Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!nuug!ifi!jar From: jar@ifi.uio.no (Jo Are Rosland) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET Message-ID: <1990Oct31.141646.25350@ifi.uio.no> Date: 31 Oct 90 14:16:46 GMT References: <1990Oct21.141502.26557@hoss.unl.edu> Sender: jar@ifi.uio.no (Jo Are Rosland) Reply-To: joare@sdata.no Distribution: comp Organization: Skrivervik Data A/S, Oslo, Norway Lines: 55 In article <1990Oct21.141502.26557@hoss.unl.edu>, riddle@hoss.unl.edu (Michael H. Riddle) writes: > > I'm sure I'll create some controversy, but it seems to be that what I call > "Murphy's Golden Rule" might apply here: > > "The one with the gold makes the rules." > > What I mean is that the people paying the bill ought to have the right to > say how their resources are being used. While there are many good > purposes served by a free and open exchange of ideas on a wide variety of > subjects, I personally have some doubts that public funding, either from > my country or yours, ought to be involved in some of the discussions we > find on the net. I think perhaps you are missing the potentially most interesting/scary points of rmz's article, namely: 1. The University of Oslo controls distribution of USENET to ALL of Norway. The people resposible for this first act of censorship have expressed the intention of censoring not only the university news feed, but also the news feed for the rest of Norway. 2. The decision was taken by _one_ person, the head of the Computer Centre. He did not consult anyone, eg. faculty. In fact the person who had to carry out the removal of the groups, was in direct opposition to the decision. 3. The head of the Computer Centre is _not_ "the people who pay the bill". This isn't really a decision for him to take, especially not at a whim, as it appears he has done. I believe your point that the owners of the machines should have the last say over the use of their equipment, but who really is "the owners" in a case like this? And aren't there also some installations that are too important for this to apply? For instance, would it be acceptable if uunet, or perhaps one of the main news gateways connecting Europe and the U.S., should start censoring which groups/articles they want to pass on? I believe computer networks are akin to other communication networks like snail mail/telephone, in that carriers have a responsibility to not censor the traffic on the grounds of their own more or less well founded ideas of what is "prudent" or what is "fitting". I acknowledge that this is not formally the case with neither USENET nor the Internet, still this idea is part of the informal ethics of most of the sites responsible for running these networks. But as computer networks continue to grow, perhaps it's time for a more formal declaration of the responsibilities of the carriers of electronic networking services, either through legislation, or presedence? -- Jo Are Rosland jar@ifi.uio.no