Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!rutgers!princeton!mind!harnad
From: harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad)
Newsgroups: news.misc,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Abuses of the net
Message-ID: <408@mind.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Dec-86 11:49:19 EST
Article-I.D.: mind.408
Posted: Sat Dec  6 11:49:19 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Dec-86 03:34:20 EST
References: <225@mind.UUCP> <1176@frog.UUCP>
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 24
Keywords: Lenny Bruce
Summary: Freedom of speech is not at issue in the discussion of abuses of the Net
Xref: mnetor news.misc:102 sci.lang:206




I would like to point out, to those who are genuinely concerned about
it, that freedom of speech is not at issue in the current discussion
about ad hominem abuse on the Net. The issue is much simpler. It
concerns the difference between saying (1) "You're a liar" (which is
ritually intoned frequently by certain posters) and "I believe you are
mistaken," and that between "that's a pile of [suitably abusive
epithet]" and "I'm afraid I disagree" or "I believe there is evidence
that that is incorrect." The issue is whether the tail ends of the
gaussian are to be allowed to turn the Net into a Global graffiti
board, or whether the Net's extraordinary intellectual communicative
potential will be better realized with some humane, commonsense
constraints. The same judgments would have had to be made in
Guttenberg's time, mutatis mutandis.

All this righteous indignation on behalf of the "freedom" to be
personally abusive!
-- 

Stevan Harnad                                  (609) - 921 7771
{allegra, bellcore, seismo, rutgers, packard}  !princeton!mind!harnad
harnad%mind@princeton.csnet