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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!wivax!dyer
From: dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d
Subject: Re: Re: Offensiveness (long article) - (nf)
Message-ID: <18932@wivax.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 5-Nov-83 15:58:07 EST
Article-I.D.: wivax.18932
Posted: Sat Nov  5 15:58:07 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Nov-83 01:14:46 EST
References: <95@tekcad.UUCP>
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 29

Well, I feel obliged to take a counter-offensive.  If you closely read
my response to you, I was not advocating censorship, but rather underscoring
the equal rights of other members of the net to take issue with articles
which are aimed towards belittling individuals or groups, with no
redeeming features.  I still feel that you are misreading Bradbury,
but we'll just have to leave that issue.

At the same time, I believe that Phil Ngai's comments accurately describe
the nature of USENET--namely a "broadcast" medium, where individual contributors
have to take responsibility for their actions, not only as far as their
own site is concerned, but also for the net as a whole.  If you feel that
USENET is equivalent to your local downtown soapbox, where you may say anything
you like, without care, then you're mistaken.  Read Mark Horton's intro
to the net.  Read the comments that say that a site may be removed from
the net if it persists in behavior damaging to the net.  Your "freedom"
to say whatever you like will disappear pretty quickly if you exercise
it as "freely" as you seem to imply.

The issue of censorship is a knotty one, and it hasn't had to be confronted
here yet, as far as I know.  I am hard pressed to define "behavior damaging
to the net" though I know it when I see it.  It will be a difficult time when
the issue finally comes around.  I also wonder about people (not necessarily
yourself) who confuse the "exercise of a right" with "appropriate behavior".
These are NOT the same.  Someone MAY have a "right" to send ugly, degrading
commentary floating through the phone lines, but that still doesn't make
him any less a boor.

/Steve Dyer
decvax!bbncca!sdyer