"Cancelbots", or Big Brother?!

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

Date: Wed, 29 Jun 1994 14:16:10 -0700
From: Jack Kessler <kessler () well sf ca us>




People here on PACS-L might want to consider the remarkable Peter Lewis
front - page headline story in today's New York Times (June 29,
National Edition), about those two lawyers who tried to advertise on
the Internet finally getting their comeuppance.


A young Norwegian hacker -- in the photo he looks like a kid from a
William S. Gibson cyberpunk story -- designed a little "Cancelbot"
program which went out on the Internet and hunted down all those
offensive legal advertisements, wherever they appeared, and erased
them. To your American librarian's question, "What about freedom of
speech -- the First Amendment?" (ie. for those two lawyers), the answer
is, "What First Amendment?...no such thing here", from a Usenet user
who happens not to be American.


"Cancelbots"!. Consider... flaming and sex and irresponsible
advertising on the one end, being pursued -- relentlessly,
electronically, invisibly -- by "Cancelbots" designed by people from
who - knows - where according to who - knows - what criteria. The rest
of us in the middle could become so bombarded from these two extremist
ends that networked information as we so far know it might be snuffed
out.


Lewis' article recites numerous alarming examples of censorship now
arising on the US commercial service providers: America Online,
Prodigy, etc.. The increase in these censorship incidents has upset me
as much as it has upset any net user. But I find anonymous "Cancelbots"
to be more upsetting than junkmail advertising or even institutional
censorship on the nets: where is the predictability, what are the
rules, what leverage is there against abuse, how can the nets be
secured against arbitrary actions, of corporations, of governments, of
well - meaning individuals, and of just plain nuts?  (How about a
Cancelbot which erases all the e-mail which YOU post anywhere -- have
any enemies? how about your landlord or your mother in law or your 15
year old or your ex-, particularly that 15 year old? -- or how about
one which injects some fascist or racist comments in place of your own
golden prose, still signing your name? I am assured that none of this
is too difficult to accomplish technically, and that it is getting
easier every day to do on a grand scale.)


Self - control or die? I wouldn't hold my breath, personally. How does
censorship work now, for print and other non - network media? Market
forces in the US, perhaps; social consensus, government control, and
religion elsewhere. Someone had better bring some balance of all this
to bear, soon, on the Internet, or we may all get stuck in the
crossfire between the ambulance - chasers and the "Cancelbots" (are you
listening, W.S.Gibson?).




Jack Kessler


kessler () well sf ca us