CENSORSHIP GLOSSARY
the tools of repression
By Chip Rowe
From The Playboy Forum (forum@playboy.com)
July 1995
Illustration by Edison Girard
Copyright © 1992 Playboy Enterprises,
Inc.
Anonymous remailers
Often located in freedom-loving Scandinavia, these sites allow Internet users
(including pedophiles, government whistle-blowers and political exiles) to send
e-mail that does not contain a return address. They are not foolproof, however.
In February, the name of a poster who used the popular anon.penet.fi site was
turned over to Finnish authorities following complaints from the Church of
Scientology. The church pressured police to serve a search-and-seize warrant
after nameless postings that it claims included "re-created versions of sacred
religious scriptures that are protected by both copyright and trade secret
law." The remailer owner said he surrendered the poster's identity rather than
reveal his 200-megabyte subscriber list.
Cancel
A command sent by a user to delete a message posted to a Usenet
discussion group. In theory, only the person who writes a message can cancel
it, but users long ago discovered ways to forge the command. Programs that cast
a wider net (knocking out messages in more than one place) are known as
cancelbots. In the past, cancelbots have been used mostly to counter users who
"spam" Usenet by sending chain letters, advertisements or political propaganda
to multiple discussions where they don't belong. But the programs have a more
ominous use, allowing zealots to launch search-and-destroy missions against
ideological enemies.
Domain name
Part of your address on the Internet that indicates where you are
located (e.g., playboy.com, yale.edu, whitehouse.gov). A nonprofit group funded
by the National Science Foundation registers domain names, each of which must
be unique and, apparently, colorless. A recent request by a Net publisher,
Justin Hall, to register fuck.com was denied. "We're not in the business of
censoring names," a registration official explained, "but there are undoubtedly
a large number of people who would be offended."
The nickname coined by Prodigy to describe the program it uses to delete
objectionable words from its members' private mail. Prodigy officials decline to
release a list of the forbidden words, but certainly it contains the seven that
Carlin rattles off in his famous comedy routine: shit, piss, cunt, fuck,
cocksucker, motherfucker, tits. The software allows Prodigy
to screen 75,000 messages daily and send each on its way within minutes. When
screened by humans, the delay could be as long as 21 hours.
Moderators
On popular services such as America Online, volunteers are recruited to
discourage members from using language deemed to be "vulgar, abusive or hateful."
AOL and Prodigy subscribers -- who agree when coming aboard that they won't use even disguised words such as f**k -- quickly resort to more creative antics. Last fall on AOL, a
user typed the word prick during a discussion, then quickly added "your finger"
on the next line to cover her tracks. Soon after, a male participant tested the
guidelines with "genitalia" and "asexual." Both users were warned; one was
evicted.
Most discussions on Usenet, available via the Internet, are free-for-alls.
Those that do have moderators allow them to eliminate only repetitive or
irrelevant posts. It's a fine line. Last year, for example, a user or users by
the name of Serdar Argic flooded the discussion group soc.history with messages
arguing, despite overwhelming evidence otherwise, that Turks had not massacred
Armenians in 1915. A moderator was chosen, and Argic's diatribes were filtered
out.
Terms of service
The document that many cyberspace users must endorse before
they are allowed to open an account with a service provider. While insisting
they support freedom of expression, Everyman services such as America Online
and Prodigy are also dedicated to preserving family-oriented "communities."
After reminding members that "there are children online," AOL bans "unlawful,
harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, profane,
hateful, racially, ethically or otherwise objectionable material of any kind."
It also forbids "personal attacks or attacks based on a person's race, national
origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other such
affiliation."
The judgment as to what constitutes offensive language rests largely with
volunteer moderators, whose whims are the subject of much derision. AOL
recently removed a discussion area called YngM4YngM, prompting protests from
gay teens who used it as a support group. Earlier, AOL had closed several
feminist forums with the word girl in their titles, fearing that youngsters
might go there by mistake and be corrupted. For now, the children are safe.
Reprinted from Playboy, July 1995 Copyright © 1995 Playboy Enterprises, Inc.
No part of this article may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or
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