Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> writes:
On Sat, Jun 07, 1997 at 01:53:05PM -0500, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com> writes: [...]
Yes, the only honorable response to speech you don't like is to ignore it or to respond with more speech.
Quite so. The issue, then, is "what is speech". I put a 190 db megaphone next to your head and scream into it, and your eardrums rupture and the blood flows, that's arguably not speech.
Recall also how a few months ago Declan compared me to a loud drunk in a bar who was drowning out all other patrons with noise, so they couldn't talk there and had to toss me out. Fortunately, neither of your analogies can happen on the Internet.
I would argue that in order for something to fall under the absolute protections free speech it has to meet certain characteristics -- it can't lead to direct bodily harm, or property damage, or any other kind of "damage" that is legally defined.
So the question of free speech is really, when you think about it, a question about what legally constitutes "damage".
In the internet context, then, activities that cause any reasonable definition of "damage" could be controlled, under the "non-aggression principle" if nothing else.
I think a reasonable definition of damage in an internet context is "excess interference with other transmission" (for some values of excess).
Suppose I post an article on alt.fan.rush-limbaugh making fun of the "feminazis" [this is a hypo - I can't stand Rush] and one of those feminazis sends me hate e-mail in response, opining that people like me deserve to have their balls cut off with rusty scissors. Suppose her e-mail inflicts such a severe psychological trauma on me that I can't get my dick up. Can I, my wife, and my 2 girlfriends sue the feminazi for damages? How many girlfriends do I need to have to make this a class action suit? Suppose I have a virus on my computer which counts the number of e-mails I receive and when it reaches 100, formats the hard disk. Suppose the feminazi's e-mail happens to be #100, and triggers the bomb. Is the poor feminazi responsible for the "damages"? Suppose her little e-mail just happens to be the one that gets my little 2GB hard disk full, causing the next incoming e-mail to be lost. Is she responsible for that too? In the Internet context, as you put it, if one can be "damaged" by the speech, it's the listener's problem, not the speaker's. One can set up one's mailbox to receive e-mail from only a given list of senders. One can even have no incoming mailbox (like the noted Usenet personality Archimedes Plutonium). --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps