BTW, I’m pretty sure you’re not getting linked because of your NSFW content. Just another painful reminder of the annoying puritanical remnants in modern US society. Despite the fact that pretty much every technological advance ever has been driven by porn (only a slight exaggeration), the mainstream media still wants to pretend they are somehow separate from such things.

I’ll admit I kind of had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when you announced vb.ly — the thoughts running through my head, not this well articulated, were sort of “Libya? Violet? I don’t see that ending well.” But I wouldn’t have dreamed of “telling you so” at the time, I know you well enough to know you and to know that you do your due diligence, I could have predicted to a fare-thee-well that you’d have quoted chapter and verse your intended compliance with all available TOS and policies, just as you have with Flickr and Facebook and probably some other culturally-conservative behemoths I’m forgetting at the moment that decided they didn’t like your kind even though you were following their vague and petty rules per the letter but not per the “you’re fine as long as you don’t upset the applecart” spirit.

It’s part of your charm (I mean this sincerely, no snark, you know I’ve never snarked you) that you are willing to rely on rules and TOS and such, and summon outrage (even wearily) when your compliance therewith avails you so little. The powerful, of course, don’t consider themselves bound; they look at “what are my interests, how can this person/organization hurt me if I do what I want?” and if they see nothing to deter them, they do what they want. Worse, they get into the habit of thinking themselves invulnerable, so they omit the inquiry step; that’s how you get into your periodic grudge-fuck dance with Flickr, where some brainless functionary abuses your account beyond all reason (since most people dealing with Flickr are utterly without recourse, this is safe) until you can create enough internet noise/pain to wake the dinosaur pea/brain of someone higher in the organization who can undo the damage.

I AM bummed vb.ly did not work out, I cannot begin to imagine how much work you must have put into getting it up and running.

I was just curious, with all of this, if you had any opinions on Google’s “new” url shortener, goo.gl?

On the plus side, it allowed me to “discover” a link to StumbleUpon. So, maybe that will drive you some traffic. ;)

Most likely, a certain crackpot dictator was busted for looking, and he said he was investigating the problem. sigh.

Keep up the good work!

Your probably the only blogger who’s articles I read from beginning to end. Honestly, with a story like this and your FB account being shut down, it shines a bright light on the puritanism that runs strong on the internet.

Your documentation, explanation, and conveying of events that unfold regarding your sites are not only informative, but also intriguing. You bring up many great points, and even many more questions regarding the role of women in today’s world of sex and culture.

Keep up the awesome work, and thanks for fighting the good fight.

- MWC

The world still needs a sex positive URL shortener.

http://www.tinynibbles.com/blogarchives/2010/10/official-vb-ly-link-shortener-seized-by-libyan-government.html#comment-9733

I don’t think it was exclusively gender biased (of course I can only guess). it just happened, that’s all.

I find that hard to believe. No one is linking to anyone these days, do you really think its cos of your gender? Got any evidence of that?

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This whole debacle shows us that any site operating off a ccTLD needs to beware, and give serious consideration to launching a new domain now and 301ing immediately to get the new urls indexed.