Xref: utzoo soc.culture.indian:10973 news.groups:7390 news.misc:2605 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watdragon!violet!ankgoel From: ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian,news.groups,news.misc Subject: Re: Propreity (sp?) of making specific allegations on the net. Message-ID: <11536@watdragon.waterloo.edu> Date: 14 Feb 89 03:56:41 GMT References: <11491@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <50486@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu Reply-To: ankgoel@violet.waterloo.edu (anil k goel) Distribution: soc Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 91 Reference: article <50486@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu I agree with certain points made by Ashwin in the above article and I stand moderated insofar as the following is concerned. >On the other hand, there is a real danger that these people do not understand >the newsgroup media. USENET is a new and powerful media for communication, >and it has its own little set of rules. The legal issues will be decided >only when cases (like the libel cases you mention) begin to be contested, but >so far USENET does not, and in my opinion should not, depend on the courts of >law to monitor its use. > I also wish to explicitly state here that it has never been my intention to resort to courts or to become an accessory in such an act. The only reason I mentioned the courts was for the sake of completeness and because I was just trying to imagine what actions would seem plausible to the accused party. >There is no libel when no-one is there to listen to the accusations. Maybe. But I am still not comfortable with the basic idea of punching somebodies' image left-and-right and not give them an opportunity to tell their side of the story. >Similarly, there should be no libel when intelligent people partake in a >discussion. For example, if you post accusations about me on the net, what >should I do? The law says I can sue you for libel. However, USENET is based >on a different philosophy. According to this, I can reply to your message, >defend myself, present arguments and evidence, etc., and then let the netters >at large decide who they wish to believe. In the worst case, if you are That is the crux of the matter. All I propose is that everybody _including those without access to the net_ be given an opportunity to do what you say you can do. I agree it is a difficult task to implement. But if this is done even for a few cases, I think people would be a bit more restrained in making wild accusations. >I do not believe that there was any libel involving IE or Arun Shourie. (As Hmmm.... If I am not mistaken AS has been called a "stupid clown", IE/AS have been held responsible for having ruined the carrear of a number of hard working students, they have been equated with anti-socials,anti-nationals, harborours of terrorists, and so on. Replace AS/IE by Anil Goel and I assure you, he is not going to be too happy with that. >Hemant's opinions, but I think he has the right to post them. People argued >on both sides of the issue. The readers read both arguments and made up >their own minds. Agreed. My only objection is that the people working in india never get an opportunity to clear their names while a bunch of "trigger-happy intellectuals" go about dragging their reputation in mud (please excuse the choice of phrases here). >it would certainly be a good idea to mail hard-copies of the discussions >to the people concerned, and post their reponses on the net. It would not be >a good idea to encourage these people to start banging on the doors of our >courts. > >One way this could be accomplished is to delete the From lines from the >discussions (after all, Arun Shourie should be replying to the allegations, >not to a particular individual). On the flip side, this would remove >accountability and encourage people to post unsubstantiated and malicious >opinions. > All right. Remove the refrence to courts in my earlier article, add the above to the basic proposal. How many of us are now willing to go ahead with the proposal. Please note that the reference to IE/AS should only be treated as a generic example. There is no reason, why a simliar course of action may not be taken in the case of Indian Airlines,e.g.(they seem to receive a lot of flak). >Comments are welcome. > >Good luck, > >-- Ashwin. may god guide us all, -anil -- (519) 747-1489 "A reasonable man adapts himself to the world, an unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress is due to the unreasonable man." - Bernard Shaw.