Free speech defenders plan Internet "Black Out" - the issues
Jason Romney (jromney@werple.mira.net.au)
Mon, 12 Feb 1996 12:53:15 +1100
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FREE SPEECH DEFENDERS PLAN 'BLACK OUT' ON INTERNET
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Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Copyright © 1996 Scripps-McClatchy Western
SAN FRANCISCO (Feb 8, 1996 00:53 a.m. EST) -- Defenders of free speech
in cyberspace plan to "black out" a portion of the Internet for 48
hours to protest a new law making it a federal crime to provide minors
"indecent" material on-line.
The "Turn the Screen Black Coalition" of 17 advocacy groups and six
companies is urging creators of pages on the World Wide Web and
elsewhere on the Internet to publish them with white print on black
screens for 48 hours after President Clinton signs the
Telecommunications Reform Act. Clinton is expected to sign the bill
Thursday.
"The (law's) broad and vague language, we feel, will create a very
chilling effect on both content providers and service providers," says
Lori Fema of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a
coalition member.
Shabbir J. Safdar of Voters Telecommunications Watch, a 2-year-old,
New York-based group coordinating the on-line protest, says he has
been "overwhelmed by the response," though organizers aren't sure how
many Internet users will take part.
"There are 9 million people in this country on the Internet who don't
like what's happened," he said. "We thought this was the most
constructive, most rational way for those people to express their
outrage."
Among local coalition members are Palo Alto-based Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility; the WELL, an on-line service
based in Sausalito; and San Francisco-based Wired magazine and its
on-line affiliate, HotWired.
At issue is the telecom bill, passed by Congress overwhelmingly last
week. In addition to making sweeping reforms in the nation's telephone
and cable TV regulations, it bans providing people under 18 "any
communication that in context depicts or describes, in terms patently
offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or
excretory activities or organs."
This standard, foes contend, is so vague and broad that it would
encompass great works of art such as Michelangelo's statue of David
and medical information about the human body.
Under another clause, the law declares on-line discussion of abortion
illegal and obscene.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says Internet sites, including
those of the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations and
Planned Parenthood, and pages on the Sistine Chapel and "Huckleberry
Finn" by Mark Twain "may fall victim to the Telecommunications Act."
"What the bill really does is silence adults and abridge our First
Amendment," Fema says.
On-line activist Howard Rheingold, a San Francisco Examiner columnist
and author of "The Virtual Community," agrees.
He says that politicians like the sponsor of the "indecency"
provision, Sen. James Exon, D.-Neb., "have used people's fear and
ignorance about the Internet to make a naked power grab, to set a new
standard for what citizens of this country are allowed to communicate
to each other.
"We have obscenity standards that have stood the test of time. This
new 'indecency' provision is a new standard that is so fuzzily defined
that it could come to include almost anything on the agenda of the
religious right."
Exon argues that no responsible person would permit children access to
the scenes of incest, bestiality and torture that he says are readily
available on the Internet.
"We really have a unique situation today," says Russ Rader, Exon's
press secretary. "It used to be that if you wanted pornography, you
went to the corner adult book store. Today, the Internet has become
one of the easiest ways for pornographers to ply their wares, and
unfortunately it's being done in full view."
"The Internet is a unique medium," Fema responds. "You must request
information or go to a site. This is not a broadcast medium. Nude
pictures do not get broadcast at you when you sign on."
Rader, though, says on-line libertarians act as if the Internet is
exempt from rules applying to every other communication medium.
"Some of these groups act as if the framers of the Constitution
plotted at great length to make sure that pornographers and pedophiles
would be absolutely protected under the U.S. Constitution, and that's
just unjustifiable," Rader says.
Rheingold, though, sees the arguments about pornography as a stalking
horse.
"There is a much larger picture that has nothing to do with
pornography," he says. "There are much better ways to shield children,
by far."
"The bigger story is that this is a well-executed stealth campaign ...
to make communicating information about abortion illegal," Rheingold
says.
In doing so, he adds, free speech is not the only casualty.
"The real losers in this are the people on the Internet who rely on it
for information: scientists, researchers, disabled people, gay
teenagers, poor school districts," Rheingold says. "Information they
can find there now won't be available to them when we lose Internet
providers because of this."
According to organizers, those on the Internet are lining up to take
part in the protest.
Ordinarily, on-line information is displayed in black characters on a
white screen. Turning the pages white on black is a simple matter
explained on the coalition's Web page at http://www.vtw.org/speech/.
Fema says visits to the EFF's Web page have grown from an average
80,000 to 250,000 a day and are climbing as news of the blackout
spreads.
(From the San Francisco Examiner, distributed by Scripps-McClatchy
Western Service.)
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