Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!unixhub!shelby!neon!Neon!jmc From: jmc@Gang-of-Four.usenet (John McCarthy) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Censorship on the USENET Message-ID: Date: 2 Nov 90 05:38:32 GMT References: <1990Oct21.141502.26557@hoss.unl.edu> <1990Oct31.141646.25350@ifi.uio.no> <1990Nov01.064916.19218@looking.on.ca> Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System) Distribution: comp Organization: /u/jmc/.organization Lines: 77 In-Reply-To: bzs@world.std.com's message of 2 Nov 90 00:51:46 GMT In 1989 rec.humor.funny was suppressed in some of the Stanford University computers. After a campaign it was re-installed in those computers. It was never suppressed in the Computer Science Department's computers. There follow two relevant documents. The first is self-explanatory, and the second came about through the following sequence of events. (1) Donald Kennedy, Stanford's President, told the Academic Senate that he supported the suppression but would defer to the Senate. (2) The Senate Steering Committee asked the Committee on Libraries for a general policy recommendation on how to treat electronic newsgroups. Referring the issue to the Committee on Libraries indicated what kind of issue the Steering Committee thought was involved. (3) The Committee on Libraries made the statement given below. (4) The Steering Committee asked the Vice-President for Information Resources (i.e. the boss of the computer centers) whether he preferred to back down and re-establish rec.humor.funny or have the matter discussed by the full Senate. (5) He backed down somewhat grumpily. The following statement was passed unanimously at a meeting of the Computer Science Department faculty of Stanford University on Tuesday, Feb 21, 1989. Statement of Protest about the AIR Censorship of rec.humor.funny. Computer scientists and computer users have been involved in making information resources widely available since the 1960s. Such resources are analogous to libraries. The newsgroups available on various networks are the computer analog of magazines and partial prototypes of future universal computer libraries. These libraries will make available the information resources of the whole world to anyone's terminal or personal computer. Therefore, the criteria for including newsgroups in computer systems or removing them should be identical to those for including books in or removing books from libraries. For this reason, and since the resource requirements for keeping newsgroups available are very small, we consider it contrary to the function of a university to censor the presence of newsgroups in University computers. We regard it as analogous to removing a book from the library. To be able to read anything subject only to cost limitations is an essential part of academic freedom. Censorship is not an appropriate tool for preventing or dealing with offensive behavior. We therefore think that AIR and SDC should rescind the purge of rec.humor.funny. The Computer Science Department has also decided not to censor Department Computers. ***** Here's something else - a statement by the Stanford faculty committee on libraries. Office Memo, Stanford University Libraries date: April 12, 1989 To: The Steering Committee of the Academic Senate via Arthur Coladarci From: Joan Krasner, Secretary, C-Lib The following is an excerpt from the minutes of the April 10th meeting of C-Lib which considered the matter of computer bulletin boards on campus. The Preamble to the Statement on Academic Freedom (1974) states that ``Expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged, free from institutional orthodoxy and from internal or external coercion.'' It is the view of the Academic Council Committee on Libraries that this statement pertains to materials received on computer bulletin boards on campus. Acquisition and access to information in new forms should be subject only to financial limits and other standard criteria of collection such as the useful life of the materials, storage capacity, etc. - approved by Academic Council Commmittee on Libraries, April 10, 1989. XC: Gerald Gillespie