Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) (02/13/89)
In article <11491@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) writes: > It has been sometime since I posted last and I am really disturbed by a > surge of articles making very specific allegations against Indian citizens, > institutions,etc. during the recent past. The articles which come to mind > concern the indian "layman",IE/Arun Shourie,Air India,Indian Airlines > among others. > > Now, what I am objecting to is not the criticism per se, but the following > facts: [...some points deleted...] > > . very specific allegations of serious natures have been made and these > allegations taken at their face value can have devastating effect on > the image of Indian citizens/institutions and even the Indian society > in many cases. > > . the allegations are circulated worldwide. > > . while making these allegations, the respective authors seem to have > this smug feeling that since the people they are accusing do not have > a chance of replying back, they can get away with anything. > > I think the accused persons deserve a chance to explain their side of > the story (specially if the allegations are of a non-trivial nature), and > to ensure that this happens I propose mailing a verbatim hardcopy of the > articles posted to the person. Once, that is done, it is upto the person/ > institution to decide whether to ignore the matter altogether or to request > posting of their side of the story (I am ready to do the dirty job of > mailing them the hardcopies and then typing out their responses) or to > start libel proceedings against the accusors in a suitable court of law, > or to take any other action they consider appropriate. > > I believe the above is NOT censorship because all that I am proposing is > a basic implementation of the right to know about what has been said about > your person and than have a chance to defend yourself. > > I would like to hear from others on this matter. Anil, This is a difficult issue. On the face of it, your suggestion seems reasonable. Since the articles are already broadcast all over the world, you are not violating anyone's privacy by forwarding them to anyone else you choose to. The people being discussed certainly deserve a chance to explain their side of the story, and I think most people interested in the discussions would be interested in hearing what they have to say. On the other hand, there is a real danger that these people do not understand the newsgroup media. USENET is a new and powerful media for communication, and it has its own little set of rules. The legal issues will be decided only when cases (like the libel cases you mention) begin to be contested, but so far USENET does not, and in my opinion should not, depend on the courts of law to monitor its use. There is no libel when no-one is there to listen to the accusations. Similarly, there should be no libel when intelligent people partake in a discussion. For example, if you post accusations about me on the net, what should I do? The law says I can sue you for libel. However, USENET is based on a different philosophy. According to this, I can reply to your message, defend myself, present arguments and evidence, etc., and then let the netters at large decide who they wish to believe. In the worst case, if you are truly malicious, you can probably ruin my image, but until it goes that far (and few discussions do) I don't think I would take you to a court of law. I do not believe that there was any libel involving IE or Arun Shourie. (As you can tell, I'm not a lawyer, but then I think most people are too trigger-happy when it comes to suing.) I personally did not agree with Hemant's opinions, but I think he has the right to post them. People argued on both sides of the issue. The readers read both arguments and made up their own minds. That's the way I think things should be handled. Arun Shourie and anyone else should certainly have the opportunity to respond to the allegations. However, taking them to a court of law, in my opinion, defeats the purpose of USENET. Theoretically, you could argue that there is no censorship, but if IE takes Hemant to a court of law, given Hemant's limited resources (time, money), do you think he would stand a chance? Is it his job to fight a legal battle with IE? More importantly, do you think he would be inclined to voice his opinions again? We should encourage people to post their opinions, not discourage them. The point is that Arun Shourie probably does not understand this philosophy, and if he is inclined to do anything at all, he will probably go the legal route. [If you don't buy this, just consider what happened to the rec.humor.funny issue. Read some of the newspaper reports that were published in the Canadian newspapers. People have a serious misunderstanding of what the USENET is all about.] Having said this, I agree that people who voice opinions on the net ought to be held (intellectually) responsible for them. (I don't know what this would mean in a legal sense.) People should not be allowed to post anonymously or from guest accounts, from accounts about to expire, and from any other accounts where they can hide behind false identities. Perhaps this will be possible to enforce, but if not I think it is a small price to pay for the freedom of USENET. Also, just because someone accuses someone else of something doesn't mean that everyone on the net automatically buys what he is saying. Sorry for carrying on so long, but you did ask for opinions. My opinion is that it would certainly be a good idea to mail hard-copies of the discussions to the people concerned, and post their reponses on the net. It would not be a good idea to encourage these people to start banging on the doors of our courts. One way this could be accomplished is to delete the From lines from the discussions (after all, Arun Shourie should be replying to the allegations, not to a particular individual). On the flip side, this would remove accountability and encourage people to post unsubstantiated and malicious opinions. I don't know what the best solution is, but these are some of the issues that I would consider. Comments are welcome. Good luck, -- Ashwin.
ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) (02/14/89)
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"it is unethical to publish/mail a copy of the articles written
by other people without obtaining a written permission from the
authors. Otherwise you may be guilty of copyright violations.
You can't even taperecord a telephone conversation without the knowledge
of the other party."
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I disagree strongly with any opinion amounting to this because of the
following reasoning.
There is a vast difference between a telephone conversation (or
e-mail, or any other form of person to person communication) and
posting on a public network. While you can claim a telephone
conversation to be priviledged (and hence entitled to privacy),
you can not do that when you post something on a network.
As far as the copyright violations are concerned, I think they
come into picture only when somebody publishes an article from
the net and assigns the source to be somebody other than the
author.
In any case, informing somebody of what others have said about
them on a public platform does not amount to violation of
the copyright acts. In the worst case, it can be called providing
access to more people than the usual number and that is an implicit
purpose when somebody posts on a public b'board.
Let us consider an anology to the whole scenerio to understand it better.
(similiar opinions have been expressed before on usenet before).
Posting on the net is similiar to writing a letter to the editor of a
newspaper. Now, the priviledges of the author are limited to that the
editor can not ascribe the source to anybody else but the newspaper can
publish the letter in any form. Further, a reader of the newspaper can
propagate this letter to others (who normally do not read this paper)
by either lending their copy or by making photocopies or even by
transcripting the contents as long as they maintain that the letter
was written originally by such and such person.
I don't see anything wrong with the above situation (ethically, morally,
legally,...) and what I proposed is nothing more than this.
regards,
-anil
--
(519) 747-1489
"A reasonable man adapts himself to the world, an unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress is due to
the unreasonable man." - Bernard Shaw.ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) (02/14/89)
Reference: article <50486@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu I agree with certain points made by Ashwin in the above article and I stand moderated insofar as the following is concerned. >On the other hand, there is a real danger that these people do not understand >the newsgroup media. USENET is a new and powerful media for communication, >and it has its own little set of rules. The legal issues will be decided >only when cases (like the libel cases you mention) begin to be contested, but >so far USENET does not, and in my opinion should not, depend on the courts of >law to monitor its use. > I also wish to explicitly state here that it has never been my intention to resort to courts or to become an accessory in such an act. The only reason I mentioned the courts was for the sake of completeness and because I was just trying to imagine what actions would seem plausible to the accused party. >There is no libel when no-one is there to listen to the accusations. Maybe. But I am still not comfortable with the basic idea of punching somebodies' image left-and-right and not give them an opportunity to tell their side of the story. >Similarly, there should be no libel when intelligent people partake in a >discussion. For example, if you post accusations about me on the net, what >should I do? The law says I can sue you for libel. However, USENET is based >on a different philosophy. According to this, I can reply to your message, >defend myself, present arguments and evidence, etc., and then let the netters >at large decide who they wish to believe. In the worst case, if you are That is the crux of the matter. All I propose is that everybody _including those without access to the net_ be given an opportunity to do what you say you can do. I agree it is a difficult task to implement. But if this is done even for a few cases, I think people would be a bit more restrained in making wild accusations. >I do not believe that there was any libel involving IE or Arun Shourie. (As Hmmm.... If I am not mistaken AS has been called a "stupid clown", IE/AS have been held responsible for having ruined the carrear of a number of hard working students, they have been equated with anti-socials,anti-nationals, harborours of terrorists, and so on. Replace AS/IE by Anil Goel and I assure you, he is not going to be too happy with that. >Hemant's opinions, but I think he has the right to post them. People argued >on both sides of the issue. The readers read both arguments and made up >their own minds. Agreed. My only objection is that the people working in india never get an opportunity to clear their names while a bunch of "trigger-happy intellectuals" go about dragging their reputation in mud (please excuse the choice of phrases here). >it would certainly be a good idea to mail hard-copies of the discussions >to the people concerned, and post their reponses on the net. It would not be >a good idea to encourage these people to start banging on the doors of our >courts. > >One way this could be accomplished is to delete the From lines from the >discussions (after all, Arun Shourie should be replying to the allegations, >not to a particular individual). On the flip side, this would remove >accountability and encourage people to post unsubstantiated and malicious >opinions. > All right. Remove the refrence to courts in my earlier article, add the above to the basic proposal. How many of us are now willing to go ahead with the proposal. Please note that the reference to IE/AS should only be treated as a generic example. There is no reason, why a simliar course of action may not be taken in the case of Indian Airlines,e.g.(they seem to receive a lot of flak). >Comments are welcome. > >Good luck, > >-- Ashwin. may god guide us all, -anil -- (519) 747-1489 "A reasonable man adapts himself to the world, an unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress is due to the unreasonable man." - Bernard Shaw.
kalra@cataract.caltech.edu (Devendra Kalra) (02/14/89)
In article <50486@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) writes: >In article <11491@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) writes: >> It has been sometime since I posted last and I am really disturbed by a >> surge of articles making very specific allegations against Indian citizens, >> institutions,etc. during the recent past. The articles which come to mind >> concern the indian "layman",IE/Arun Shourie,Air India,Indian Airlines >> among others. >> >Anil, > > >There is no libel when no-one is there to listen to the accusations. >Similarly, there should be no libel when intelligent people partake in a >discussion. For example, if you post accusations about me on the net, what >should I do? The law says I can sue you for libel. However, USENET is based >on a different philosophy. According to this, I can reply to your message, >defend myself, present arguments and evidence, etc., and then let the netters >at large decide who they wish to believe. In the worst case, if you are >truly malicious, you can probably ruin my image, but until it goes that far >(and few discussions do) I don't think I would take you to a court of law. > >I do not believe that there was any libel involving IE or Arun Shourie. (As >you can tell, I'm not a lawyer, but then I think most people are too >trigger-happy when it comes to suing.) I personally did not agree with >Hemant's opinions, but I think he has the right to post them. People argued >on both sides of the issue. The readers read both arguments and made up >their own minds. I think it is not right to air accusations in a public forum about any individual UNTIL the individual has had a chance to reply to them in private. What I mean by this is that if A has some accusations about B, B should be privately notified by A about these allegations and given a chance to clarify if possible. If, for example, any one wishes to accuse me of something, I would prefer that he/she send me e-mail say, and give me a chance to explain. If possible, it should not curtail the freedom to express one's opinion. I know it is a difficult issue to decide when stating one's opinion becomes accusing another person. However there is obvious difference in "In my opinion, Arun Shourie did wrong by slandering person X" and "Arun Shourie is the biggest goonda and thug that India has ever seen" If you post your (usage of you is generic) opinions on the net, you should put only that much emotion and heat in it that you are willing to stand up to and defend. I agree with Ashwin that people are trigger happy when it comes to suing, but a person should be willing to face the consequences of serious charges that he makes. Using any medium, USENET or otherwise, as a means to shoot off the hip without thinking it out can not be condoned. It seems, that we, hiding in the anonymity of our consoles and keyboards, sometimes let our imagination, emotions and fingers go wild. Just notice the epithets that have started appearing on the net, (s**thead and worse). We revel in returning a public insult in public. >-- Ashwin. Devendra kalra@csvax.caltech.edu