[9090] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Luce)
Thu Dec 16 11:39:06 1993
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1993 10:52:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Luce <doug@lm.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
"Mark R. Ludwig" <Mark-Ludwig@uai.com> wrote:
> With a modest amount of programming, a moderated IRC could be
> developed. The children are taught to connect to a particular IRC
> server which in conjunction with one or more persons at that site
> censoring the discussion(s), implements the desired environment. It
> then becomes an issue of the person doing the moderating/censoring.
Done already. With varying success.
The KIDLINK KIDS yearly celebration is held in the late spring each year.
At this time, several thousand children get together and participate in
real-time discussions using IRC on a closed network.
The kids appear to have a wonderful time. School
middle-school/junior-high administrators arrange for huge video screens to
be erected in the gymnasium. They use PTA funds to hire a caterer,
inviting the local press representatives to come by and see the amazing
technology at work.
In one such school, you might find the mayor of the town, collected with
twenty parents, half the teaching staff, and a reporter from a big-city
paper. Up on the screen might be Sally, typing simultaneously to Leah in
Texas, Frederick in Australia, and Alenka in Slovenia. Everyone is very
impressed with the technology, amazed that this child is able to reach
across political, social, and economic barriers and communicate with
people she is likely never to meet in person. It puts a perspective on
the global problems of our day, and those present at this particular
school might wonder why adults are so negative toward their fellow adults.
They imagine a world where their children use this new technology to pave
over the evils of the present day, replacing the problem-solving potential
of an airborne missile with the problem-exploration potential of invisible
streams of bits, arcing high into the sky. At this particular middle
school, the mayor, the parents, and even the reporter are staring in the
darkness at the huge video monitor, mouths ajar.
Then a message erupts onto the screen in foot-high blazing white letters.
It's a message from Frederick:
<Frederick> sally i bet your mums a fat whore
------
Actually, a lot of good has come from the KIDLINK project. More frequent
IRC sessions are held these days. There is still the nagging problem of
how to deal with parents and school administrators who are vocal over
"nasty language" of this sort. Additionally, there's the problem of an
international environment, where "nasty language" in one country is
perfectly acceptable in another (and not simply because it is
unintelligible: some Mexican phrases in normal use are rather harsh on on
Portugese sensibilities, and many Italian idioms are conceptually abrasive
when translated for English speakers).
Rather than censorship on the KIDLINK IRC, the model is closer to that in
a classroom: kids who do not follow certain rules are chastised by people
with a capital A (for Adult) in their IRC nickname. But things do slip
by, and people do get upset over it (the situation described above does
reflect reality). There are some rather hefty barriers to overcome to
achieve total sanitation of this sort of discourse. And doing so might
limit and implicit goal of the KIDLINK project: to bring kids in touch
with one another, experiencing them as culturally different people.
Doug Luce
(for more information on KIDLINK, gopher kids.duq.edu)
