If you're worried about writing without taking flak or worse from government censors or religious extremists, there is a cyberplace for you to do it - Booklocker.com.
The Web site which specializes in e-books allows authors to publish sensitive writing anonymously, using the site's page forms, with its creator promising to keep their names secret, says Wired.
After all, Angela Adair-Hoy tells Wired, such authors can't just post a page on GeoCities or other known free site hosts, because they can be traced back to them somewhat easily.
Angela Adair-Hoy tells the magazine that she first assumed it was a modesty issue which prompted authors sending manuscripts to request anonymity. "People who write adult books naturally don't want their mothers to find out they're writing dirty books -- but these requests were for books that were political in nature, not adult," she tells the magazine. "I started to wonder exactly what was going on."
At Booklocker.com, writers' identities are known only to the host, which promises to keep them safe. And Digital Freedom Network executive director Bobson Wong tells Wired we're not just talking about porn writers or paranoid extremists writing gloom-and-doom tracts.
"Ask Gao Yu," he tells Wired, alluding to a Chinese journalist whose leak of state secrets to a Hong Kong magazine got him five years in prison. "In many countries if you say anything that criticizes the government or the state religion you're screwed."
Booklocked.com can be seen as a kind of end-run around governments and even pressure groups who can compromise authors and publishers who use cyberspace to transmit their controversial or sensitive thoughts and expressions. Governments like the People's Republic of China, Singapore and several Middle East governments filter Net content they consider offensive - and not just porn, either.
Some, Wired says, use server-level filtering to block access to any page containing a hot-button word; others hand off to Internet service providers the governments must license. The Singapore Broadcasting Authority, for example, as cited by Wired, will not license an ISP which allows access to content that "may undermine public morals, political stability, and religious harmony of Singapore."
Savasan Yurtserver used Booklocker.com to publish The Bible and the Koran, comparing flaws in the two sacred texts. He uses a pen name, does not reveal his homeland, and American-based e-mail for reader contact, Wired says. "In the East, you can't question the scriptures," he tells the magazine. "There are many terrorist organizations in both my country and in the neighboring countries who take note of the authors that have radical views about religion only to kill them later."
Michael Sunstar agrees. He's written two books on Middle Eastern history that takes a view contrary to the Islamic views considered mainstream around the Muslim Middle East. "Why am I protecting my identity? For my own protection from the people I might offend," he tells Wired. "People who will defend Allah might try to seek my life for the sake of defending their own beliefs. I do not feel that my life is presently in danger, provided that those whom I confide in keep a tight lid on my identity."
Subtitled A Comparative Study of Islam and Christianity, The Palestinian Prophecy is promoted by Booklocker.com with this: "Why is Muhammad a false prophet and Allah a false god? How does Islam connect with the prophecies foretold concerning the end of the world? Learn about Middle Eastern History with a new perspective that you never had before! These are the facts and details we have all missed."
But in a portion marked "About the Author," Booklocker.com says only this: "Michael has declined to reveal any comments about his life, education, and background due to the sensitive nature and content of his works. He solely wants to be known for his writings."
"The Net is so dominated by the West," Wong tells Wired. "In the East they're suspicious and don't want the filth and the tools of Western imperialism coming into their country. It is understandable to want to maintain social order. But governments don't have the right to be paranoid or clamp down on anything even remotely controversial."
The right technological infrastructure, says Alex Fowler of the Electronic Freedom Foundation to Wired, means a government "can get access to all communications over the Net whether their residents are Web surfing, sending e-mail, or uploading and downloading files. They can see everything you do and filter at a server level."
"The Net is still in the nascent stages but you can reach an international audience quickly and cheaply in a way that couldn't be done before," Wong says. "A person in Nigeria couldn't have phoned or faxed The Times of London without some extraordinary measures. Now one person with a computer can be a digital Gutenberg and with a few mouse clicks email all the major news agencies in the world. And that's pretty amazing."
