Freedom of Speech
on the InternetMany of us have our own opinions about the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. At the end of this page are links that you may find of interest on the subject.
There are two ways of looking at the Internet and the World Wide Web. There is the analogy of the Hyde Park soapbox orator. You have every right to take your bullhorn and stride up and down Constitution Avenue shouting your opinions to the world (although the District of Columbia police department may have its own opinions about what does or does not constitute disturbing the peace!). That is the approach of the individual. You have every right in the world to put whatever you want onto your own home page, and I have every right in the world either to visit your page or to ignore its existence.
The other way of looking at the WWW is slightly more corporate, and follows the analogy of the small-town newspaper. You have every right to write whatever opinions you choose in letters to the editor of your small-town newspaper, or articles, or polemics, or whatever else strikes your fancy. However, the editors of your small-town newspaper have every right to say, "Thank you for your submission, but it does not meet our editorial needs," or polite words of refusal to that effect. You have no right to demand that your opinions be published in your local newspaper and expect your demands to be obeyed. Newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post went through considerable anguish about the demand of the UNABOMBer that they publish his fulminations, and in the end did so only because not to do so might cost another innocent life.
The Webmasters of "Little M" believe that the Web site of Metropolitan Washington Mensa is more similar to a small-town newspaper than it is to an individual with a bullhorn. Moreover, because MWM is a membership organization, the work of the ExComm, the newsletter Capital M, and the Web site "Little M" must diligently represent as best as possible the consensus of opinion among all 2,000-odd (some very odd!) members as to what is or is not desirable to read, what is or is not palatable to read, and what does or does not represent our collective opinions as an organization.
The Webmasters of "Little M" believe that, until the by-laws and Copious Code of MWM have been updated to reflect our organization's philosophical approach to the exciting new world that the World Wide Web represents, our own responsibility should be similar to the responsibility of the editors of a small-town newspaper — or of Cap-M, for that matter. We have the right to publish articles and advertisements by and links to MWM and Mensa members — at our discretion in light of our responsibility to MWM, to AML, and to Mensa as a whole. We also have the right to refuse to publish these same articles, advertisements, and links, just as the editors of any hard-copy publication do; and, if we do choose to publish material by or links to an individual whose opinions we do not share or that we do not believe reflect the opinions of Mensa as a whole, we have the right to tell the world why we made the decisions we did.
There are members of Mensa whom powerful and influential members of MWM have already begun agitating to censor and suppress. The Webmasters of "Little M" do not believe that censorship or suppression is in any human being's best interest — nor, of course, may either be even possible on the World Wide Web, as we believe the framers of the Telecommunications Reform Act will soon discover. It may not be possible to dam up the Niagara Falls, either, without the kind of ruthless exertion of suppression that most right-thinking human beings abhor.Here are three links that you may find of interest. The first is to an article written by John Perry Barlow, a distinguished writer and lyricist and one of the founders of the Electronic Freedom Foundation; the next is to Mr. Barlow's home page. The last link is to the Electronic Freedom Foundation itself:
"A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," by John Perry Barlow.
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Campaign for Online Free Speech!
Metropolitan Washington Mensa