brad@looking.UUCP (08/31/87)
I was under the impression that most people use the word "censorship" to mean the forceful repression of somebody's freedom of expression. While there are probably many definitions to be found in dictionaries, am I incorrect in assuming that this is what the word denotes for most people? If so, why are people talking about censorship in relationship to this expire issue? There are no governmental authorities on the net. There is no entity which can use force on the net. This is, after all, a privately owned, privately controlled network. Do some people think "freedom of the press" means that the world is required to give you a press for free? On this net there is no censorship. There is only what the owners of the net (that's those of us who pay phone bills and own machines, modems, disk drives) feel like doing, or feel like allowing other people to do. If you ask somebody with opinions you don't like to not spout them on your land, this isn't censorship. It is in fact an exercise in freedom of expression by the landowner. Yes, we can discuss philosophical issues like how a net should work, but we should not give the impression that this has a lot to do with the ultimate reality. The use of emotionally charged words like "censorship" hides the truth. All that aside, we have this net so that we can exchange information of interest to us with other netters around the world. That is the driving force. If people want to interfere with that goal, then why do we want them on the net? That applies both to people who fill the channels with information we don't want to see, and people who want to block information we *do* want to see. Both are of little use to me. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473