Some of the incidents listed here
attracted my attention when they made
the news but a few were relatively
obscure.
Jeff
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 25, 1999
Personal Computing / Reid Goldsborough
Free speech on the Internet is no reason
to be impolite
The Internet has been called
the most participatory form of mass
speech yet developed, the best
advancement in democracy since universal
suffrage, the greatest soapbox ever
built, reaching even the most fettered
corners of the world, in which people
freely speak their minds about issues of
the day.
Yet freedom on the Internet is the
snarly sort, with faceless and often
nameless ranters cyberbashing anyone and
anything they please. Truth often
becomes the victim.
There's a war out there between those
pushing the free-speech envelope,
sometimes anarchically, and those trying
to rein them in, sometimes oppressively.
And for the mass of individuals and
organizations in the middle, there are
prudent steps to avoid getting caught in
the crossfire.
A survey of recent headlines shows how
central an issue this is.
In the aftermath of the Columbine High
School massacre, students' Web sites
containing derogatory or threatening
comments about teachers have been taken
down, and some students have been
expelled.
Presidential candidate George W. Bush
bought the rights to 200 Internet domain
names, including bushsucks.com, to
prevent critics from using them to
create highly visible Web sites critical
of him.
A jury ordered a group of anti-abortion
activists to pay more than $100 million
in damages after they had created a Web
site listing doctors who perform
abortions. The site offered rewards for
their addresses and license plate
numbers, with lines drawn through the
names of doctors who had been murdered.
Defense contractor Raytheon filed suit
against nearly two dozen of its own
employees for exchanging chitchat about
the company at a Yahoo public discussion
board, using aliases. Through the suit,
it learned the identities of the
chatters and initiated disciplinary
action against them.
After she was threatened with hanging at
a Philadelphia-based Web site operated
by white supremacists, an antihate
activist felt forced to move out of
state.
Be careful out there.
If you like participating in online
discussions, post as if you're sitting
in the living room of those reading your
messages. If you write a statement of
fact that disparages someone else, tell
the truth to avoid libel.
If you're an employer or supervisor and
intend to monitor employees' e-mail,
establish a policy about this and
communicate it to employees to prevent
hurt feelings and lawsuits. If you're an
employee, recognize that your employer
has the legal right to read e-mail you
send using its equipment.
If you're employed, be circumspect about
what you say on the Net, or use a
pseudonym. The First Amendment prevents
the government, not your employer, from
stifling your speech. Although it
happens rarely, and when it does it's
sometimes challenged in court, people
have been fired for statements they have
made through their personal Web sites.
If you come across a Web site critical
of you or your organization, try to
establish a dialogue. Ask about the
circumstances that led to the person's
dissatisfaction. Your reputation will
improve only if you try to solve the
person's problem rather than calling in
the lawyers.
If you are concerned that others may be
spreading false rumors about you or your
organization on the Web or in Usenet
discussion groups, you can use a
commercial Internet intelligence service
such as eWatch, at http://www.ewatch.
com, or EclipZe, at http://www.
eclipze.com
If you or your children are worried
about a student's Web site that
threatens violence or suicide, check out
CyberAngels, at http://www.cyberangels.org The group
behind the site says it will contact the
student, the student's school, or law
enforcement officials, situation
depending.
If you would like to comment about a Web
site, a new way is through a free
software program called Third Voice, at http://www.thirdvoice.com
It lets you append Post-it type notes to
others' sites, but your notes will be
visible only to other Third Voice users.
Freedom of speech is both a privilege
and a burden. Sometimes what you read
can make the hair on your neck stand on
end. But it's long been recognized in
this country that the best answer to
"evil" speech is "more speech," as U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
wrote more than a half-century ago.
The late Inquirer reporter Richard
Pothier, a friend who spent his last
years as an active online debater, put
it this way: "Censorship is never the
answer to unpopular opinions. The 'court
of public opinion' makes its own
judgment. Intolerance, bigotry and other
stupidity are seen for what they are."
Reid Goldsborough's e-mail address:
reid.goldsborough@phillynews.com
attracted my attention when they made
the news but a few were relatively
obscure.
Jeff
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 25, 1999
Personal Computing / Reid Goldsborough
Free speech on the Internet is no reason
to be impolite
The Internet has been called
the most participatory form of mass
speech yet developed, the best
advancement in democracy since universal
suffrage, the greatest soapbox ever
built, reaching even the most fettered
corners of the world, in which people
freely speak their minds about issues of
the day.
Yet freedom on the Internet is the
snarly sort, with faceless and often
nameless ranters cyberbashing anyone and
anything they please. Truth often
becomes the victim.
There's a war out there between those
pushing the free-speech envelope,
sometimes anarchically, and those trying
to rein them in, sometimes oppressively.
And for the mass of individuals and
organizations in the middle, there are
prudent steps to avoid getting caught in
the crossfire.
A survey of recent headlines shows how
central an issue this is.
In the aftermath of the Columbine High
School massacre, students' Web sites
containing derogatory or threatening
comments about teachers have been taken
down, and some students have been
expelled.
Presidential candidate George W. Bush
bought the rights to 200 Internet domain
names, including bushsucks.com, to
prevent critics from using them to
create highly visible Web sites critical
of him.
A jury ordered a group of anti-abortion
activists to pay more than $100 million
in damages after they had created a Web
site listing doctors who perform
abortions. The site offered rewards for
their addresses and license plate
numbers, with lines drawn through the
names of doctors who had been murdered.
Defense contractor Raytheon filed suit
against nearly two dozen of its own
employees for exchanging chitchat about
the company at a Yahoo public discussion
board, using aliases. Through the suit,
it learned the identities of the
chatters and initiated disciplinary
action against them.
After she was threatened with hanging at
a Philadelphia-based Web site operated
by white supremacists, an antihate
activist felt forced to move out of
state.
Be careful out there.
If you like participating in online
discussions, post as if you're sitting
in the living room of those reading your
messages. If you write a statement of
fact that disparages someone else, tell
the truth to avoid libel.
If you're an employer or supervisor and
intend to monitor employees' e-mail,
establish a policy about this and
communicate it to employees to prevent
hurt feelings and lawsuits. If you're an
employee, recognize that your employer
has the legal right to read e-mail you
send using its equipment.
If you're employed, be circumspect about
what you say on the Net, or use a
pseudonym. The First Amendment prevents
the government, not your employer, from
stifling your speech. Although it
happens rarely, and when it does it's
sometimes challenged in court, people
have been fired for statements they have
made through their personal Web sites.
If you come across a Web site critical
of you or your organization, try to
establish a dialogue. Ask about the
circumstances that led to the person's
dissatisfaction. Your reputation will
improve only if you try to solve the
person's problem rather than calling in
the lawyers.
If you are concerned that others may be
spreading false rumors about you or your
organization on the Web or in Usenet
discussion groups, you can use a
commercial Internet intelligence service
such as eWatch, at http://www.ewatch.
com, or EclipZe, at http://www.
eclipze.com
If you or your children are worried
about a student's Web site that
threatens violence or suicide, check out
CyberAngels, at http://www.cyberangels.org The group
behind the site says it will contact the
student, the student's school, or law
enforcement officials, situation
depending.
If you would like to comment about a Web
site, a new way is through a free
software program called Third Voice, at http://www.thirdvoice.com
It lets you append Post-it type notes to
others' sites, but your notes will be
visible only to other Third Voice users.
Freedom of speech is both a privilege
and a burden. Sometimes what you read
can make the hair on your neck stand on
end. But it's long been recognized in
this country that the best answer to
"evil" speech is "more speech," as U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
wrote more than a half-century ago.
The late Inquirer reporter Richard
Pothier, a friend who spent his last
years as an active online debater, put
it this way: "Censorship is never the
answer to unpopular opinions. The 'court
of public opinion' makes its own
judgment. Intolerance, bigotry and other
stupidity are seen for what they are."
Reid Goldsborough's e-mail address:
reid.goldsborough@phillynews.com