Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!iuvax!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Usenet and legal liability
Message-ID: <51932@looking.on.ca>
Date: 24 Nov 89 01:43:00 GMT
References: <25683CAB.25106@ateng.com> <10771@max.u.washington.edu> <1989Nov21.181205.3875@utzoo.uucp> <51365@looking.on.ca> <1207@electro.UUCP>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 35

Cutting groups to save money, if that's clearly the reason, is never
a problem.   Cutting groups for *moral* reasons is a mistake.  If
you ban alt.sex for moral reasons, then you have put yourself in the
postition of moral judge of your newsfeed.

Once you excercise that power, you are implicitly approving what you
don't ban, because you have a policy of cutting out the immoral stuff.
If instead you make a "we take all" or "we only cut to save money." stand,
then you're ok.

So if you cut alt.sex (and keep alt.msdos, for example) how can one tell
the difference between cutting for moral reasons and cutting for cost
reasons?  It's tough -- certainly a very gray area.

But if you cut something that's free, small in volume and high in
demand (like rec.humor.funny) then everybody knows that no matter what
you say about cost, you're doing it for moral reasons.  If you cut
talk.bizarre, almost everybody will figure it's for cost.  If you cut
due to complaints rather than volume, then you may be in for trouble.


This hit the president of the University of Waterloo after he banned
rec.humor.funny.  He was then pushed to ban a beauty pageant that rented
space each year in the theatre, as it was viewed as sexist by various groups.

Before, he could have said that it wasn't the University's business to
judge the morals of productions in the theatre.  But after banning the jokes,
nobody believed that stance.

This is the stance I take in rec.humor.funny.  I never block material for
offensive content.  If I did, and something I did let through offended
somebody (as always happens) then they *could* blame me as well as the
author for the offensiveness.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473