Re: Futplex makes the news!

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 2:28 AM 2/3/96, Mike Duvos wrote:
>On 2 Feb 1996 19:02:29 -0500, you wrote:
>
>>I think the whole endeavor was a resounding success, and I wish I had been
>>on the ball enough to participate in it.
>
>[deletia]
>
>>The important thing is that Rich, Declan, Futplex, and anyone else
>>participating showed the world that censorship on the internet, if not
>>impossible, is at least a good deal more dificult then people thought.
>
>Before poo-pooing Tim, declaring victory, and returning home, it
>should be noted that German prosecutors today added AOL to the list of
>entities they wish to charge with "inciting hatred."
>
>UMASS will of course test the political waters before taking any
>action, but we may yet see the gonads of Futplex hanging from one of
>the upper floors of the Graduate Research Center.  :)
>
>Time will tell whether we have won this war, or have simply
>encountered a lull after the first onslought by the enemy.

Meaning no disrespect to any of my colleagues here, but is there now some
sense that "we won"?

I don't see it this way. And the Germans don't seem to think they lost.

Let's look at where this issue is. The UMass admins yanked the Zundelsite
info, Declan has voluntarily withdrawn his ZS info, Germany is accelerating
its threats against CS, AOL, etc., and of course the Communications Decency
Act is about to be signed into law.

Maybe I'm not seeing the Boston-area papers, and their spin on things, but
it doesn't seem to me that an anti-censorship interpretation is getting a
lot of press. What I am sensing is just the opposite, that a bunch of
babykilling Nazis bent on taking over the Internet just had their main
Propaganda Center at UMass shut down by the forces of light. This is the
spin on the story I'm sensing.

(Hate to say it, but the nuances of free speech are lost on most people. To
most of them, putting Holocaust denial information on a site is ipso facto
proof of genocidal racism. I wouldn't be surprised to see the various
groups at UMass foaming at the mouth next week in the campus newspaper to
get the "notorious racist" Lewis McCarthy sanctioned or thrown out.
University administrators  will try to cool things off, but will keep
feeling the pressures from various "aggreived" groups until something just
has to be done. I've seen this many times at Stanford, UC Santa Cruz,
Berkeley, and elsewhere.)

Here's to hoping Rich's site remains up.

--Tim

Boycott espionage-enabled software!
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