Aunc.1629
net.news
utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!smb
Mon Dec 28 15:53:54 1981
Re: USENET policy
Time to cast my fuel into the flames....
I like the idea of a committee, but I don't think it should work the
way mark suggested. Rather, I'd prefer to see a group of moderators,
people whom one would approach when creating a new group because
they're familiar with the structure and history of the system. For
example, suppose someone wanted to start net.datsun tomorrow. S/he's
probably never seen net.auto.vw; it hasn't appeared lately -- so that
person might not realize that net.auto.datsun (or net.auto.nissan, or
pers.auto.nissan if we go that route) would be a better name. Or what
of someone who wanted to discuss peripherals? net.periphs has existed,
but never worked too well -- fa.unix-wizards is the forum that most
folks use for that type of discussion anyway. In summary: anyone who
wants to create a new group should be strongly advised to contact a net
guru first -- it will save everyone the trouble of making multiple
entries in a .newsrc and/or .sys file. But preclearance shouldn't be
required.
I don't like censorship (I'm a card-carrying ACLU member), but I don't
like some of the crap that's come over lately. I prefer to obey the
dictum in the North Carolina constitution on free speech (I don't know
the exact words, but the spirit is right): "no restraint whatever
shall be placed on free speech, but every man shall be held responsible
for its abuse." When I've been offended by an item (rare, I have a
high tolerance level, though I don't find a lot of the "jokes" funny),
I send a nasty note out to the person responsible. I suspect that most
folks on the net are intelligent and sensitive enough that they'll stop
broadcasting things that offend too many people. But I don't want to
be in the position of prohibiting things. If you don't want it, don't
read it. (The point about the implications of "net.jokes.q" going to
all net.jokes readers is well-taken; the group should have been named
differently.)
About the legal questions: I'm not a lawyer, but as I understand it,
there could be some trouble. A newspaper cannot be held liable for
printing something true about a person; they're not even liable for
printing something false if they can show that they took reasonable
care to verify the item. But are they responsible for the "Letters"
column, especially if the item is slanderous? I believe that most
papers do not print such letters except under special circumstances,
i.e., where the author is a public figure who's commenting on a public
issue or an editorial about him/her. Netnews is much more in the
latter category. Sexual harassment, which specifically *includes*
dirty jokes, is prohibited by Federal regulations, though the rule is
too new for their to be much precedent to go by. I don't know if there
is any similar regulation protecting racial or ethnic minorities, but
I'm pretty sure that these "jokes" could be used as evidence of a
hostile climate. So it's quite reasonable that some companies or
universities might want to cover their tochuses, and drop net.jokes.q.
I don't like that -- but I would prefer that mechanism to an "official"
prohibition. (This ignores the question of whether the technical means
exist to censor messages, or even hold responsible the guilty party.
In essence, we can't -- netnews is too insecure. Nor is it reasonable
for a committee to expect a site to have stricter security than the
distributed software allows, and punish them if they fail to comply.
More on that in another article.)
A lot of people have objected to the proposed makeup of the committee.
Mark's suggestion (himself, glickman, trt, swd, jte, and me) seems
reasonable in that it's the group of people who have been most active
in starting and developing netnews. But I'm willing to accept anyone
else who's an active user of the net -- trb and ber come to mind; also,
we probably should have some representative of the big gateways -- if
they ban a newsgroup, it has far-reaching effects.
The important point is that we're not arguing about some hypothetical
situation. Many people *have* complained; we've now got to decide what
to do about it.
--Steve Bellovin (unc!smb)
P.S. I won't be at Usenix either; don't feel left out.
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