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Grex > Coop6 > #112: Usenet newsgroup banning | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 92 responses total. |
ajax
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response 25 of 92:
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Feb 23 09:47 UTC 1995 |
Those sound like good limits to me. Maybe add "or be illegal" to the second
one, in addition to posing a credible legal threat, to mesh with Grex's bylaw
about supporting illegal activities on Grex. By the way, an alternative
policy, that's fairly obvious, is to have no policy, and play it by ear when
issues come up...it might take longer to make decisions then, but it's worked
in the past.
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remmers
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response 26 of 92:
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Feb 23 11:49 UTC 1995 |
This response has been erased.
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remmers
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response 27 of 92:
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Feb 23 12:25 UTC 1995 |
Re #21: I'd be a very upset citizen if my local public library were
to adopt the procedure of putting any book up for review anytime anybody
complained about it, with a "censorship czar" deciding whether the book
remained on the shelves until a final decision was reached. And for
similar reasons, I'd be pretty upset if Grex were to start doing the
same kind of thing with Usenet newsgroups.
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carson
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response 28 of 92:
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Feb 23 14:10 UTC 1995 |
re #21: if I remember correctly, it's the binaries subgroups that aren't
carried, but that the rest of the alt.sex branch is intact...
when UseNet is here, that is. :)
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ajax
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response 29 of 92:
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Feb 23 16:57 UTC 1995 |
Re 28, yep, I know, I just worded it ambiguously :)
Re 27, you have a good point there! How about alternative ideas?
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marcvh
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response 30 of 92:
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Feb 24 03:20 UTC 1995 |
Well, I assume by "illegal" you mean in the criminal sense? Seems reasonable
enough, though I find it hard to imagine an example of something which is
illegal but does not pose a credible legal threat. Actually, I can.
Some states have laws still on the books which prohibit distribution of
communist literature. If it were found that Michigan had such a law,
but it was not enforced (and hence not struck down as unconstitutional)
does that mean a communist conference, or communist newsgroup, must be
censored because it is illegal?
Of course, there is *very* little criminally illegal material on USENET.
Copyrighted material posted without permission is only a civil wrong, and
not a criminal offense unless done for commercial advantage or private
financial gain. If we wish to prohibit civil wrongs, judging libel and
slander could get rather tricky...
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srw
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response 31 of 92:
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Feb 24 03:45 UTC 1995 |
The distinction between civil and criminal law is quite valid, Marc.
The reason we decided to stop carrying alt.sex.binaries, is that its purpose
was clearly identified (in it's charter, I believe) to carry
copyright violations.
If Grex kept that material knowingly on its own equipment for others to view,
there was reasonable expectation that a civil suit could be directed against
Grex. Subsequent to that action, we found ourselves unable to maintain
news on our disk, and began using our provider's newsserver. This server
carried that group, and we did not worry because it was not our equipment.
In the latter situation, all we provided was the medium, not the material.
We will go back to providing news on our own disks, and we feel that there
is a need to be careful to honor all laws, criminal and civil.
I share remmers concern over a complaint-based censorship board. someone can
convince the board that it is at risk of violating a law by carrying a group,
though, then I am certain the board will want to consider the matter.
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marcvh
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response 32 of 92:
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Feb 24 03:56 UTC 1995 |
I presume you will be leading the charge for the banning of
alt.fan.dan-quayle, a newsgroup which consists largely of libelous
statements about the former vice-president, since libel is a matter
of civil law which could lead to lawsuits? Or perhaps
alt.fan.kevin-darcy, which serves a similar purpose for somebody a
few of us may remember?
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chelsea
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response 33 of 92:
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Feb 24 12:06 UTC 1995 |
Why, the man taught me everything I know about playing volleyball.
All I know is that if alt.sex.bestiality.gerbil.duct-tape isn't
available I'm gonna go through the roof.
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carson
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response 34 of 92:
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Feb 24 17:15 UTC 1995 |
I remember reading a post there once from Jemmie. I tell you, those
were the days!
(I think someone had hacked his account...)
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mdw
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response 35 of 92:
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Feb 24 18:39 UTC 1995 |
Re #32, it's practically impossible to utter libelous statements about
politicians. Even for public figures in general, libel suits tend to be
exceeding rare. My guess is we should be more worried about being
picketted by the SPCA for carrying alt.sex.bestiality.gerbil.duct-tape.
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marcvh
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response 36 of 92:
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Feb 24 19:37 UTC 1995 |
Re #35: Exactly. The material does not pose a credible legal threat.
(Not to mention the fact that I don't think we are qualified to judge
whether it is libel or not.)
Actually, there is no such newsgroup, although there is one called
alt.sex.bestiality.hamster.duct-tape which is probably what you meant.
(By the way, where would the SPCA be picketing? Outside the Dungeon?
During a Grex walk? :-)
I find "might cause people to get annoyed and picket" a wholly
unsatisfactory criterion for censorship, in that I cannot think of
anything which does not fall into that category. If they might press
charges over violation of some law about harm to minors, that's a
problem, but picketers and book-burners can not be permitted to
control what Grex allows others to read.
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chelsea
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response 37 of 92:
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Feb 24 21:23 UTC 1995 |
Hampsters. Gerbils. They're all alike in the dark.
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carson
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response 38 of 92:
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Feb 24 23:26 UTC 1995 |
but you *know* if it's a squirrel! :)
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popcorn
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response 39 of 92:
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Feb 25 13:30 UTC 1995 |
View hidden response.
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aaron
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response 40 of 92:
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Feb 25 17:33 UTC 1995 |
re #7: I won't give you advice. I will state this much: if I ran a
system that had Usenet, I would take measures to keep minors
away from the pornographic binaries groups and the hardcore
pornographic text groups. In the event of an incident with
shocked parents, the best result would be massive negative
publicity.
re #35: Bzzzzt. Wrong. Libel suits are very expensive to bring, are
very hard to win, and do as much to publicize the libel as they
do to publicize the alleged truth, so they aren't very common.
Public figures have reduced protections, but it is very possible
(and not even difficult) to libel them.
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mdw
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response 41 of 92:
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Feb 26 04:31 UTC 1995 |
The obvious groundwork for a politician bring a libel suit would be it
cost him his election. Think about it.
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remmers
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response 42 of 92:
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Feb 26 15:39 UTC 1995 |
I think it was Jeff d'Arcy, Kevin Darcy's brother, who taught you
volleyball. The do look somewhat alike, though.
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remmers
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response 43 of 92:
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Feb 26 15:40 UTC 1995 |
(That was in re of #33.)
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lilmo
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response 44 of 92:
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Feb 26 22:28 UTC 1995 |
Thakn you for #43... #42 REALLY didn't make a whole lot of sense otherwise. :)
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tsty
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response 45 of 92:
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Mar 1 11:58 UTC 1995 |
From 11,000 we gotta eliminate some of them censorship cries
or not.
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nephi
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response 46 of 92:
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Mar 2 08:18 UTC 1995 |
With regard to the people that might say that we ban stuff like
alt.sex.stories, what about when stuff like the Baker case comes up? It
was very informative for me to be able to read the story and form my own
opinion about it. I really learned alot about how the system works by
being able to read this. If we are here to teach, we shouldn't censor
on the basis of parochial "values".
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ajax
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response 47 of 92:
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Mar 2 15:41 UTC 1995 |
I agree; I'm comfortable with banning things for legal reasons,
but not for purely moral reasons. In the board candidate survey
in item 89, two of our new board members seemed to hedge on this
issue (question 22). Though the example question didn't say
explicitly that the stories were legal.
TS, Re #45, we could carry 11,000 groups, we'd just have to
erase all the messages daily to have enough disk space :).
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popcorn
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response 48 of 92:
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Mar 2 18:25 UTC 1995 |
Yeah, there are some groups we probably could carry legally, but which
could still cause a heck of a lot of trouble if strict parents found
their teenage children reading them.
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cicero
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response 49 of 92:
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Mar 2 18:51 UTC 1995 |
re 48:
But that's not our concern. If parent's get steamed then they do. It
is their responsablity to censor what their child sees. NOT OURS.
If there are too many newsgroups to carry all, I think it would be easy to
eliminate a whole bunch. Many arey so specialized that it is unlikely
that anyone here would read them. We simply drop a bunch of these with
the provision that if anybody wants one, they ask and we add it back.
No problemo.
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