andytoy@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (Andy Toy, Applications Support Group) (12/17/88)
I thought that this might be of interest to those of you who don't read the UW Gazette normally. The Gazette is the Univerity of Waterloo's newspaper (i.e. not the student newspaper). gazette@watdcs.UWaterloo.ca This article appeared in the University of Waterloo Gazette, December 14, 1988. Reprinted with permission. Beginning of article -- G-rated jokes are back on line Jokes are travelling across the computer network "Usenet" again, but the moderator of a controversial service called "rec.humor.funny" is making sure that nothing offensive arrives at UW's computers. The group's access to UW was cut off for several days because of complaints about "racist" material in the jokes. It was restored December 5 after the moderator, Brad Templeton of Waterloo, promised that he would not send anything "racist or sexist" to the net through UW computers. Templeton is not connected with UW; he runs a small company in Waterloo, Looking Glass Software. But Looking Glass gets its main link to the worldwide computer net through UW. That put UW in the glare of publicity at the end of November when there were complaints of racist jokes being distributed by Templeton. His access to the net through UW was cut off until he gave UW a written promise not to distribute anything offensive through UW. UW president Dr. Doug Wright told a news conference that Templeton had also apologized for any embarrassment caused to the university. The issue received its chief publicity in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, but the news was spread across Canada through other media as well. And the leader of the anti-Templeton campaign, Jonathan Richmond, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also took his complaints to the Boston Herald, which reported that he said he had spoken to the FBI and to the Anti-Defamation League, an agency which combats anti-Semitism. At the news conference, Wright said he was sure that any future racist material on the network would be "brought to our attention", although it's impossible for authorities to monitor the hundreds of conversations and "bulletin boards" that take place through computer networks. The news conference was told that UW receives and sends between 3 and 4 million bytes of computer mail and "news" each day, of which about 500 bytes on average is the rec.humor.funny group. A university statement distributed at the news conference declared that UW "is fundamentally opposed, as a matter of principle and policy, to the propagation of material that is offensive and hateful in areas of sex, race or religion. The university will not knowingly allow its facilities to be used to disseminate such material, in any form." Wright said he is setting up a committee to advise on the use of such communication facilities at UW, and would announce its membership and terms of reference before Christmas. Last week rec.humor.funny was distributing jokes again, but only some of them got to UW computers in their normal form. Others were replaced with this form memo from Templeton: "The administration of UW has asked that I forward "no material which might be considered in bad taste, or offensive on racial, sexist or other discriminatory grounds' to UW over my Usenet link to it. It is their right to ask this, and I have complied. This joke is thus not available to you. I will not respond to requests to forward it by other means, such as mail. Given the broad nature of offense, I am forced to be very conservative with my decisions on what may be forwarded. Thank you for your patience. Have a nice day." -- End of article -- Andy Toy, Department of Computing Services, andytoy@watdcsu.UWaterloo.CA University of Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA andytoy@watdcsu.waterloo.edu 519/885-1211 x3417 ...!watmath!watdcsu!andytoy andytoy@watdcsu.NetNorth