[963] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
"Pornography" on the net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Mandelbaum)
Fri Jul 12 14:05:53 1991
To: com-priv@uu.psi.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jul 91 13:23:06 -0400
From: Richard Mandelbaum <rma@tsar.cc.rochester.edu>
Well said.
I should note, that if one actualy deals with K12, as NYSERNet does extensively, the real problem is not one of protecting the K12 kids. It is of
protecting the administratores, computer specialists and teachers who
are introducing networking into the schools from being destroyed by irate
school boards and/or parents for allowing "Pornography into the schools".
I have made the argument that nothing available on the Internet approaches
what is available at most adult bookstores/video shops , but that argument
doesn't wash. This is a real problem. Of course the schol administrator
can make sure his system only gets the newsgroups he wants it to, but ther
is no reasonable way to control ftp access to the rest of the world.
In New York City, students who get access privileges do have to get
statements from their parents alowing them to take part in the
Network and agreeing that they will use it only for school-related work.
Censorship then gets dumped back into the parents lap.
In other school districts there is a great deal of reluctance to allow
students any sort of ftp type access.
By the way this is not an issue necessarily amenable to rational discussion
or solution. People seem to become very irrational very quickly on
anything having to do with pornography or with their view of
what constitutes pornography.
____________________
Christopher Maeda <cmaeda@EXXON-VALDEZ.FT.CS.CMU.EDU> says:
Define pornography. I find alt.sex to be more on the order o
f Dr.
Ruth than Larry Flynt. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has
a large
collection of ancient Greek kraters that explicitly depict ho
mosexual
intercourse and pederasty. Is that pornography or art? Why?
I certainly don't want to get into a debate over the definition of a
rt vs.
pornography, but I suppose I should at least answer this quickly. H
aving
never seen the Greek art in question, I can only assume that it is w
ell
executed from an artistic point of view. Much of the stuff on alt.s
ex that
I have read is so badly written (from the point of view of writing s
tyle,
spelling, grammer, story line, lack of plot, obviousness, etc) that
to call
it "erotic art" cheapens the name. It's the skill of the artist, no
t his
subject matter, that makes it art. All that, of course, begs the qu
estion
as to whether it should be on the Internet, or whether Joe Abernathy
's
article was a fair depiction or not.
What, if any, barriers should be erected in the NREN to prote
ct the
precious bodily fluids of K-12 users?
Seems to me that all that needs to be done is for whoever is adminis
tering
the news system in the K-12 schools to just put !alt.sex (etc, etc)
in
their sys file, and gird themselves against the cries of censorship
that
may or may not ensue. What protects those K-12'ers from walking to
the
corner store and buying a copy of something in a plain brown wrapper
or
renting a skin flick videotape, or catching it on the late-night cab
le, or
getting an earful of it by dialing 1-900-BIG-BOOB? I wouldn't worry
about
it too much. Better keep them out of the Greek wing of the Boston M
FA too :-)
/roy
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