Re: Compuserve is Not "Censoring": Look to Governments for the Cause
Thus, it is the government of Germany in this case which is "censoring."
This is today's page 1 article in the newspaper "die tageszeitung". The article "Zensur im Cyberspace" (censorship in cyberspace) and the comment "Die Moral der Biedermänner" are available http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~taz until tomorrow. From the article (my translation): "The Bavarian department of public prosecution 'has left it to their discretion' to take the 'necessary steps' on their own, to avoid 'possible punishability of the management in Germany'. An advice that CompuServe has followed although there is no kind of legal obligation for it. Legally, it is still perfectly unclear if enterprises that provide access to the Internet can be held responsible in any way for the contents distributed there." From the comment by Niklaus Haublützel: "Reality cannot be outlawed, only improved, and many still hope that complete freedom of information and opinion in computer networks can contribute to that. But the company of CompuServe does not seem to be interested in that. They only want their customers' money, but not their freedom. [...] Like any censorhip, this one comes with hipocrisy. Towards their paying customers, CompuServe claims to have been forced by German prosecutors. Thus one lie creates another. That they were forced it out of the question. It is only in dictatorships that the prosecutors judge the defendants - that is why dictatorships need censors."
This trend towords governments saying 'This might be illegal, we won't tell you' is very disturbing. Doug Barnes reported on it being the tactic of choice in forcing banks to fall in line & spy on their customers. Compuserve should be encouraged to get a ruling from the Barvarian/German government on the legality of the groups. (Does the EU provide freedom of speech protections, or simply freedom of inoffensive speech?) Also, how does this interact with the harmonization of publications laws with places such as the Netherlands? The EU can't be expected to thrive if each country has totally different publishing laws. Alternately, if there are cypherpunks who spend time in alt.config, we might create groups such as alt.intimate.stories, alt.intimate.bondage.duct-tape, etc. Ulf Moeller wrote: | This is today's page 1 article in the newspaper "die tageszeitung". | | The article "Zensur im Cyberspace" (censorship in cyberspace) | and the comment "Die Moral der Biederm=E4nner" are available | http://www.prz.tu-berlin.de/~taz until tomorrow. | | From the article (my translation): | | "The Bavarian department of public prosecution 'has left it to their | discretion' to take the 'necessary steps' on their own, to avoid | 'possible punishability of the management in Germany'. An advice that | CompuServe has followed although there is no kind of legal obligation | for it. Legally, it is still perfectly unclear if enterprises that | provide access to the Internet can be held responsible in any way for | the contents distributed there." -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume
participants (2)
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Adam Shostack -
Ulf_Moeller＠public.uni-hamburg.de