At 12:02 PM -0500 2/17/97, John Young wrote:

Return-Path: cypherpunks-errors@toad.com X-Sender: jya@pop.pipeline.com Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 13:17:32 -0500 To: cypherpunks@toad.com From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> Subject: Who's Censoring Who? Sender: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com

Sandy's e-mailed several of us who've sent messages about Vulis's ploy to put Sandy in a conflict-of-interest bind -- a well-known attack on moderators of all kinds, not just on the net.

Interestingly, I don't recall getting any e-mail from Sandy telling me he was not passing on my messages to either the Main or the Flames list...my messages were simply dropped on the floor. (Others, including John, have said they sometimes got nice Sandygrams explaining why their items were deemed unsuitable for either of the lists. Sandy may have considered it pointless to send me an explanation....)

It's probably worth saving accusations of censorship for the real thing, after trial usage here for what is truly nasty high-stakes global info-war gaming.

As John likes literary references, recall William Burroughs' warning about "the policeman inside." I can't share John's belief that we should ignore censorship on the CP list (especially messages going to neither of the two specified lists, without notice). Waiting "for the real thing" is not a clear-cut issue, as explicit censorship of political views is not likely to happen in our lifetimes in the U.S. However, "self-censorship," a la the V-chip, the mandatory voluntary labeling of CDs, etc., is becoming the favored route. And the use of the legal system, or threats to use the legal system (a la threats made to Vulis, Against Moderation, etc.) is part of the bullying pulpit (this pun inspired by John's flights of rhetorical fancy).

[Note: Thorn, "cuckoo" and TCM responded to this; none were forwarded to the cp-edited list, AFIK.]

One of the interesting, and utterly predictable, consequences of "silent suppression" of some messages is that those on the unedited list, who see all traffic (for the nonce), get to engage in conversations which are subsequently suppressed so that several of us are having a conversation the main list (and the flames list) are oblivious to! This has had the fascinating effect of having people outside the conversation (as an example, Blanc Weber) gradually figuring out from "approved" messages that something is going on behind the scenes...they they send us messages (as Blanc did) asking what the hell is going on, what we're obliquely referring to. When the excised material is forwarded to them (as I did with Blanc), the reaction is often "Wow! I didn't know." As conversational threads are often so tangled, and become so much more tangled with time, the job of the censor gets more difficult as time passes. Not only must he excise all mention of banned topics, he must also be alert to later discussions making mention of the act of banning, or of the topics. This is territory well-covered by Orwell, of course. The rewriting of history is a full-time job. --Winston Smith 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."