Re: Vexatious Litigants (was: SurfWatch)

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

At 7:11 AM 3/8/96, Bill Frantz wrote:

>I agree fully so far.  However, when your TimWatch software takes action
>based on your opinions, you may have crossed the line between speech and
>action.  Since you made the decision, rather than just provided an opinion,
>you might, in our current legal climate, have caused a tort.

So, when someone downloads the Siskel and Ebert list of thumbs up/thumbs
down ratings, and then "lets the software decide" which movies to see, a
tort has possibly occurred?

I don't buy it. SurfWatch is just a ratings service. They aren't coercing
people to use it.

>It would be interesting to see if a HIV positive teen could sue SurfWatch
>because it blocked him from getting information on safe sex.

Presumably the owners of the machine he is using--maybe his parents, maybe
his Catholic school, maybe his company--installed the SurfWatch or similar
program and programmed the ratings. The teen should look to them.

(Not that matters, but I really dislike using AIDS education as an example.
Any person who claims to not know about AIDS prevention probably is either
uneducable or doesn't want to know. A Web site isn't going to make a
difference. I'm not arguing for censorship, nor would I ever install
SurfWatch in my home, just saying that the hype about AIDS education is a
hot button being used by arguers of all stripes to push their policy
agendas. More heat than light.)


>IMO our society has tilted too far away from caveat emptor toward "it's
>someone else's fault".  People who let a machine censor their data deserve
>what they get.  Parents who consistantly hide reality from their children,
>instead of helping them learn how to deal with it, are crippling their
>children.

Well, they're my children to educate as I see fit. I view religions as more
crippling than denying a child access to "The Gay Men's Safe Sex Site,"
but, fortunately, I cannot interfere with the upbringings others give their
children.

We may dislike the "programming choices" that the current instance of
SurfWatch provides, but the solution is _competing_ ratings services, not
talk of suing SurfWatch on the basis that it creates a tort, or denies
children access to proper exposure to Gay Sex Lifestyles.

Let a thousand ratings systems, including the No Rating System, bloom.

--Tim May

Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software!
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed.
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