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From: leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: soc.motss,talk.rumors,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET site admin responsibilities (was: Re: Censorship is for Wusses)
Message-ID: <2592@qiclab.UUCP>
Date: 4 Sep 89 21:57:06 GMT
References: <3659@uwovax.uwo.ca> <13316@nsc.nsc.com> <3988@buengc.BU.EDU> <1989Sep3.043558.9447@xenitec.uucp> <4030@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: leonard@qiclab.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Organization: Qic Laboratories, Portland, Oregon.
Lines: 24

In article <4030@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
<A person who is barred from the net for his opinions is no different
<from a person who is barred from the newspapers for his opinions.

Guess what, people are barred from *a* newspaper for their opinions all
the time. It's known as "freedom of the press". Nobody but the publisher
can tell an editor what to print.

There are so many papers that barring someone from "the newspapers" is
a totally nonsensical idea. Likewise barring someone from "the net" is
not possible. You can *always* find a site that is willing to let you
post. Examples of this abound (MES comes to mind...)

You have no more right to tell a site adminstrator how to run his site
than you do to tell an editor how to run his paper. He can exclude any
views he wishes to. (the fairness doctrine on the broadcast media was
an aberration). Freedom of the press means you can publish *your* views
no matter how biased. But you may have to do it on your own "press".

-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short