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  • 2015-12-21 (xsd:date)
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  • Bernie Sanders' Site Blocked on Military Bases? (en)
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  • On 21 December 2015, the Facebook page Veterans for Bernie Sanders published a status update claiming access to BernieSanders.com was blocked on some military bases: The post was popular among military supporters of Bernie Sanders, particularly in the wake of a separate controversy involving restrictions placed upon the candidate's campaign (since lifted by the Democratic National Committee). According to the claim, only Sanders' campaign site was blocked on affected networks; websites for candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump remained accessible via the same connections. A video was uploaded to YouTube on 21 December 2015, purportedly demonstrating that disparity: In the comments section of the Veterans for Bernie Sanders post, the page pointed to a 4 January 2015 post published by the U.S. Department of Defense in which the DoD explained that content filters are applied to a variety of web sites for myriad reasons: Some commenters questioned the legitimacy and date stamping of the video, saying that the page was opening [itself] up to credibility questions without including details, to which the page replied: With respect to the location of the video, the page would only say it was taken at a [f]oreign installation; individuals operating the page declined to provide further specifics with respect to the purported locations or scope of the claim. Commenter opinions ranged about the claims, some noted that outages could be technical in nature: Others were distrustful following what many Sanders supporters felt was a calculated effort by the DNC to cripple the candidate's efforts heading into the Iowa caucuses in early 2016: Others claimed they were unable to reproduce the reported issue, citing a security certificate error: We contacted individuals at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar who attempted to access multiple Bernie Sanders campaign web sites from their respective locations on 21 December 2015. Those individuals provided separate screenshots confirming that the sites were unblocked from both locations: In short, individuals at some bases overseas claimed they were unable to access Bernie Sanders' websites, but were able to navigate to Clinton and Trump's web sites with no issue. The claims were unconfirmed, and users stationed stateside indicated that Sanders' site was accessible from their respective locations. One individual posited that an issue remained with Sanders' campaign's security certificate, but we were unable to duplicate that claim. (en)
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