Re: <fwd> Spiegel on CIS Censorship

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

At 10:11 PM 1/8/96 -0500, Vin McLellan wrote:

>CIS's utter
>ignorance of free-speech principles set the stage for the symbolic
>Bravarian Censorship of the Net.  You'll hear of a dozen other nations
>jumping in, with different standards, within the month.

Don't overdo the CIS newsgroup "ban".  The first sysop to "ban" newsgroups
did so many years ago.  There are well-developed techniques to read "banned"
newsgroups.  A FAQ and everything.  
http://www.ECNet.Net/users/mumbv/pages/banned-groups-faq.shtml

Compuserve is just a large proprietary service and sometime ISP (and one of
the most expensive ones).  They are not a big player on the Net.

>        I find the tragic association of a "free" Internet and porn to be
>painfully common among cyberless adults even in my own community.  Odds
>are, my state, Massachusetts -- arguably the most liberal of the US states
>-- would vote for Censorship Filter tomorrow if it were on a ballot.

Luckily it's not and can't be.

>        It's amazing how incompetent the liberal/libertarian side has been
>in this public debate. (So incompetent, in fact, that there has been _no_
>public debate!)  Everyone who wants to place control over any filter (any
>part of The Filter?) in the hands of the citizen is just another
>snuff/torture/kiddy porn addict.

Almost all of the articles on the CIS "ban" have mentioned that
"therapeutic" groups were also included.  Certainly the Net has let CIS know
what we think of them.  They expressed surprise at our reaction.

Their "ban" isn't even a ban as my piece on using CIS to read banned groups
shows.  (http://www.cs.umass.edu/~lmccarth/cypherpunks/banned.html)  It is
making it into Wired and the Baltimore Sun (maybe) and was good enough that
Michael Miller, author of "Using Compuserve" linked to it from his book
page:  http://www.mcp.com/people/miller/cistop.htm.

DCF