roundtable: Re: Censorship and pornography

roundtable: Re: Censorship and pornography

Re: Censorship and pornography

Tom Karwin (tkarwin@cats.ucsc.edu)
Tue, 21 Mar 1995 10:33:37 -0800 

Message-Id: <199503211829.KAA12833@cats.ucsc.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 10:33:37 -0800
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: tkarwin@cats.ucsc.edu (Tom Karwin)
Subject: Re: Censorship and pornography


Kevin, 

You've raised an interesting issue. 

I've seen at least one response (written, probably, since your 
follow-up message, which follows my comments), so you could find that 
your proposition stimulates a lot of discussion. Here are my initial 
reactions: 

First, I want to question your premise that "censorship is inevitable," 
and that we (i.e., the access community) must choose between self-
censorship and having censorship forced upon us. While it is probably 
inevitable that some people will call for censorship, we (i.e., society) 
does not have to honor their request. In fact, a lot of ideas that 
people feel strongly about have a very difficult time in developing a 
constituency, much less a majority of votes. With this in mind, one 
strategic response to the aspiring censors would be undermine their 
arguments, with the ultimate goal to defend the First Amendment and 
defeat plans to impose censorship on access programming. Previous 
experience suggests that this strategy could be successful for an 
indefinitely long period. 

Then, there is your proposition for self-censorship, which involves 
flagging "questionable material" with "an //X/ subdirectory." I have 
two problems with this approach. First, it depends on someone to 
define "questionable material," in the context of (a) unmoderated 
newsgroups and (b) a astonishingly wide range of opinion, across the 
country, as to material is "questionable."  Assuming that someone is 
in a position to assign such flags, we are left with the threat that 
only a very conservative defintion would satisfy all those who worry 
about "questionable" material, and that such a definition would limit 
the access of other citizens to information that are entitled to 
receive, under the Constitution. 

Someone else has already pointed out that such a flagging strategy 
could ease the task of minors to locate "objectionable" material on 
the Internet.

So, as with other important issues, there is no easy answer. In my 
opinion, the long-term response to the variation of viewpoints has two 
components: teach people to respect and tolerate the views of others, 
and teach parents to pass on their values to their childen. 

Tom Karwin
<tkarwin@cats.ucsc.edu>


>I wrote the following idea and have been speading it around as much as 
>I could. However I have not received any feedback as of yet. Pleaseth
>feel free to also distribute it. en
>
>If you disagree with it, I welcome your comments. However, I do hope 
>you state some reasonable alternative solution.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Kevin Nelson
><nelson@northcoast.com>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Is there a way to clean up our act?
>
>Yes, there is a relatively easy and effective way.
>
>But first, we must remember how important it is for us to provide the
>ability of concerned people to censor net material. If we don't provide 
>this ability, then we shall be inviting upon ourselves some legal dark-age.
>Censorship is inevitable. The big question is whether we wish to censor
>ourselves, or have others force such censorship upon us.
>
>The way simply involves the way the directories of sensitive material are
>named. Any newsgroup with often questionable material should have in its
>name ".X.". So, ALT.SEX.BANANAS would be renamed ALT.X.SEX.BANANAS.
>World-Wide-Web pages would be named with an //X/ subdirectory before the
>posible offensive material. 
>
>All of the software used for accessing various features of the Internet
>would have a password-lockout command the parent or user of the program
>could enable that would not allow access of that material. 
>
>Of course, that would not be entirely foolproof; but then again any kid 
>who is really interested in looking at pornographic magazines could 
>easily do so. 
>
>As long as the software companies provide that lock-out feature and 
>system administrators follow that convention, then the blame for a 
>kid's exposure to pornography over the net will usually be totally in 
>the hands of his parents.
>
>Thereby avoiding law-enforced censorship.
>
>Kevin Nelson  <nelson@northcoast.com>

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