Smut and the Imminent Death of the Net!
If you've spent any time reading the discussions carried on the Internet about the future of the Internet, you'll recognise that phrase "Imminent Death of the Net!" as a sarcastic rejoinder to scare stories. The current scare is, however, more serious than most. A measure to be put before the US Senate in the next few weeks promises to penalise anyone who "makes, transmits, or otherwise makes available any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent".
Senator Exon's proposed "Communications Decency Act of 1995" is an extension of an existing and barely-controversial law against obscene and harassing phone calls. But when a pseudonymous individual put out an electronic petition against it, 107,983 signatures arrived in just 25 days.
The original version of Sen Exon's Bill would have forced computer bulletin board operators to monitor all messages passing through their systems. Matthew Sims, of the UK's CIX bulletin board system, estimates that this would mean hiring 131 extra staff and that "there wouldn't be a lot of point in continuing to run CIX in the same way."
On March 23 a version of the Exon Bill was incorporated, without debate, into the overall Telecommunications Bill -- which is supposed further to de-regulate US telecomms. Bulletin board and internet access providers were given protection. Commentators have pointed out that this applies only if they read nothing -- so if they took action against a Nazi user they'd instantly render themselves liable for any saucy stories.
The measure would still render individuals liable. Opponents ask why controls are needed for the Infobahn which do not apply to print. Others debate to what extend a submission [sic] to the newsgroup alt.sex.stories should not in any case be considered "private speech" rather than "publication".
The changing nature of the net.population -- up to last year almost unanimous in favour of absolute, unfettered free speech -- is shown by the presence in the newsgroup alt.politics.datahighway of people arguing for control. Anyone who follows US debates about freedom of speech will be accustomed to such logic-chopping.
A New York Times editorial [on March 28] opened: "Senator James Exon has already announced his retirement, but rather than going harmlessly, he has decided to leave behind one truly bad idea that will cause mischief for years to come." It tried to inject some reality into the row: "It may be a sexual jungle in some corners of cyberspace, but a computer surfer generally has to seek out such sex-related material... The burden for blocking access by children falls most properly on the household or school, which can use technical means to restrict access to parts of computer networks known to contain sexual content."
Sen Exon replied to the NY Times that he wanted simply "to make the information superhighway safe to travel for children and families," and concluded: "Is it your position that if it is O.K. for an adult bookstore, it is O.K. for kids to see on their home computers?" The list of organisations opposing the Exon measure includes the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center -- and the Internet Business Association. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, has pleaded with the Senate to listen to these and other organisations which actually know how the internet works. "We should avoid quick fixes today that would interrupt and limit the rapid evolution of electronic information systems -- for the public benefit far exceeds the problems it invariably creates by the force of its momentum."
Legislators are presented with a dilemma. The urge is powerful to do, or to be seen to be doing, something about smut. While "the internet" is a mystery to them, they're likely to see it as an autonomous agent -- a "thing" which distributes porn, for example -- so "it" must be regulated.
On the other hand, more knowledge can make more problems apparent. What can any law do about someone distributing disgusting material, encrypted so that even the GCHQ code- breakers cannot tell what it is, from an address in Vanuatu? In the long run, the complex and loaded arguments about what it is acceptable to "publish" are going to be challenged by the net more than it is by them.
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Written:
10 April 1995
An edited and doubtless thus improved version of this article appeared in the Guardian OnLine section.
This version is © copyright 1996 Mike Holderness; moral rights are asserted.