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Newsgroup Censorship & Usenet Privacy

What is Censorship?

Censorship is the act of examining books, movies, films, web pages, or other material and the subsequent removal or suppression of what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable. Many different people from many different areas read and use the news in Usenet. That means that there could be thousands or millions of articles that could be considered objectionable by someone, flowing through the Usenet network at any time.

Should You Be Afraid of Losing Your Privacy in Usenet?

The Usenet network connects computers across the entire world. Once an article gets posted to a group, it is sent out immediately across the Usenet network. That means any information that you post to any group can be seen across the world in less than a minute. This is what makes Usenet a great method of posting information quickly and easily around the world. It also makes a great method to send your personal information around the world at the same time. Fast Usenet will never give out your personal information to anyone at any time.

We would suggest that you never post any personal information at any time to any group. Unscrupulous users could use your personal information if they find it. That means even putting your real name at the end of your posts could lead to problems in the future. Unless you want other users to be able to contact you via email or distribute your email address to others, you need to make sure your real email address is not entered into the settings of your newsreader so that your posts would not be associated with it.

What is Newsgroup Censorship?

Newsgroup censorship would be the act of reading one group and filtering out the objectionable material. The majority of groups in the Usenet network are open to the public. Anyone at any time can post their opinion. While these opinions are not endorsed by Fast Usenet, we do nothing to suppress the personal expression of people’s ideas. Moderated groups are under a different set of rules though. A designated person called a moderator controls each moderated group. The moderator is notified when any new articles are posted. The moderator can at any time choose which new posts users will view and which posts will never go to the group.

How Does Fast Usenet Handle Newsgroup Censorship?

While Fast Usenet tries to make every user’s use of Usenet enjoyable, we do not check or monitor every article that gets posted to our servers. There are over 120,000 groups in the Usenet network and policing of the network is impossible. Fast Usenet does not censor user posts in any way. Basically it is impossible to read through every message that gets posted to just one group, let alone every group in the Usenet network. We do answer every complaint that we get about offensive articles. If any user sees objectionable content, they may send an e-mail to support (at) fastusenet dot org.

How Does Fast Usenet Protect Your Information?

Usenet encrypts all posts automatically so any person intercepting your posts in the network will have to decrypt the post first. We also encrypt your username when you post, which means that users who read your posts will not know your username. Fast Usenet can decode your username at any time if needed. Fast Usenet will always continue to make sure your private information never is put on the Usenet network. We only ask that you don’t post your personal information at any time because there is nothing we can do to prevent that from occurring or reverse it in the future.

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