---------------------------------------------------------------- December 6, 1995 ACLU CYBER-LIBERTIES UPDATE A bi-weekly e-zine on cyber-liberties cases and controversies at the state and federal level. ---------------------------------------------------------------- IN THIS ISSUE: * ACLU Announces Plans to Challenge Online Censorship Provisions in Court; Says That House Conference Vote Leaves No Other Options * AOL Censors Gay Video Titles, Finds "Buns" Acceptable but "Studs" Too Sleazy * ACLU Speaks on Cyber-Liberties ---------------------------------------------------------------- FEDERAL PAGE (Congress/Agency/Court Cases) ---------------------------------------------------------------- * ACLU Announces Plans to Challenge Online Censorship Provisions in Court;Says That House Conference Vote Leaves No Other Options FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Phil Gutis 202-675-2312 WASHINGTON -- Saying that it could not depend on Congress to protect free speech on the Internet, the American Civil Liberties Union said today that it would challenge in court any of the online censorship proposals now being considered by a House-Senate conference committee. In a vote today, the House members of the Congressional conference committee on the telecommunications bill betrayed their chamber's earlier vote to reject censorship on the Internet. "All of Congress's proposals violate the First Amendment and privacy rights of adults to communicate freely in the online environment," said Barry Steinhardt, ACLU Associate Director. "Congress is making it ever more clear that we will have to turn to the courts to uphold free speech in the promising new medium of cyberspace." The ACLU rejected as unconstitutional the proposals offered by Senator J. James Exon, D-Nebraska, Senator Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and Representative Henry Hyde, R-Illinois, as well as the one offered by Representative Rick White, R-Washington. The House conferees voted today on how to respond to the Senate's provisions on Internet censorship. Although they first adopted the White censorship proposal -- which the media widely and inaccurately portrayed as a compromise -- they then amended it to include the Senate's standard for censorship. Last August, the House won widespread praise from the online community when it adopted an amendment to encourage Internet providers to better develop screening technologies for parents to use in controlling what their children see in cyberspace. House Speaker Newt Gingrich went as far as to call the Senate version of the legislation a clear "violation of free speech" and a "violation of the right of adults to communicate with each other." Unfortunately," said ACLU Legislative Counsel Donald Haines, "the House members graciously accepted their applause for opposing censorship and then, in a legislative slight of hand, turned right around and came up with their own scheme to censor what people say and see on the Internet." The ACLU said that it would continue to work in Congress to keep the Internet free. "Regardless of how the bill turns out," said Haines, "both the House and Senate need to continue to hear that their censorship is simply not acceptable." The House conferee's vote today removes the best chance that a telecommunications bill will emerge without an Internet censorship provision, the ACLU said. "If Congress adopts either the White or Exon censorship schemes -- which appears increasingly likely -- they will force us to turn to the Courts and we will sue," Steinhardt said. More than 25 civil liberties groups, regional Internet service providers, and commercial producers of entertainment, information, and journalism joined an ACLU letter, delivered earlier today, that urged the conferees to reject all proposals to impose new government censorship regulations on cyberspace and online communications. The ACLU said that, interestingly enough, the groups and individuals who are eager to challenge the censorship provisions should they become law have communicated with the ACLU via the Internet. Online political columnists, distributors of gay and lesbian resources, human rights groups, academic researchers of human sexuality, AIDS education groups, prisoners' rights groups, and student groups with controversial web pages have all already approached the ACLU about being plaintiffs in a court challenge. The groups said that they fear prosecution because they use online services to post, exchange, or distribute material that could be deemed "indecent" under the proposed law. ------------------------- For a copy of the coalition letter sent to the conferees, send a message to infoaclu@aclu.org with "letter opposing White and Hyde" in the subject line. The following organizations signed the letter: American Civil Liberties Union American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression American Communication Association Art and Technology Society Association of Alternative Newsweeklies Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression Coalition for Academic Freedom of Expression, Carnegie Mellon University Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Datalytics, Inc. Electronic Privacy Information Center Feminists for Free Expression Filz and Associates, Inc. HotWired Magazine Human Rights Watch Justice on Campus Project Internet Users Consortium LitNet (The Literary Network) Lumberyard BBS Community Network MIT Student Association for Freedom of Expression Media Democracy in Action Consortium (MeDIA Consortium) National Campaign for Freedom of Expression National Coalition Against Censorship National Writers Union NorthWest Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce Oregon Coast Rural Information Service Cooperative Pacific Online Access Public Access Networks Corp. (Panix) The Society for Human Sexuality, University of Washington Wired Magazine ---------------------------------------------------------------- STATE PAGE (Legislation/Agency/Court Cases) ---------------------------------------------------------------- * AOL Censors Gay Video Titles, Finds "Buns" Acceptable but "Studs" Too Sleazy AOL customers won't be surprised to hear that the AOL censors are at it again. AOL has long had a policy of screening certain "dirty words" from its public bulletin boards and chat groups. Last week, The Boston Globe reported that AOL had banned the word "breast." The company agreed to reverse the policy after "several days of on-line protests by irate breast cancer patients." Richard A. Knox, "Women Go Online To Decry Ban On Breast,'" The Boston Globe, 12/1/95. Another example of AOL's attempt to use censorship to create a "family-friendly" service was recently brought to the ACLU's attention. Jeff Satkin is owner and operator of ATKOL Gay Videos, a mail-order gay video store headquartered in Plainfield, NJ. Last August, Jeff responded to AOL's bid for new business by signing up as an advertiser on "Downtown AOL" (DT AOL). AOL describes the site as "a virtual small business community where potential customers will come to browse and shop for products and services of all types." Jeff paid the advertising fee and sent AOL an electronic copy of his extensive mail-order video catalog for posting on the DT AOL site. Under the contract, AOL agreed to run the ad for a term of one year. According to Jeff, AOL posted the catalog in full for four weeks with no complaints. Then, in September, AOL sent Jeff a letter requesting that a huge percentage of titles in the ATKOL Video mail-order catalog be removed from the online version of the catalog that appeared on Downtown AOL. An AOL employee had gone through a printed version of the list and highlighted the offending titles that would need to be removed. The result is a hilarious but frightening example of arbitrary censorship. At the ACLU's suggestion, Jeff wrote to AOL and asked them to explain the guidelines they used for censoring his catalog. After considerable delay, AOL wrote back the following: "DT AOL does not have any written standards for its advertisements. As the manager of the area I determine whether an advertisement has the look and feel that best fits our environment. I edited the file you sent and removed any titles which I felt didn't reflect the image we would like to project. I may have missed a few as you pointed out, so feel free to remove those as well if you would like." Here are just a few examples of AOL's arbitrary rating system as applied to the ATKOL Video catalog. (And remember, these are **titles only**!! -- no pictures, no cover art, no narrative -- just titles.) AOL Says AOL Says "Thumbs Down" -- "Thumbs Up" -- These titles were censored as These titles were not censored -- too sleazy for AOL!: they must have had "the look and feel that best fits the AOL environment": A Brother's Desire A Family Affair Advanced Disrobics Lockerroom Fever All About Sex ABC's of Sex All the Right Stuff All Men Do It! As the Bed Turns Bed Tales Bare Bones Bareback Bedroom Eyes Bedroom Lies Bi N Large Bi-Conflict The Big Nasty The Big Drill Bigger Than Huge Bigger Than Life Black Magic Magic Choices Black Dudes Blond Lovers The Boy Next Door Boys from New Jersey Brotherly Love Brother Trouble Buns N Hoses Bung Hole Buddies Dirty Pictures Dirty Picture Show Elements of Passion Passion By Fire Everybody Does It Every Which Way Filth Dirty Laundry Gayracula Gay Tarzan Hot Lunch Hot Stuff Latin on the Loose Latin Lust Leather Angel Leather Report Man in Motion The Man Inside Men in Shorts Men with Tools Night Maneuvers Nights in Black Leather Power Grip Power Trip Rican Christmas Latino Nights The Rites of Spring The Rites of Summer Skin Deep Skin Tight Spring Semester Spring Break Sunday Brunch Summer Heat Tough and Tender Tough Iron White Trash White on White Wild Dreams Wild Thing You Are Not Alone Alone and Private Titles with any of the following words, regardless of the full title, were also censored: "pleasure," "black," "hard," "boys," "jock," "Rican," "sex," "stud," "straight," "young." A few more interesting facts about the case should be noted. First, while AOL has never publicized the list of "vulgar" words that it routinely screens from its public sites, most of the screened words are classic profanity and "dirty words." None of the titles that AOL censored from ATKOL Video's list contain those "dirty" words. Second, it is clear that AOL's action was an overreaction to the recent federal law enforcement raids on alleged child pornographers using AOL -- Jeff received the letter shortly after the raids made the headlines. But *none* of Jeff's videos contain child porn. And again -- the info in the catalog was *titles only* and contained no substantive material at all. Third, it appears that AOL's arbitrary standards may be a little homophobic. While "Wet and Wild" was an unacceptable title in a gay video catalog, AOL ran an ad in Downtown AOL for Affinity Teleproductions, Inc. that read: "Now you can join exotic Anna Nicole Smith on her sensuous Edenquest adventure in her exclusive photo portfolio. . . . Anna Nicole Smith "The Collectors Set" features ten eye opening Edenquest photographs in vivid color . . . . It's all Anna Nicole Smith wet and wild drenched in sun and powder sugar sand. "With Love, Anna Nicole" is your personal trip to paradise with the world's most exciting woman in her most provocative photos ever." The troubles experienced by ATKOL Video when it legitimately tried to do business with AOL just proves once again that censorship rules are by nature arbitrary and unfair -- whether imposed by the government or by private industry. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Speaks on Cyber-Liberties ---------------------------------------------------------------- 12/5/95 Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU, debated Kathy Cleaver of the American Family Research Council over online censorship proposals on CNN's "Crossfire." 12/5/95 Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director of the ACLU, debated Bob Peters of Morality and Media over online censorship proposals on CBS Radio Network's Gil Gross Show. 12/7/95 Ann Beeson, ACLU cyberspace policy analyst, speaks on a panel at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Art on the Internet: Power, Access and Desire," 7:30 p.m. See http://bowlingalley.walkerart.org/. Next week: Watch the CNBC 6:00 pm news for an interview with Barry Steinhardt on Congress' proposals to censor the net. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ONLINE RESOURCES FROM THE ACLU NATIONAL OFFICE ---------------------------------------------------------------- Stay tuned for news on the ACLU's world wide web site, under construction at http://www.aclu.org. America Online users should check out our live chats, auditorium events, *very* active message boards, and complete news on civil liberties, at keyword ACLU. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update Editor: Ann Beeson (beeson@aclu.org) American Civil Liberties Union National Office 132 West 43rd Street New York, New York 10036 To subscribe to the ACLU Cyber-Liberties Update, send a message to infoaclu@aclu.org with "subscribe Cyber-Liberties Update" in the subject line of your message. 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