At 8:43 AM -0600 12/10/96, Mike McNally wrote:
jbaber@mi.leeds.ac.uk wrote:
Not having a detailed knowledge of the American right to free speach I can only go on my opinions, but lieing with the intent to defraud would almost certainly be illegal over here.
So where lies intent to defraud in the act of deliberately mislabeling a web page? Why is that any different from me standing on the street corner (or at Hyde Park Corner) announcing that I'm the Messiah?
This was, of course, my point about there being no universally valid truth, and what such anti-fraud statutes must mean about religions. Basically, "free speech" entails a kind of anarchy (= no law) with regard to truths and falsehoods. As I like to say, "at most, one religion is correct" (with the other 783 major sects clearly spouting falsehoods...and probably _all_ 784 major sects doing so). If PICS codes are ever mandated, this will be placing the legal system and governments in the business of deciding truth. The meta-point I am making is not about truth and religion, but about this business of insisting that people label their words by some criteria. Speech should not require prior approval by a standards body, or self-labelling. (And, to repeat, any such labelling implies standards of truth that simply don't exist.) --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."