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From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: talk.rumors,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <1989Sep3.225305.9042@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 3 Sep 89 22:53:05 GMT
References: <3659@uwovax.uwo.ca> <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> <188@temvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu (John L. Coolidge)
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
Lines: 68

[soc.motss was removed since the discussion is clearly not relevant]

stephen@temvax.UUCP (Stephen C. Arnold) writes:
>I have some problems with Blair's concept of freedom of speech.  I believe
>Pruss was acting outside that freedom.  Here is how I see him acting outside
>that freedom.

>The first is anonymity.  Pruss posted without saying who he was.  Freedom of
>speech does not protect a person from having their identity associated with
>their writing.

This is probably true. I'm not aware of any part of the doctrine of
freedom of speech that protects anonymity. Assuming other posters at
his site don't have the ability to post anonymously, he shouldn't either
(that's not freedom of speech, but rather equal protection).

>Second is harrassment.  Pruss harrassed all of us by saying all of us are
>going to get AIDS, die and go to hell.  Freedom of speech was never intended
>to protect the ability to harrass.

GONG! Wrong answer. Freedom of speech was intended, first and foremost,
to protect offensive speech, including harassing speach. Without such a
protection, there's no clear line at all about what is and isn't protected
(after all, perhaps speech advocating tolerance of homosexual behavior,
to pick an example, could be considered highly harassing by some
fundamentalist groups. Does that indicate that it should be banned?)

>A person should not be resticted about what he or she says when he or she
>addresses their listeners with the respect do a peer.  Pruss was not acting in
>this way.

A person who is in a position to claim freedom of speech rights should be
able to use their speech without restriction, whatever form of address
the use or the level of respect they use.

But there is the fundamental question, separate from what Mr. Arnold has
written above: should USENET postings be considered to be covered by
freedom of speech? Once posted, the answer is IMHO yes. No site should
refuse to carry individual postings simple because they're found offensive.
On the other hand, access to posting facilities is (again IMHO) clearly
not synonymous with freedom of speech. Certainly, if a site claims to
offer access to "every student" or "the general public", it is highly
offensive to then remove access based on posting content. But if a site
offers access only to "friends of the sysadmin", "employees of the
corporation", etc., only those people have any freedom of speech rights
to post on that site. Or, if a site offers computer accounts only in
support of a certain project, it is proper to withdraw access if the
access is being used for other purposes --- IF such access is also
withdrawn for anyone else with a similar account who is also misusing
the account.

The situation is very similar to that found in other broadcast media:
print, TV, radio, etc. These organizations have absolutely no obligation
to provide their services to anyone who walks in the door simply due to
freedom of speech. On the other hand, if a paper decides to offer a
"free expression page" --- a page where ALL opinions of a given length
and format will be printed --- they cannot then remove only certain
opinions because they're "offensive". USENET is like the "free expression
page" --- it carries all opinions whatever they might be. But each site
can decide on its own whether or not to offer access to the page in the
first place.

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.