IP: ACLU White Paper on Internet Ratings and Blocking (fwd)

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

From: Stanton McCandlish <mech () eff org>


The White paper described in the attached press release can be found
on-line at http://www.aclu.org/issues/cyber/burning.htm


   
                          Is Cyberspace Burning?
       Internet Ratings May Torch Free Speech on the Net, ACLU Warns


     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (related materials)
     Thursday, August 7, 1997


     NEW YORK -- In a 15-page white paper released today, the American
     Civil Liberties Union warned that government-coerced, industry
     efforts to rate content on the Internet could torch free speech
     online.


     After reviewing plans that came out of a White House summit on
     Internet censorship, the ACLU said that it was genuinely alarmed
     at industry leaders' unabashed enthusiasm in pledging to create a
     variety of schemes to regulate and block controversial online
     speech.


     It was not any one proposal or announcement that gave cause for
     alarm, the ACLU said, but rather the failure to examine the
     longer-term implications for the Internet of rating and blocking
     schemes.


     "In the physical world, people censor the printed word by burning
     books," said Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director of the ACLU and
     one of the paper's authors. "But in the virtual world, you can
     just as easily censor controversial speech by banishing it to the
     farthest corners of cyberspace with blocking and rating schemes."


     The recent rush to regulate comes in the wake of a sweeping
     Supreme Court victory in Reno v. ACLU, confirming that the
     Internet is analogous to books, not broadcast, and is deserving
     of the highest First Amendment protection. The ACLU was a lead
     plaintiff and litigator in the suit.


     "Today, all that we have achieved may now be lost, if not in the
     bright flames of censorship then in the dense smoke of the many
     ratings and blocking schemes promoted by some of the very people
     who fought for freedom," the ACLU warns.


     The white paper, entitled Fahrenheit 451.2: Is Cyberspace
     Burning? details the free speech threats of the various ratings
     plans being proposed. The ACLU offers a set of five
     recommendations and principles, and discusses self-rating,
     third-party ratings, and the use of filtering software in homes
     and libraries.


     Perhaps the greatest danger to free speech online is the notion
     of self-rating, the ACLU said, a concept "no less offensive to
     the First Amendment than a proposal that publishers of books and
     magazines rate each and every article or story, or a proposal
     that everyone engaged in a street corner conversation rate his or
     her comments." Applying the rating requirement to the active and
     vibrant conversational areas of the Internet -- chat rooms, news
     groups and mailing lists -- would be analogous to requiring all
     of us to rate our telephone, dinner party or water cooler
     conversations, the ACLU said.


     Third-party ratings systems pose free speech problems as well.
     With few third-party rating products currently available, the
     potential for arbitrary censorship increases.


     In addition, the ACLU said that the use of filtering programs in
     public libraries, which are governmental entities, would violate
     the First Amendment. These programs often block access to
     valuable speech, including safer sex information, gay and lesbian
     web sites, and even speech that is critical of the filtering
     software itself.


     During the summit, according to the white paper, Vice President
     Gore, along with industry and non-profit groups, announced the
     creation of a web site that provides direct links to a variety of
     blocking programs. Calling for the producers of all of these
     products to put real power in users' hands, the ACLU urged them
     to provide full disclosure of their lists of blocked speech and
     the criteria for blocking.


     The white paper was distributed today along with an open letter
     from Steinhardt to members of the Internet community. "It is not
     too late for the Internet community to slowly and carefully
     examine these proposals and to reject those that will transform
     the Internet from a true marketplace of ideas into just another
     mainstream, lifeless medium," Steinhardt said in the letter.


     The ACLU also sent the paper to President Clinton and Vice
     President Gore, and to industry leaders and policy makers
     involved in the White House summit. In a separate letter to
     industry leaders, Steinhardt requested a meeting to discuss the
     proposed plans for rating and blocking.


     The principal authors of Is Cyberspace Burning? are Ann Beeson,
     Chris Hansen and Barry Steinhardt. Hansen and Beeson are ACLU
     national staff attorneys who were members of the Reno v. ACLU
     litigation team.


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Barry Steinhardt                        Barrys () aclu org              
Associate Director                      212 549-2508
American Civil Liberties Union  212-549-2652 (fax)
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor                    
NYC 10004


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--
Stanton McCandlish                                           mech () eff org
Electronic Frontier Foundation                           Program Director
http://www.eff.org/~mech    +1 415 436 9333 x105 (v), +1 415 436 9333 (f)
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