Whoever runs the WikiLeaks Twitter account isn’t shy about expressing their disdain for Amazon.com — or what it sees as American hypocrisy. Earlier this week, WikiLeaks moved its main site over to Amazon’s Web Services platform to protect itself from a DDOS cyberattack. But this morning, under pressure from the U.S. government, Amazon.com shut down the site. In a statement, Senator Lieberman said, “The company’s decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.” The site has been down intermittently today, but appears to be back now, hosted by a Swedish firm headquartered outside Stockholm &$8212; coincidentally the same city where Julian Assange is wanted on rape and sexual harassment charges that he claims are bogus. In response to Amazon’s actions, WikiLeaks tweeted:
WikiLeaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free–fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe.
Followed shortly by:
If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.
Followed shortly by:
If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.
Amazon is probably congratulating itself for all the free publicity for its web services. But it seems sort of self-righteous, not to mention self-serving, to blame Amazon, a corporation, for buckling under governmental pressure, especially when a DDOS attack could jeopardize its other clients. Hmmm, self-righteous and self-serving … wonder who that could be.
Amazon pulls WikiLeaks plug [Computer World]
Amazon.com Drops Wikileaks [ReadWriteWeb]
[WikiLeaks/Twitter]
