Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!ficc!jeffd
From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Electronic Newspapers
Summary: Censorship
Message-ID: <4136@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 10 May 89 17:37:19 GMT
References: <8905090916.AA04823@s2.Tau.Ac.IL> <3226@looking.UUCP>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 35

In article <3226@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> In the future, the distinction between TV and print news will blur.  
(text deleted)
> 
> We may still call them newspapers, but they will not look much like them.
> And it will be impossible to censor, short of a police state.

No more impossible than censoring TV and/or -- which doesn't 
happen as often now as it used to, but is certainly still 
possible.  The Federal Censorship Commission does more 
than just assign frequencies and call letters,
you know.

> I speak
> from authority on this, as one of the world's first "victims" of
> computer censorship.   In all the places where my work has been banned
> from computers, people have still be able to get it.

One, to be picky, it isn't your work, but that of submitters.  Two,
that's because nobody has prosecuted *you* personally, or confiscated
your property.  But what about a computer-newspaper publisher who
is fined or has his/her equipment carted off?  True, there might
be small-scale operators who could move frequently, but a large
commercial operation would have to play by the fedscists' rules
or risk major penalties, just as TV/radio broadcasters do.

Para un Tejas Libre,

Jeff Daiell


-- 
 "Apple pies are made from apples, aren't they?  And apples are
      nutritious.  So eating apples pies is good for you."

                       -- Fusser McGee, The First Of Three