Re: Guardian angels, anonymity, and the decency brigade

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

Thanks, Colin, for replying. I'm glad to learn that you made no legal
threats against Jim's CuD. I understand that SafeSurf does not make
sofware; I meant that a PICS/SafeSurf-compliant browser is necessary
to read and act on such ratings.

A few months ago, I went through the back archives of the
fight-censorship list and looked for possibly "indecent" material. I
found relatively few examples of this language, and all of them had
clearly socially redeeming value, like the American Reporter's rather
heated essay. The alt.sex.pedophilia story I cited was circulated
among the anti-porn groups who fought for the CDA; in context, it was
perfectly appropriate for us to discuss here. Further, I believe quite
strongly that minors should be allowed and encouraged to participate
in discussions on this list -- overbroad net-censorship affects them
as well as adults.

Yet you write: "Clearly a site with a message like this would not be
suitable for children to read."

What if I rate <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> as suitable
for children, and a CyberAngel volunteer visits and stumbles onto that
alt.sex.pedophilia story. Will my rating be yanked? This is what
bothers me -- the undocumented, arbitrary, and capricious nature of
ratings by the CyberAngels volunteer decency brigade.

I support your right to censor my web site, but I don't have to like it.

-Declan (who still wants to be a CyberSeraphim)

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                       [Another reply attached]
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Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1996 11:20:12 -0400
From: Tom Betz <tbetz@pobox.com>
Subject: Re: Guardian angels, the decency brigade, and cyberseraphim


Colin Gabriel Hatcher wrote:
> As for press, we didnt even send a press release until 4 months after we
> started, and then only to announce our website.  And we've only sent one
> more press release out since then.  We do believe however that we have
> helped to bring the issue of children and the Internet to the forefront and
> that is a good thing too.

This claim is totally disingenuous.  They have the biggest PR whore on
the face of the Earth flacking their efforts almost daily on NYC talk
radio, and they dare to pretend to have only sent out one press
release?

What kind of training do these people receive?  I heard an NPR story
on this organization where every telecommunications term of art a
CyberAngel used was used incorrectly, always with a sick
misinterpretation.  I'll dig up citations if anyone is interested.

Despite what they 'believe', CyberAngels have helped to do nothing but
inflame the passions of the ignoranti against the Internet, and to
make a nearly non-existent threat into a major political football.
Oh, and to give Curtis Sliwa one more dead horse to flog on the air.

The whole thing disgusts me.

-- 

---- Tom Betz --------- <http://www.pobox.com/~tbetz> ------ (914) 375-1510 --
  tbetz@pobox.com | We have tried ignorance for a very long | tbetz@panix.com
------------------+ time, and it's time we tried education. +-----------------
-- Computers help us to solve problems we never had before they came along. --