Re: Artikel about XS4ALL in New York

[Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>]

On Fri, 2 May 1997, tank wrote:



> "A few years ago, we would have been portrayed as a band of dangerous
> anarchists, bent on disrupting society," Rodriquez told the Dutch daily
> Trouw. "But now they have come to see that we are nice and quiet people
> really."

The only "nice people" are dangerous anarchists bent on destroying 
governments and buggering poloticians to death. (last part a personal 
preference of course, the author is totally straight but would 
nonetheless be distinctly amused to see any government official 
butt-raped to death)

> The company was instrumental in the creation of the Amsterdam Digital 
> The hotline is run by Internet users and providers. Unlike Britain's
> Internet Watch Foundation, the Dutch hotline doesn't censor any
> information nor does it ask the provider to do so. Hotline operators
> contact the author of the information and ask him to remove the
> offending content.  "If the author does not comply, we report him to
> the police, and he'll be prosecuted," said Rodriquez, who also is
> chairman of the Dutch Providers Association.

How very benevolent. Its nice to know that instead of censoring your 
pages they send in the jackbooted thugs to do it for them, then throw you 
in a nice 6x9 cell for the henious crime of displaying some .gifs or similar.
 
> "The Internet Watch Foundation forces the provider to remove the
> illegal content," he added. "This is a fundamentally different approach
> to responsibilities on the Internet. We think the author of the
> information is responsible for his own actions, not the provider."

And if he chooses not to remove the content you happen to find offensive?
If you truly believed in the rights of the author and publisher of the 
information you would think about it before sending in your own 
particular brand of thugs to "crush the mutiny".
 
> Yet when violation of the law is flagrant, XS4ALL doesn't hesitate to
> comply, as it did a few weeks ago when it shut down a customer's home
> page called Neuroroom, which sold marijuana and other soft drugs in
> Holland and abroad.

Sometimes one really wonders why we bother to set up mirrors to allow 
freedom of information to users, when the owners of these servers, 
supposedly in favour of free speech, do not even have the strength of 
character or conviction to decide for themselves what they will allow on 
their servers rather than bending over for the long cock of the law...

> The company's commitment to support free expression and democratization
> of the Internet doesn't stop here. 

As far as I can see it hasn`t even started yet.


> Last fall when the Serbian
> government censored radio station B-92, XS4ALL helped design an
> Internet campaign and started to carry news broadcasts (in RealAudio
> format) that kept the rare opposition voice alive and the international
> public informed through independent accounts of the events occurring
> during the mass demonstrations in Belgrade.

I presume B-92 fell into line and matched the "requirements under law for 
obtaining a free-speech permit" before XS4ALL allowed this/

> "Basically any project we like gets free resources from XS4ALL,"
> Rodriquez commented.

And anyone who guarantees to publicly lick the boots of the benevolent 
owners in thanks for their support gets as much free space as they like?

Of course I believe in the right to free expression of anyone and if 
these thugs choose not to allow material they don`t like on their servers 
they have every right to remove it. I just don`t see that setting up 
mirrors to defeat blocks on sites that refuse to carry certain content is 
of any value in the fight for free speech. Sure, create a mirror of 
Radikal, but giving any credit or attribution to XS4ALL seems to be a 
poor choice. 

Paul "Still messing with mail apps so totally .sig-less" Bradley