Peacefire is a U.S.-based website, with a registered address in Bellevue, Washington, dedicated to preserving First Amendment rights for Internet users, particularly those younger than 18. It was founded in August 1996 by Bennett Haselton, who still runs it.

Peacefire is primarily concerned with free speech rights. The authors on the site have been opponents of web content filtering and blocking software, which they refer to as censorware. They have offered numerous methods for defeating common web filters, and this has drawn some interest from the shadier side of the Internet community. The site has conducted long battles against the most commonly used filter programs, including, most famously, Net Nanny , Cyber Patrol , and BESS . In particular, Peacefire has demonstrated that the filter programs suppress political speech and filter preferentially for corporate and conservative causes. In other cases, Peacefire has presented evidence that several filtering programs block some websites without having a human being review those sites first, despite the filtering companies' claims to the contrary.

Peacefire is not usually active against filters that act in a more neutral way, but they express strong civil libertarian views on speech.

One common test that Peacefire runs is to create web pages filled with content clipped from news items. In particular, they will take quotes from conservative politicians that seem politically sensitive. They will then submit the site to a filter and see if it gets blocked. They will then point out that the content deemed "inappropriate" on their pages was, in fact, "appropriate" when coming from a corporate (or conservative blog) site. They also routinely search out sites of liberal and progressive content to see if they are blocked. They then compile a report on how biased and repressive the filtering software is. They offer these reports to the software makers and follow up to see if any corrective measures have been taken.

The site is also involved in alerting the online community of efforts to pass laws restricting content to web sites.

Peacefire's own website is often blocked, either in part or whole, by filtering software, and the organization has both sued and been threatened with lawsuits in civil court in the United States.

Peacefire claims to have about 12 staffers and about 7,000 members. Anyone of any age can become a member by signing up for the site's low-volume, announcement-only electronic mailing list.

In March, 2002, Peacefire won a $1000 award at King County District Court in Bellevue, Washington in each of three cases against Red Moss Media, Paulann Allison and Richard Schueler for sending misleading unsolicited commercial emails to its webmaster bearing deceptive information such as a forged return e-mail address or misleading subject line, in a test of Washington State's tough anti-Spamming laws.

External links

• Peacefire.org