The Counter-Currents Summer Fundraiser 
Banned in France?

[1]567 words

Since our last update, we have received four new donations ranging from $25 to $100, totaling $200. Thank you for your loyal support!

Thanks to our matching grant, this amount will be doubled to $400. There is $555 remaining on our matching grant, which expires in 12 days. Please give now, so your gift will go farther.

This brings our grand total to $13,619.30. Our goal is $25,000.

Matching grants are a wonderful way to give and encourage others to give as well. If you wish to offer a matching grant to help us make our goal, please contact me at [email protected] [2].

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One concrete sign of Counter-Currents’ impact is that active attempts are being made to prevent people from accessing our site.

First, I have received word from three separate French readers that they have been blocked from visiting Counter-Currents. Apparently it is easy enough to work around this sort of fiddling if one is sufficiently determined, but this will definitely prevent casual readers from stumbling upon our site. I have asked these French readers to tell me how precisely they have been blocked and by which internet service providers, but I have not heard back from them yet. If you are a French reader and have been experiencing problems, please contact us. (Please make a PDF of the screen you get and send it.) If you know of ways to circumvent site blocking, contact us as well.

Second, on the first of August, we noticed a sharp drop in Google-driven traffic. Counter-Currents still turns up in Google searches, but the rankings of our most popular pieces are now much lower. Again, such chicanery does not stop determined people from accessing our message, but it does make it less likely that new people will stumble upon Counter-Currents and like what they see. Most of such people “bounce” out of here very quickly. But some stay a while and come back. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil [3],” so I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

We will keep you posted on how this affects our overall traffic.

We take solace in the fact that such measures would be unnecessary if we did not threaten the people who run this system. So we take it as a compliment, and so should all of our supporters. You keep us in the game, and we’ll keep making them sweat.

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You can make two different types of donations:

Recurring donations are particularly helpful, since they allow us better to predict and plan for the future. We have added several new levels for recurring donations. Please visit our Donations [4] page for more information.

We can also customize the amount of a monthly donation. There are, moreover, other ways to make monthly donations besides Paypal, although it is the most convenient. For more details, contact Mike Polignano at: [email protected] [5]

There are several ways to make one-time donations:

Please give generously!

Thank you for your readership and support.

Greg Johnson
Editor-in-Chief
Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.