Voluntary Mandatory Self-Ratings and Limits on Speech

[Tim May]

On Tuesday, August 21, 2001, at 04:10 AM, Sampo Syreeni wrote:

> On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
>
>> You're missing my general point. If you prefer that I not use 
>> "religion,"
>> I could just as easily use an example where certainly people of some
>> community think that some otherwise-constitutional practice is 
>> "harmful."
>
> True. Yet harm gives you cause for Common Law action, no?

No, not generally, not in the U.S. The lawyerpunks and lawyer larvae can 
explain in more detail, but a tort (civil action, not a criminal action) 
must have some element of either rights violation or breaking of a 
contract. A wall that falls over onto someone's property generates a 
possible tort, the failure to deliver a product according to a contract 
also does.

But the fact that I claim I am "harmed" by Mormons in my midst does not.

(Nor does an actual case of economic harm: if a bookstore is driven out 
of business by the arrival of a supergiant chain store, it will not win 
a tort case, generally speaking. This is because there is no "right to 
face no competition" and there was no non-compete contract. The little 
bookstore may try to argue that the large chain is in violation of some 
anti-bigness law, and many have, but this is somewhat different. And the 
small stores have not yet been successful in blocking the larger stores.)

> It's a question of where you draw the line between coerced and 
> uncoerced. If
> many enough of your peers think it's good behavior to label your
> communications, and failure to do so leads to an amount of badwill, does
> that constitute coercion?

In English, "coercion" means by use of force. If your friends think you 
should do something, and you comply, this is not coercion in the sense 
implied here. (This may be "social coercion," but we mean something more 
specific.)

Coercion means men with guns threatening people with imprisonment for 
displaying certain images, for example. Coercion is when Congress passes 
the Protection of the Children Act of 2002 and requires all ISPs to 
provide content-filtering labels and tools.

This is the direction "content labelling" is going, not the voluntary 
system ALREADY IN PLACE.

--Tim May