This question has come up about fifteen times now, both from my two kindly editors, and the outside readers who have found the site. Since I don’t have a Frequently Asked Question page, I guess I’ll just answer the one question most frequently asked here. It depends what you mean by “shut down”, and it depends why it happens… Hope this helps… oh wait, you wanted more than that? Fine, read on.
The reasons why this or any other site may be shut down is countless, but for the sake of convenience, let’s break it into three pretty obvious categories, with answers for each.
1 – Accidentally Shut Down. This could be a billing, server or DNS error, a database oopsy-daisy, a hijack on an adjacent site on the same backbone or just the whims of the gods. If this happens, the answer is that the site will magically reappear as quickly as it disappeared. I’ve got backups of every file, so even if the whole server building bursts into flames (and the off-site collocation server too) I’ll have it back up as soon as my FTP permits, which should be just about immediately, though it may look like a day or two depending on your ISP.
2 – I Shut It Down. There are a number of reasons I might do such a thing, but they would likely tie back in (as if by magic) to point 3, which is due to outside pressure. I could pull it off because of legal pressure (modestly likely), threats to my family (fairly unlikely) or because of contractual obligations with some company I might be doing business with (extremely unlikely.)
3 – Heatherwood Shuts Me Down. This is, at least in my opinion, the most likely of all courses. They could claim trademark infringement in an attempt to steal my domain out from under me, which could successful, however patently untrue. They could file an injunction against me in court demanding I cease operations due to unjust material harm, which is invalid since it exactly constitutes legitimate commentary. They could go after my hosting company saying that I’m infringing on their copyrights, which would be impossible since I’m reviewing them specifically, as protected by the first amendment. They could even file a DMCA violation notice claiming I’m unfairly appropriating their images (such as in my “Marketing Mistruths” section), though that would amount to nothing less than perjury.
Because my boss owns my work, and he’s more stubborn than I am, I have fair confidence he’d call in the lawyers to battle as surely as I know he’d put the whole settlement back to operating capital without spotting me so much as a nickel. I’ll take the downside if that’s the upside.
It’s extremely unlikely that Phil Nored, Charito Domingo or anyone else at Heatherwood would attempt underhanded actions to take this site offline. An injunction isn’t underhanded, by the way, that’s the proper channel. The other attacks may yield greater success, and would surely achieve it in hours (while a court attack would take weeks or months at least). They just wouldn’t do it. Phil is smarter than that, and if he’s got a grievance, I’m confident he’ll air it openly, even though he hasn’t done so thus far.
If this site was somehow shut down by backwater channels without allowing due process to run its course, it would be a move more detrimental than naming Palin for vice president of Heatherwood. It would tank in the polls about as quick and as hard. Stopping one site temporarily isn’t the same thing as shutting it off permanently, and without a court mandated Cease & Desist, I’d launch ten more Heatherwood Awareness sites in the weeks to follow, and I’d host them overseas, and I’d point out the way justice was usurped in the deal, and that would just be the beginning.
Forget the fact that there would be 10-sites to replace the one that was lost, think about the actions so-far withheld, and the as-yet unimagined actions that would follow.
The Discussion Boards would go live, cross-propagated across 6 of the 10 sites, so the voices speaking out would have a permanent, inalienable forum for the open airing of grievances. The postcards would be immediately mailed out. The 15 publicity articles scattered to the far corners of the globe would be published. The directory sites, link farms and link-trade systems would get a flood of new links, and the surplus ad space across my old, personal network would be inundated with promotion for what had once been HeatherwoodMillCreek.com.
And that’s just touching on that which was known… Then we would have to get in to that which was not yet imagined.
When a site is summarily disappeared like that, sites like ChillingEffects.org and the ACLU are oft wont to get involved. At the current president of the Internet Satirical Newspaper Association, there are more than 70 sites I would call in to action to write up the actions taken against me, each with links pointing to my new, replacement site (many of those sites offering all-pages links, so effectively around 30,000 links hitting Google in 3-days).
From there, who knows what would happen. I certainly don’t, but I do know it wouldn’t be pretty. I mean, it wouldn’t be ugly for me, because I’d be the victim in that hypothetical, but I can see how it would be nasty enough for the other party to make up for my half of the equation.
But it will never come to that. I’ve spoken with Phil, and I’ve emailed him at length. He’s a smart man, and he seems to hold me in fairly equitable regard, whether that’s the right or wrong thing to do (or if it’s just my perception) I can’t say. Even though I never tipped my hand to Phil, whom I truly and sincerely respect in the highest, it’s my belief he already knew these possibilities existed.
Surely he didn’t know the exact details, and maybe he didn’t know the full extent, but he knew enough to know it was a barrel of worms he dare not open.
So if this site should disappear, I say give it a day or two and come back to hit me up again. It can’t just be gone. If you suspect foul play, Google me out again and see what you can find. I’m going to be somewhere, but if Phil takes the steps he’s looking at, this whole project may dissolve right quick. If I see Heatherwood taking sincere steps towards real and radical reform, I’m going to have no choice but to take my work offline, at least for a time, to afford them the opportunity to do what they know is in the greatest, best interest of their communities.
I’ve gotten burned holding my breath before, so I’ll wait to finish looking before I start my leaping.
Tags: censorship, difficulty, heatherwood, media, offline, resistance, trouble