Network Solutions, Wilders and Fitna - Defend the Internet against the PC Jihad

For most of the world freedom of speech is only an ideal that does not exist in reality. In Canada, England, Australia, Israel, Sweden and most of the first world countries that people think of as "democratic", many forms of religious and political speech are subject to the law. And those who find themselves on the wrong side of speaking out against Islam have been questioned, put on trial and in some cases even sentenced.

One of the few places in the world where you can still say anything you want without fear of government reprisal is the United States. But free speech remains unheard without a forum. And the media's grip over information makes that hard to come by offline.

No law or protests were needed to censor the Mohammed cartoons in the United States. The media willingly did it themselves, just as they've eagerly parroted the propaganda of every terrorist from Gitmo to Baghdad to Jersey City to Gaza to Kabul. They've done it willingly just as they continue to call terrorist supporters, moderates and to call the terrorists themselves, activists.

The internet is the last territory for freedom in the United States and the world. That's why the case of Geert Wilders, the Fitna movie and Network Solutions is so important. And it is a case that affects every blogger and website that has spoken out against Islamic terrorism.

The latest reports already show that mainstream media outlets gobble up far too much internet traffic in comparison to independent sources. If the internet is set to go the way of the media, if on top of that companies like Network Solutions lend a hand to a campaign against Anti-Jihadist websites, then the internet will begin looking like Huffington Post or DailyKos.

Defending the internet against the P.C. Jihad means defending the flow of information. There are plenty of lessons to be learned about distributing and promoting Fitna from everyone who has challenged the system and won.

A centralized website is not what really matters, decentralized distribution does. With the rise of video sharing websites and the continued dominance of Bit Torrent, it's almost laughably easy to distribute such a movie, especially now that the media itself has generated the publicity for it.

First release the movie via BitTorrent. Then once critical mass has been reached, go for the video sharing sites.

YouTube is only one option and the crudest option, as it offers small screen size, small file size low video quality, a heavy Islamist presence and entrenched moderation. Its only advantage is a sizable user base.

There are dozens of others, from Veoh to Google Video to Metacafe to DailyMotion. Where should the video go? Everywhere. The more distribution, the better. There's no need to centralize distribution, when you can distribute it instead. As long as the site has a user base and allows embedding, it's worth a shot. Generate lots of smaller clips to promote the movie itself.

If the video gets taken down, a dozen people can easily volunteer to reupload two copies for every one that gets taken down. Maintain file directories on free file sharing sites such as Filedropper, Mediafire, EatLime (which is as close to Bittorrent as a file sharing site can get) or Drop.io or any one of a dozen similar sites. Use those directories as the data sources for reuploading new copies to the video sharing services.

Much if not all of this can be done independently by bloggers and by just plain people on the internet with very little coordination, just a call for action from prominent sites when the time is right.

Use social media to promote the movie. Use websites such as Overstream to create subtitles for different languages. Learn about the other free tools that are out there and that can help. MediaConverter is great at converting formats and turning online flash videos on YouTube into editable video files that you can use to download and transform videos. This let me quickly remake the Obama campaign commercial videos without spending too much time on it.

We're not old line media and we shouldn't act like it. Those who are out to suppress free speech and criticism of Islam and political correctness want easy targets, people they can isolate, stifle, pin down and destroy. The power of the internet lets us form communities that prevent them from doing that. Only when we unite, can we truly begin fighting back.