Why Net Censorship Doesn't Work

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

Sometimes in the day-to-day wrangling with the net censors, we forget the
larger picture.  There is an assumption here and in the media (see the
Newsweek year-end piece on the nets by Steven Levy) that the prospect of 2
years in stir and $100,000 fines will quell net speech.  This seems unlikely
because of the nature of the medium.

Thought control is a very difficult task.  It always has been.  The
Inquisition,  Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of
China tried but three of the four are no longer with us.  Short of
totalitarian controls, thought controls will be ineffective.  And
totalitarian controls are difficult to impose these days.

It used to be said that no country would be allowed to move from Communism
to Capitalism.  It can now be said that it is inconceivable that a modern
country will move from a Market to a Command Economy.  Market discipline is
strong.

Since only totalitarians have a shot (for a short time) to enforce thought
control, the OECD countries will not succeed at thought control.  This used
to be unimportant because one's thoughts were trapped in one's head.  You
could speak only to a few people and "mass media" from books to TV was
expensive, centralized and somewhat easy to control.  You were free in your
mind but cut off from communicating your thoughts freely to others.

Those conditions no longer exist.  If you can think it (or even not think
it) you can communicate it easily and cheaply to others.  Since thought is
free and communications is almost free, control by others is difficult.

The net is a fair mapping of the consciousness of its participants onto a
world spanning communications system.

Large companies and even quite small businesses are concerned about legal
hassles.  They have an investment to lose and they are more likely to be
prosecuted than ordinary individuals.  Ordinary people rightly suspect that
their risk of punishment is quite low.  Particularly since if they are
worried about it, they can take many easy steps to protect themselves.

In the coming world in which millions of households have multitasking
computers with full-time highspeed connections to the nets, Java-like
applets running wild, etc; the opportunities to stash info in easily
accessible but hard to trace forms expands without limit.

I was trying to imagine over the weekend how the Feds would regulate the
Net.  Will Janet and her Storm troopers (wearing Nazi-style bucket helmets)
smash into the next meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force and lock
everyone up or force them at gunpoint to adopt standards proposed by the
government?  And if they do, will their code be any good and will it be
accepted by enough nodes to make a difference?  Unlikely in the extreme.

Where are the pressure points where regulation can be applied?

To me, it looks like King Canute ordering back the tide.

DCF