Re: Compuserve is Not "Censoring"

[Bill.Humphries@msn.fullfeed.com (Bill Humphries)]

This is a resend of a reply to Tim May's message on the CI$/Bundsweiser
Republic/alt.nekkid.hitler.youth controversy. The Cypherpunks mailer didn't
enjoy my attempts at humor in the headers...


------------

Tim May wrote:

>At 4:52 PM 12/28/95, Cees de Groot wrote, speaking of Compuserve's recent
>dropping of many newsgroups in response to demands by German prosecutors:
>
>>I won't start to comment on the style of this message. The term "Suitspeak"
>>comes to mind.
>
>Perhaps it is "Suitspeak," but it is not "censorship."
>
>Or, more precisely, it is fear that government laws will be used to
>sanction the service.  Thus, it is the government of Germany in this case
>which is "censoring." ("Censor" and "censorship" are notoriously overloaded
>terms, of course.)

It's a political problem.

This demonstates the basic problem with tollerating monopolies in this
industry. When governments interfere, everyone subscribing loses, which
means most of the people in the audience for the service loses.

Unfortunately, there are no technological fixes (in the short term) for
monopolies. The shumpeterian cycle is too long for the time horizons
engendered by the German government's actions or the Exon/Gorton/Hyde
language. You have to fight monopolies on the political arena as well as
the technical (remember how the WWW was going to liberate all of us on it's
own? Until the elites recognized people wouldn't be watching Microsoft ads
*conspiratorial wink*.)

If I were a compuserve user, complain to your nearest German consulate and
call your congresscritter. Those GOP types will have a field day condeming
"euro-data-imperialism" during special order speeches on C-SPAN.

Support your local ISP.

Bill Humphries

PS: If only the Germans worried about Nazis during the Nurmemberg trials
the way they worry now, maybe they wouldn't be facing their current plauge
of nativist/skinhead problems.