UPDATE (01/03/13) Automattic (WordPress) defended themselves against Zenyth Pharmaceuticals. The motion was denied. The blogger has been posting updates here.
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WordPress may not appreciate my writing this but I’m going to do it anyway.
The makers of this questionable colon cleansing product are now suing WordPress after failing to silence a Romanian blogger who had basically pointed out that they were making unsubstantiated claims.
The original ColonHelp post was published last July and provoked an angry comment from Zenyth Pharmaceuticals, who demanded 100,000 Euros for damage to their reputation.
Rather than silencing criticism, this simply generated more posts and Zenyth eventually decided to sue WordPress. In doing so, they also helpfully translated the posts into English (see here, here and here), meaning they can now be read by a much wider audience.
Rather than addressing the scientific arguments and engaging in honest debate, they are simply trying to stop criticism. This is a typical quack response.
And if the original post wasn’t enough to convince you that colon cleansing is pseudoscientific quackery, there are there links to further articles here.
Should anyone wish to join me on a ColonHelp Streisand list, please send links and I’ll post them below.
And if WordPress have a problem with this post, I would be quite happy to set up another blog elsewhere, just for ColonHelp.
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Last updated 02/03/13 11:00
- Compania care produce ColonHelp da in judecata WordPress pentru un blog sceptic dumnezero, 10/11/12
- Colon cleaning company sues WordPress to try and deny reality Insula Îndoielii, 11/10/12
- Colon quacks sue WordPress Josephine Jones 11/10/12
- Free speech? What free speech? Odeena Sabnach, 11/10/12
- ColonHelp a dat in judecata WordPress logosfera.ro, 11/10/12
- Morning Toolbox – October 11, 2012 – Legal Threats and Fair Use Tim Farley, Skeptical Software Tools, 11/10/12
- The Morning Heresy 10/11/12: Ladybugs’ Picnic Day Center for Inquiry, 11/10/12
- Quack-Firma greift ins Klo: Klage gegen WordPress Bernd Harder, gwup | die skeptiker, 11/10/12
- Turd Sandwiches iamologies, 11/10/12
- More companies go after critical bloggers with heavy-handed tactics idoubtit, Doubtful News, 11/10/12
- Skeptic News: 2 Skeptics sued The Twenty-First Floor, 11/10/12
- A shitstorm is comming Rambling around foo, 12/10/12 (also posted here)
- ColonHelp produser sue WordPress to silence critic Petter Reinholdtsen, 12/10/12
- ColonHelp is a scam. Now with extra ridiculous. Trilema, 12/10/12
- Medizinischer Shitstorm , ein windiger Pharmakonzern verklagt WordPress Living the Future, 12/10/12
- Skeptical Reporter @ 2012-10-12 Sceptici în România, 14/10/12
- Zenyth Pharmaceuticals cannot face(book) critics, so they cleanse them Rambling around foo, 16/10/12
- Virtual Skeptics, Episode 10 (17 Oct 2012) 17/10/12
- Sense and sensibility Alex Doppelgänger’s “Because I can”
- Cum ajung o companie farmaceutică globală și un blogger sceptic din România să se judece în America? Moromitic, La colţu’ străzii, 19/10/12
- Bad science, Romania style Craig Turp, Bucharest Life, 19/10/12
- Legal Issues in Social Media hoinaru, 08/11/12
- E blogul meu, scriu ce vreau pe el. Sau nu? mariussescu.ro, 09/11/12
- Is a Platform Liable for the Content it is used to Publish? Danny Hall, Posse Social Media, 26/11/12
- ColonHelp il duce la tribunal pe WordPress. In Romania. Cabral.ro, 18/12/12
Josephine Jones 
Thank you for helping out! Hope more and more follow.
Just a small correction, they were not able to ban anything!
My post is still there in Romanian it’s the third result in Google queries after “colon help” and it’s probably eating into their sales a bit (at least that’s what they claim).
Since I’m not part of the suit I can’t do anything, legally, except draw attention to their tactics.
I had written “banned” because I thought the Romanian posts had been taken down. I’ll edit accordingly, thanks. Their tactics are dreadful and typical of quacks.
Perfect, thank you.
It’s up on reddit too, right here:
I blogged about this too – here: http://odeena.net/free-speech-what-free-speech/
I’d like to believe this would be a non-issue in any civilized country because, y’know, free speech and all that. Not so much in Romania, though. Sometimes, I really hate our legal system.
Thanks – I’ll start my list immediately!
We have problems with libel laws here. Libel threats made by quacks against perfectly reasonable blogs are far too common.
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Hello there! I’m very happy to help as much as I can in this battle, even if the post is in Romanian only. I’m also very glad that there are so many people fighting for this cause. I never did like pseudoscience and even more now that they threaten with legal actions everyone that critics them. Best of luck and let’s make them be sorry.
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I do love how by filing the suit they drew even more attention to themselves by translating the original post…
It was very helpful of them!
Thank you for taking an interest in this news story from my country. What this company is trying to do is just bully somebody into shutting up and, even though we may not have the best freedom of speech laws in our country, we must still show solidarity and the ability to stand up for ourselves and our community of skeptics. So thank you again!
Thanks for your comment. I wholeheartedly agree.
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