Date: Fri, 22 Jul 94 16:26:29 PDT
From: RISKS Forum <risks@csl.sri.com>
Subject: RISKS DIGEST 16.28

RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest  Friday 22 July 1994  Volume 16 : Issue 28

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Date: Fri, 22 Jul 1994 14:21:17 -0700
From: Phil Agre <pagre@ucsd.edu>
Subject: It's a real world out there, and the Internet is part of it.

Many denizens of the Internet think of it as a place of untrammeled free
speech and decentralized democracy.  Evidence is accumulating that it's
more complicated than that.  Writing in the liberal journal _The Nation_,
Jon Wiener (a historian at UC Irvine whose does a sort of investigative
journalism) outlines some of the complications.  The full reference is:

  Jon Wiener, Free Speech on the Internet, The Nation 258(23), 13 June
  1994, pages 825-828.

He describes the Karla Homolka trial in Canada, a group of Turks who
swamp newsgroups with automatic messages denying the Armenian genocide,
gun activists taking over alt.motherjones, libel suits provoked by on-line
statements, gender imbalances, abusive behavior by unreformed net-guys,
and more.  None of which means the net is bad; it just means the net is
part of reality.  At one level the Risk is computer-related : bad stuff
can happen on-line, just like in real life.  But the real Risk comes
from believing the hype: just because it's decentralized doesn't make it
democratic.  If we want democracy we have to actively make it.  Just like
in real life.

Phil Agre, UCSD

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End of RISKS-FORUM Digest 16.28
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