[9006] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: sleaze
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Deutsch)
Tue Dec 14 17:58:48 1993
From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1993 17:45:53 -0500
In-Reply-To: Rose Marie Holt's message as of Dec 14, 12:58
To: Rose Marie Holt <rmholt@u.washington.edu>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
[ Rose Marie Holt wrote: ]
> My $.02, as a mere consumer with kids. Is there any reason why people
> with net access should NOT have a origination address posted with their
> postings. Then that would change the problem to tracing fake origins; is
> that manageable? . . .
Even if this were enforcable (and I believe it's not)
there are several of really big problems with this proposal.
First, you'd have to get an awful lot of people to change
an awful lot of software, and I just don't see everyone
doing that. Some because they're too busy and some because
they believe in free speech and wouldn't want to help what
would they'd perceive as an attack on free speech.
There are any number of people with perfectly legitimate
reasons for hiding their identity on the Internet. For
example, there is a newsgroup for recovering victims of
sexual abuse and a number of participants in this group
use anonymous posting services to hide their origins. I'm
sure we can come up with lots more examples, but the point
is, one person's right to privacy is another person's
hiding from their actions. I'd prefer to come down on the
side of a right to privacy but that's going to cause
problems for people who want full accountability.
Finally, there's the fact that the Internet is a global
phenomenon, and you have to realize that what's
illegal/offensive in one place may be perfectly acceptable
somewhere else, or even to another group in the same
place.
> . . . Also, once we know the origin of an offensive post,
> what do we do? How about enforcing existing laws, adapted to the net,
> re: porn, crossing state lines for immortable porpoises, etc. to start.
Again, there are problems in the general case. After all,
do you want someone else in another country setting laws
for you to obey? Remember, the Internet knows no borders.
As one example, we had a case a while ago in Canada of an
anonymous posting of fairly explicit material inciting
hatred against women. This particular posting was fairly
clearly illegal under the Canadian Criminal Code but
probably legal under U.S. law. Someone at the University
of Manitoba complained about the posting when it came onto
their campus and the RCMP began an investigation.
Unfortunately for the RCMP, this posting originated in the
U.S. and was processed through an anonymous posting site
there, so there was no question of prosecuting either the
poster or the processing service. The university removed
the material as soon as it was told of it and banned all
newsgroups with the word "sex" in the title (including the
sexual recovery group) and it was therefore judged
inappropriate to prosecute UManitoba or its agents, since
there was no conscious choice on their part to import this
illegal material.
In the end, the matter was dropped, except that a
precedence of overriding considerations of free speech was
created and a spirited debate was initiated across Canada
as to whether this was appropriate actions began.
Now, let's turn this around and ask the Americans on this
list how they'd feel if they were told that what they were
doing was offensive/illegal in Canada and thus they had to
start labeling the work, restricting what they write and
so on. Is this the Internet we all want? I doubt it,
although if we're not careful this might be the Internet
we end up with, after the best-intentioned actions to
clean things up.
> How about also requiring special coding, a la 900 and 976 numbers for
> legit "adult" material, allowing blocking? As to stuff whose legitimacy
> is debatable, how about leaving it to the parents.
And what do we do when another country wants certain
religious material banned? And what do we do when others
want certain statements of political belief banned? And
how do we enforce things when the poster is sending in the
material from another country where nudity is not regarded
as all that big a deal? I'm afraid that this is just not
feasible given the Internet and its capabilities.
That's not to say I think we should all just shrug and put
up with the problem. I have two small children myself and
there are certainly things I'd not want them exposed to at
this point in their development. I just think that we're
going to have to think a bit harder about what we want and
what's possible. I think labeling wont work because we
can't force everyone to do it. That means we need, as
parents to look at supervision, providing our kids with
restricted tools and so on. Just as I don't let my kids
swim in shark-infested waters, I'd not let my six year old
swim on the Internet outside of the sharkproof net.
- peterd
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And a Happy Non-Denominational Winter Equinox Festivity
to you and yours!!
T
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