Re: James McGrath Morris - Spam Filters Threaten Free Speech on the Internet - washington post

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Date: November 30, 2008 7:32:12 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] WORTH READING      James McGrath Morris - Spam  
Filters Threaten Free Speech on the Internet - washington post

This is alarmist nonsense for two reasons.

First:

> I contacted the company that distributes my newsletter, and a staff
> member explained that three sets of words among the issue's many

The author has chosen to use a company which in turn has chosen to
use a broken spam filter.  His problem lies with his own choices.

Second:

The author has conflated his free speech right (as guaranteed under
the Constitution) with an obligation of others to listen.  If end
users wish to make the same set of choices that he has, and make them
equally poorly, then they might end up not receiving issues of his
newsletter -- or many other pieces of email.  If this becomes a
problem for them (or for him) perhaps they'll revisit those choices.

But in no way, shape or form is there a First Amendment issue of
any kind here.


Note: This should not be taken as advocacy for anti-spam measures that
inspect content.  I've long held that it's quite easy to implement
robust anti-spam measures without resorting to content inspection.
(Where "robust" implies low false positive and false negative rates.)
I strongly suspect that when the spam/anti-spam arms race ratchets up
another notch or two, the shortcomings of content filtering will be even
more apparent.

---Rsk




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