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Internet Censorship Can Wipe Out Gays

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Ezekiel Krahlin

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Apr 19, 1999, 3:00:00 AM4/19/99

Read the following article about Internet censorhip. If this
goes over, it will wipe out any gay presence on the 'Net. This
is because, if a mere complaint of an offense to an ISP is
enough to get someone disconnected...and since the majority of
people in almost every nation are intrinsically
homophobic...no doubt complains will be immediately lodged
against anyone who claims to be gay, or is gay friendly.

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updated 3:00 a.m. 17.Apr.99.PDT

Sweeping UK Net Libel Decision
by James Glave

12:00 p.m. 26.Mar.99.PST
A British judge's decision could chill online free speech in
Europe by making Internet providers
liable for postings to their message boards.

The London High Court judge ruled Friday that Demon Internet
cannot claim to bear no
responsibility for an allegedly libelous newsgroup posting
hosted on its servers two years ago.

"It was a note that was sent by someone unknown in the United
States, who wasn't even a
Demon Internet customer," said Ann Hood, a spokeswoman for
ScottishTelecom, Demon's parent
company.

"They sent it through our servers," she said. "Because of
these virtual chat rooms, it would
mean the ISPs would be [monitoring] the chat room and it would
have implications for freedom
of speech within those chat rooms."

The convoluted case centers around a suit brought last year by
physicist Laurence Godfrey,
who has been running a personal crusade for several years now,
trying to force the Internet to
submit to national libel laws.

Godfrey's suit zeroes in on a single message posted in 1997 to
the newsgroup soc.culture.thai.
The message, which appeared to be from Godfrey, was actually a
forgery. He claimed the
message contained damaging allegations of a personal nature
and sued Demon Internet for
defamation.

On Friday, the judge stripped Demon Internet of its "innocent
dissemination" defense under
Great Britain's 1996 Defamation Act. That defense allows an
ISP to claim that it is not liable for
messages traveling through its system.

Nick Braithwaite, Godfrey's solicitor, could not be reached
for comment.

Yaman Akdeniz, director of Cyber-Rights and Cyber-Liberties
(UK), said that the ruling could
have serious repercussions for free speech in Europe.

"It will make things really worse around here," said Akdeniz,
adding that ISPs will be forced to
act as censors and content regulators. "Every time I would see
comments on a Web site that I
didn't like, I would [be able to] call my ISP and ask them to
remove it -- and they would not be
in a postion to say no.

"Instead of having a constructive debate on a news group [the
decision] will allow individuals to
censor each other using the ISPs. If I am annoyed with you
[due to a comment you posted],
instead of responding to you I will call the ISP and ask them
to remove the content."

Akdeniz said that the decision may point to a larger trend
across Europe. He said that a draft of
an EU Commission electronic commerce directive suggests that
ISPs should be liable for similar
kinds of content if they are aware of it being there.

Immediately following the decision, the judge accepted an
appeal request from Demon Internet.
Hood could not say how long the appeal process will take.

The Demon Internet case is only one of 10 libel suits filed by
Godfrey, who is engaged in
something of a legal crusade against online defamation. Three
years ago, he received an
out-of-court settlement from a physicist in Britain's first
Internet libel case.

"[Friday's decision] is a dangerous precendent, and what's
more, it seems almost frivolous," said
Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International.

"UK court officials haven't even learned to program their
video recorders yet," he said. "They
tend to work on very ancient definitions. We have some very
unfortunate black holes in terms
of protection. The 'common carrier' argument, the whole
question of store-and-forward, is hotly
contested here."

Davies said the decision will interfere with the current
effort to set a reasonable code of
practice among service providers. People are going to say 'To
hell with it,' and throw out the
baby with the bathwater."

Godfrey has already won settlements against New Zealand
TeleCom, the Melbourne PC users
group, and the online edition of the Toronto Star.

In October, he filed suit against the University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis ISP StarNet, and
Kritchai Quanchairut, a former University of Minnesota
student.

Most recently, he brought suit against Cornell University and
against Michael Dolenga, a
postgraduate at Cornell, over comments posted to the
soc.culture.canada newsgroup.