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From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Censorship (was Re: I ain't afraid of no Batwoman)
Message-ID: <1064@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 29-Aug-87 12:50:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: bsu-cs.1064
Posted: Sat Aug 29 12:50:40 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Aug-87 09:18:41 EDT
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 31
Summary: Clarifying what censorship is

Re: Recent discussion of censorship.

Censorship is done by government.

Magazine and newspaper editors routinely decide what will and will not
be published.  This is not censorship.

Censorship occurs when one is prevented from exercising one's legal right
to use a medium of expression.  When a magazine editor deletes a
paragraph from an article, that is not censorship.  It's editing.
It doesn't matter why the editor chose to delete it.

When a government agency forces that magazine editor to delete a
paragraph, that's censorship.  It doesn't matter why the government
agency chose to require that paragraph to be deleted.

Usenet is owned and operated by a collection of independent sites.
Each site is free to transmit or not transmit anything it receives.  If
a site chooses not to transmit specific newsgroups, or articles about
specific subjects, or articles posted by specific individuals, it is
emphatically not censorship.  It's simply selective retransmission.
It doesn't matter on what basis the site makes the selection.

The ice gets a bit thin if a site that selectively deletes articles is
funded by government.  Then, if the deletion occurred because of
political content, you might be justified in calling it censorship.
But even government agencies have a mandate to use their funds in a
responsible manner, so you would still have to show that some
irresponsible use of funds occurred.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  {ihnp4,seismo}!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi