---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 07:35:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Washington Post editorial on global Net-censorship (10/21/96) While the Washington Post may be in thrall to the national security establishment on encryption policy, it has done more to highlight the dangers of Net-censorship than any other newspaper. Check out today's editorial, attached below. Also, the In the Loop column in today's Post reports that the poorly-named "Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom" is hosting a $10,000-a-table banquet called the "1996 Architect of the New Century Award Gala" on November 11. This year's architect? "None other than that champion of democracy and human rights the inimitable Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore." The same fellow I wrote about in a HotWired column recently: http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/36/index4a.html The unknown user, who has the email address an511172@anon.penet.fi, posted hundreds of messages to the soc.culture.singapore newsgroup under the name of "Lee Kwan Yew," the retired prime minister of Singapore. The messages are short and unimaginative, yet apparently are just enough to piss off the thin-skinned Singaporean officials. One post reads: "We are small and vulnerable. Without regulations, we will be like Hong Kong, oops, fuck, bad example, they are actually doing quite all right. - SM Lee Kwan Yew, Republic of Singapore." I just called the Nixon Center and spoke to Tricia Williams, the assistant to the president. She told me: "You would need to speak to Mr. Sines, the president. I'm not involved in planning that." More later, if he returns my phone call. -Declan **************** CENSORSHIP IN CYBERSPACE Monday, October 21 1996; Page A18 The Washington Post WHEN IT COMES to communication and censorship, the issues don't change much from one medium to the next. The latest reminder comes with a mini-gust of consternation that hit the World Wide Web a few days ago when, after prolonged outcry, the proprietor of a Sweden-based web site called the Gallery Grotesque closed it down. The site had been displaying gruesome images for two years and had attracted alarm most recently by posting several grisly photographs of a murder scene. Those who attempted to visit the web site after it was closed were greeted with a message from the owner that included all the classic reasons for allowing speech even when it's violent or disturbing. The "gallery," the message explained, had been designed to display true images of "a debauched, self-indulgent society"; it had gotten several million "hits," or visitors, over its life; "myriad external pressures" had been brought to bear, and it was now closing "at a time of my own choosing" because "the concept has been fully explored." Finally, to those "repulsed or angered" by the images, it added, "Consider this: The insanity still continues; only the messenger has been quelled." Whatever you make of the issues of judgment or perhaps self-dramatization involved here, the arguments closely resemble the familiar ones about information and its responsible use that have been going on for centuries. Meanwhile, the Internet experiences of such countries as China and Singapore offer a more sobering demonstration that the new technology may not change the landscape of freedom of speech vs. censorship as much as many had hoped. When the Internet with its global reach first became accessible in countries with otherwise tight information control, human rights and pro-democracy activists foresaw a virtual end to isolation for their colleagues in closed societies, just as fax machines had buoyed Chinese student protesters a decade ago. Some talked of a global "archive of banned books" that could be accessed from any point in the world, thus rendering book-banning by individual nations pointless. Unfortunately, governments interested in maintaining censorship quickly have found ways to use the technology to their benefit. Though decentralized and ungovernable, the Internet is also highly transparent: No one can be sure who is watching, and most messages leave tracks. The governments of China, Burma and Singapore have been cited as making use of this characteristic of the medium, announcing heavy penalties on those who access unauthorized sites, and, in Iran particularly, constructing elaborate technological fire walls to allow their citizens to tap some but not all of the Web's information. The fire walls may prove rickety, and, even with the restrictions, activists may discover over time that access to e-mail and the Web brings more advantage than danger. Even so, the lesson remains: Technology may alter the dimensions of the problem of censorship, but it doesn't take the problems away. ###