's instability and bad behaviour."

She says she is getting the "eviction notice" because the site's host for over three years "suddenly got a case of right-wing conservative cold feet."

But Snook said in an interview that when his company first began carrying the site, Slad stood for St. Louis After Dark and it was more a listing of evening activities.

He said his company is small, and he isn't comfortable with it carrying anything that isn't "family friendly."

"That's just a personal, moral stance, based on my own convictions."

Snook said hosting companies generally have no responsibility over the sites they carry - in many cases people sign up over the Internet without any personal contact.

While he was able to check over the dozen or so sites his company carries after the Montreal shootings, he said such monitoring isn't possible for most servers.

"Some of these servers have thousands and thousands of customers, all paying $5 a month," he said. "It's probably a little bit impractical for them to be checking the content of every single one of them."

Michael Geist, an Internet law expert at the University of Ottawa, said hosts try to monitor for illegal activity such as child pornography, but it's impossible to watch every single site.

"I think we're looking for some kind of silver bullet, some sort of solution that would allow us to better identify the potential threats," he said.

"And I'm not sure that monitoring chat on sites like (VampireFreaks) is going to prove to provide that solution."

He said most people who post to such sites are simply role-playing rather than planning any real action.

And even if hosts have stricter standards for what type of sites they'll allow, the Internet has many resources, he added.

"There will invariably be hosts that are willing to host that kind of content, and all it requires, really, is one host and the content is then readily available to all."

http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/092206_Canadian_Web_Host_Drops_Vampire_Site.cfm
Canadian Web Host Drops Vampire Site

September 22, 2006 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A Canadian Web hosting provider has dropped a vampire-themed site after several media outlets linked VampireFreaks.com with the man responsible for last week's Montreal school shooting that left one woman dead.

Edmonton-based HostOnFiber (hostonfiber.com) has ordered the online magazine Some Lives Are Different (slad.net) to find another Web host within 30 days.

Some critics have demanded stronger online monitoring procedures after it was revealed that Kimveer Gill, who shot and killed one woman and injured almost two dozen people last week at Montreal's Dawson College, posted hostile comments and pictures of himself with guns on numerous Web sites.

Slad.net--which calls itself a site for "real vampires," among other things--contains information on how to "feed" on the blood of others, including tips on preventing any blood-borne diseases.

HostOnFiber founder/owner Andrew Snook says that when his company first began hosting the site, Slad stood for St. Louis After Dark and featured a listing of nightly activities. He says that HostOnFiber is a small company, and he isn't comfortable with it hosting anything that isn't "family friendly."

"I think we're looking for some kind of silver bullet, some sort of solution that would allow us to better identify the potential threats," he said.

"And I'm not sure that monitoring chat on sites like (VampireFreaks) is going to prove to provide that solution."

He said most people who post to such sites are simply role-playing rather than planning any real action.

And even if hosts have stricter standards for what type of sites they'll allow, the Internet has many resources, he added.

"There will invariably be hosts that are willing to host that kind of content, and all it requires, really, is one host and the content is then readily available to all."

© The Canadian Press 2006

[Auras]

This is just sad. Like always, one person associated with something shoots people, suddenly everyone associated with that gets put under suspicion. They did this with games like "Doom" and "Duke Nukem" back during Columbine, remember?
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The light that is in me is darkness.