IP: Re: Germany / Clarinet Ban

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

To: Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Dec 1995 15:38:27 -0800 (PST)
From: Brad Templeton <brad () alto clari net>


Alas, we were also pretty shocked to see some ClariNet e.news newsgroups
listed in the set that Compuserve announced it was banning from their
servers in fear of German censorship laws -- but mostly because Compuserve
isn't one of our subscribers, and they don't have any of our groups.


We've asked them why they listed them, and not yet heard back, but I
think this is actually a very good example of how capricious and dangerous
such laws are.  They send people into panics, banning anything that
looks dangerous, even things they don't even have!  If anybody needs a
lesson on why laws like the German laws (and the upcoming U.S. decency
act) have a chilling effect far beyond even their broad intent, this is it.


Had Compuserve carried our electronic newspaper newsgroups, banning these
ones would have been silly.   Here are the "lurid" headlines from the last
few days of clari.news.sex, a newsgroup that contains only professional
reporting on sex-related issues...


        Vatican: Sex education not okay
        Suspended Teacher To Return
        Australian Govt Porn Committee Calls For Action
        Beijing seizes one million porn, illegal books
        Time for the annual best and worst lists
        China customs crack down on pornography imports
        CompuServe suspends online sex topics
        CompuServe bans sex groups, sparking free-speech row


The most recent headlines from clari.news.gays as you can see are
equally non-lurid


        Failed Robbery Led To Gay Slay
        Killer To Sell Story
        Gays In Military Judge Quits
        Lesbian Wins Job Bias Suit


I wonder if the Germans thought this was worth banning or CIS made up
the list on their own.  Either way, the the idea that anybody might,
in fear of such laws or under the orders of such laws, ban legitimate
professional (and entirely non-lurid) coverage of issues like these
is really scary, and we hope our many legitimate subsribers in Germany
don't fall prey to this.  While the fact that CIS didn't actually have
our material makes this less interesting, a big part of the story is
that somebody was driven to remove stuff without even knowing what they
were removing.