COK@PSUVMA.BITNET (R. W. Clark, K. S. C.) (11/17/87)
>As a news administrator I feel personally responsible (not legally >responsible) for all articles that leave this site. I don't agree >with all of them, and I wouldn't have posted some of them, but I want >all of them to be "good"* articles. I have never had to cancel an >article and I hope never to do so. I note that you are newsadmin for a corporate entity. I suppose you would have rather more mature news submitters than those who post from universities. This would reduce the likelihood of having a poster as absurdly immature as Eric Mading. However, even if you were to deal with an Eric Mading, the situations would be somewhat different. A corporation would likely be held responsible for employee actions upon its computer systems (you would know much more about this than I). A university would probably be responsible to a lesser degree. I have heard of cases in which corporations have been sued for independent employee actions. I have yet to hear of similar cases in which a university is sued for student actions. Therefore, you would be justified in keeping tighter controls upon employees than a university. Censorship would be justified. I would not think that a university newsadmin would find it necessary to impose such restrictions. --- Beyond this, however, I would like to raise a question. As a newsadmin, what would your procedures be for controlling a poster? Would you take any action against said individual beyond USENET access? Please post, or respond in email if you feel this is more appropriate. ------- cok%psuvma@psuvax1.uucp.bitnet "I'd love to, m'lad, but this fine Havana cok%psuvma.bitnet@psuvax1.uucp magic wand is a bit too short to grant cok%psuvma@psuvax1.psu.edu wishes with." Jackeen J. O'Malley
rhorn@infinet.UUCP (Rob Horn) (11/20/87)
In article <25319COK@PSUVMA> COK@PSUVMA.BITNET (R. W. Clark, K. S. C.) writes: >A corporation would likely be held responsible for employee actions upon its >computer systems (you would know much more about this than I). More than likely. It is a near certainty. As in one recent example from New York: Employee X is embezzling money from employer Y. To conceal this fact from employer Y, X falsifies income tax returns and bribes officials. An audit by employer Y discovers these actions. Employer Y notifies police and IRS, presses charges, pays back taxes. Employer Y was in turn charged with corporate criminal behavior: falsifying income tax returns and bribing officials. Employer Y was *convicted*, and lost all appeals because as the employer they were responsible for maintaining proper controls over their employee. (The defense counsel for employer Y still don't understand what really motivated the DA to press charges.) Employers can be held responsible for almost everything an employee does on company time or with company facilities. Usually DA's and others are reasonable about assigning responsibility, but not always. -- Rob Horn UUCP: ...harvard!adelie!infinet!rhorn Snail: Infinet, 40 High St., North Andover, MA (Note: harvard!infinet path is in maps but not working yet)
pac@munsell.UUCP (Paul Czarnecki) (11/23/87)
In article <25319COK@PSUVMA> COK@PSUVMA.BITNET (R. W. Clark, K. S. C.) writes: >As a newsadmin, what would your procedures be for controlling a poster? I would simply sit down and talk with them. Maybe because we are a small site it would work. I'd mention that people in Australia really don't care about the dinnette set that is for sale, or that you really don't have to manually include your signature file. If the person is flaming, I ignore it. It is not for me to decide if Eikonix (and Kodak) want that. I simply try to prevent posting mistakes, not thinking "mistakes". If, for example, somebody here called Ginsberg a "pot smoking jew" I would think them less of a human being but I would not remove thier account. A disclaimer might be appropriate here. pZ -- Paul Czarnecki -- Spam, spam, spam, Usenet, and spam {{harvard,ll-xn}!adelie,{decvax,allegra,talcott}!encore}!munsell!pz