[10540] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Providers and Content [was Re: Debating the NII "Truisms"]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Sat Feb 26 19:28:22 1994
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 15:17:06 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: sob@tmc.edu
Cc: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: "Stan Barber"'s message of Sun, 13 Feb 1994 13:39:04 -0600 <9402131339.ZM3478@TMC.EDU>
>Another interesting angle on this is having the "provider" in the content
>business. I put "provider" in quotes, because I am using a "broader" definition
>of "provider" as I write this.
>
>To be specific, there is an effort in Houston to create a "freenet"
>environment,
>but the principles involved want to regulate the content of the information
>in the environment.
There is a difference between providing content and regulating others'
content.
Sure, the latter might motivate the former in some way (e.g. no one
can give away for free what the provider sells) but that's not
clarifying the above just a random guess.
>I would appreciate some well thought out commentary here. The appeal of a
>"freenet" that does not tolerate the diversity of the community in which it is
>created is limited to me and I'd like to see if I am just missing the boat on
>this one.
I guess we'd need some hint as to how this has been presented (what's
regulated?)
But on the surface one risk to such a freenet is liability for
content. If they edit content based on certain publicly expressed
goals they could be held to those goals. For example, if you say you
won't allow any sexually explicit materials and go to some observable
effort to keep it off your system and tell people or imply they are
thereby "safe" from this sort of thing and something does show up it's
conceivable that could be interpreted as at least a civil negligence.
And it's not that hard to broaden the concept beyond a simple list
provided by the provider, if the implication was that nothing
disturbing would appear then they might be held to that standard in a
court of law.
Anyhow, this is all shooting in the dark, obviously there are things
you can "regulate" (e.g. illegal activities), tho how you investigate
and discover these could become an issue. So some hint as to what they
claim to be regulating would be helpful.
-Barry Shein
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