uk-netnews-managers@uk.ac.strath.cs
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 14:04:11 +0000 (GMT)
From: Malcolm Ray
Returning to the original message which sparked this discussion, there's
one thing which I want to comment on:
> News groups may be excluded if the contents are considered to be offensive
> or possibly contravening legislation. News groups under and including
> the following hierarchies are sent:
>
> uk, eunet, comp, news, sci, rec, misc, soc, talk, inet, alt,
> gnu, bionet, biz, bit, vmsnet, ddn, u3b, trial, sco, ieee,
> k12, info, scot
>
> News groups under and including alt.sex and
> alt.binaries.pictures.erotica are specifically excluded.
'Considered to be offensive' to whom? By whom? There are whole swathes of
Usenet which can, and do, cause offence to some readers. Consider:
talk.abortion
talk.politics.*
soc.culture.*
alt.religion.*
Some sites will decide that newsgroup x causes offence outweighing any value
it might have, and decide not to take that group, but surely this is a matter
for the site in question, not for some upstream arbiter? Blocking on the
grounds of legality is one thing; blocking on the grounds of taste is entirely
another.
--
--
University of Westminster Information Resource Services
M.G.Ray@westminster.ac.uk +44 171 911 5000
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 14:45:54 +0000 (GMT)
From: USENET news manager
>Returning to the original message which sparked this discussion, there's
>one thing which I want to comment on:
>
>> News groups may be excluded if the contents are considered to be offensive
>> or possibly contravening legislation. News groups under and including
>> the following hierarchies are sent:
>>
>> uk, eunet, comp, news, sci, rec, misc, soc, talk, inet, alt,
>> gnu, bionet, biz, bit, vmsnet, ddn, u3b, trial, sco, ieee,
>> k12, info, scot
>>
>> News groups under and including alt.sex and
>> alt.binaries.pictures.erotica are specifically excluded.
>
>'Considered to be offensive' to whom? By whom? There are whole swathes of
>Usenet which can, and do, cause offence to some readers. Consider:
>
>talk.abortion
>talk.politics.*
>soc.culture.*
>alt.religion.*
>
>Some sites will decide that newsgroup x causes offence outweighing any value
>it might have, and decide not to take that group, but surely this is a matter
>for the site in question, not for some upstream arbiter? Blocking on the
>grounds of legality is one thing; blocking on the grounds of taste is entirely
>another.
It's certainly true that many, many groups will offend different subsets of
the USENET community, and it's often asserted (I'm not arguing whether it's
right or reasonable...) that the only sensible approach (when the legality of
the material isn't an issue) is for people not to read groups with contents
which offend them. Of course, that starts getting onto shaky ground for e.g.
public access or commercial sites which include children among their users, who
can't be expected to apply such judgement (from a legal viewpoint), and fails
to address the problem of e.g. The Media making a big thing of what may be
found on a site's news server. These sort of issues have been re-hashed many
times, in the context of many different parts of the net.
As for sites choosing to block groups being a local matter - yes and no, since
it depends on whether they are feeding other sites, which typically wouldn't
get the blocked groups even if they want them (depending on the software used
and precisely how it's done), so that one site may in effect be imposing
censorship on what is seen by another. It then ceases to be a purely local
matter.
As a separate but closely related issue, there's the question of the numerous
news hierarchies (e.g. overseas national hierarchies, or specialist technical
hierarchies) which have been available in the past (whether they should have
been or not) and which are of interest to the user community at one site or
another, but which are not included in the list above and in some cases are not
currently carried by EUnet GB.
It's unclear from the circular just how readily extra hierarchies can be added
on request (even if EUnet GB doesn't currently carry it?), and how distributing
such hierarchies would be handled if sites on the routes from EUnet GB to the
site wanting them decided that they wouldn't carry the groups involved. Would
EUnet GB then provide a direct, limited feed to the target site (of just the
required groups)? Or would they coordinate that site and any others wanting the
hierarchy in obtaining it direct from some source or other and distributing it
amongst themselves?
It worries me that the original circular gave no guidance on such points. If
the intention is to be restrictive (limiting availability of news to the
hierarchies named above unless a very persuasive case can be made), many sites
are going to have a lot of very angry users. If, in reality, the intention is
that reasonable requests will be accepted and dealt with effectively, then all
should be well.
John Line
--
Cambridge University Computing Service - USENET news manager. Usually John Line
newsmaster@ucs.cam.ac.uk (alias {newsmaster,news,usenet}@news.cam.ac.uk)
From: Steve Elliott
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 15:00:15 GMT
I give in!
Eunet GB maintain that they consulted other news sites in
formulating their policy.
I've now read messages from Strathclyde, Birmingham, Cambridge,
and it is clear they were not consulted. Lancaster was not
consulted. Come on, Eunet GB, just who did you consult?
Steve
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 15:07:21 +0000
From: John Law
At 2:04 pm 13/12/94, Malcolm Ray wrote:
>Some sites will decide that newsgroup x causes offence outweighing any value
>it might have, and decide not to take that group, but surely this is a matter
>for the site in question, not for some upstream arbiter? Blocking on the
>grounds of legality is one thing; blocking on the grounds of taste is entirely
>another.
I have no axe to grind here, but I might add this nice little twist...
When we had this debate here earlier this year, one of our senior staff
said that we should not bar any groups, because if we did we could be
deemed to be censoring the feed. That established, it could be argued that
any items which slipped through the net were being "passed" by us, and
therefore we could be accused of promoting [whatever was offensive in
whatever way to whomever]. *Therefore* we should not censor the feed.
Given the bandwidth, disk space and seat usage/wastage which the
'notorious' groups encourage, I thought this was a pretty soft argument,
but I'm merely an Indian not a chief, thank goodness!
John Law
Information etc
University Computing Service
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 94 15:13:47 +0000
From: Jim Reid
> Eunet GB maintain that they consulted other news sites in
> formulating their policy...... Come on, Eunet GB, just who did you consult?
Actually it was UKERNA who devised the policy, not GBnet. They just
implemented it.
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 15:12:41 +0000 (GMT)
From: Malcolm Ray
> At 2:04 pm 13/12/94, Malcolm Ray wrote:
>
> >Some sites will decide that newsgroup x causes offence outweighing any value
> >it might have, and decide not to take that group, but surely this is a matter
> >for the site in question, not for some upstream arbiter? Blocking on the
> >grounds of legality is one thing; blocking on the grounds of taste is entirely
> >another.
>
> I have no axe to grind here, but I might add this nice little twist...
>
> When we had this debate here earlier this year, one of our senior staff
> said that we should not bar any groups, because if we did we could be
> deemed to be censoring the feed. That established, it could be argued that
> any items which slipped through the net were being "passed" by us, and
> therefore we could be accused of promoting [whatever was offensive in
> whatever way to whomever]. *Therefore* we should not censor the feed.
This is the 'common carrier' argument. Whether a UK institution could
successfully argue this way in court is probably something which should be
left to a qualified lawyer.
> Given the bandwidth, disk space and seat usage/wastage which the
> 'notorious' groups encourage, I thought this was a pretty soft argument,
> but I'm merely an Indian not a chief, thank goodness!
But who do you think is more likely to end up in the dock?
--
--
University of Westminster Information Resource Services
M.G.Ray@westminster.ac.uk +44 171 911 5000
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 15:19:36 +0000 (GMT)
From: Barry Cornelius
> As a separate but closely related issue, there's the question of the numerous
> news hierarchies (e.g. overseas national hierarchies, or specialist technical
> hierarchies) which have been available in the past (whether they should have
> been or not) and which are of interest to the user community at one site or
> another, but which are not included in the list above and in some cases are not
> currently carried by EUnet GB.
>
> It's unclear from the circular just how readily extra hierarchies can be added
> on request (even if EUnet GB doesn't currently carry it?), and how distributing
> such hierarchies would be handled if sites on the routes from EUnet GB to the
> site wanting them decided that they wouldn't carry the groups involved. Would
> EUnet GB then provide a direct, limited feed to the target site (of just the
> required groups)? Or would they coordinate that site and any others wanting the
> hierarchy in obtaining it direct from some source or other and distributing it
> amongst themselves?
>
> It worries me that the original circular gave no guidance on such points. If
> the intention is to be restrictive (limiting availability of news to the
> hierarchies named above unless a very persuasive case can be made), many sites
> are going to have a lot of very angry users. If, in reality, the intention is
> that reasonable requests will be accepted and dealt with effectively, then all
> should be well.
I too would like clarification on the above point.
My understanding is that our Usenet News feed site is one of those
approved by EUnet GB. It currently feeds us about 70 hierarchies as well
as the 24 listed in the Jones/Carey message of 2nd December.
--
Barry Cornelius Telephone: (0191 or +44 191) 374 4717
Academic Support Group, IT Service, IT Service Office: 374 2892
Science Site, University of Durham, Fax: 374 3741
Durham, DH1 3LE, UK E-mail: Barry.Cornelius@durham.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 15:50:49 +0000
From: Nigel Titley
We (BTnet) took legal advice before deciding which newsgroups to carry. The
advice returned by our legal office was that common carrier only protects you
if the data is 'in transit' which is normaly interpreted to mean 'on the
wires' or 'passing through the packet-switch'. They felt it would be *very*
difficult to argue that news articles sitting on a server for 10 days were
'in transit'.
Having said that, they felt that the only legislation we had to worry about
was the Protection of Children Act. They felt that if a paedophile picture
was to appear in one of the alt.binaries.pictures groups, and we passed it on
then we could be interpreted as 'offering for sale' such material, and so
could be guilty under the Act. The penalties are quite severe and include
imprisonment.
However, a reasonable defence is that we were unaware of the content of the
group concerned. Now it is very reasonable to argue that, say, rec.cooking,
is unlikely to carry such material, but less easy to argue that
alt.binaries.pictures.female.erotica is. So, we have had to accept a policy of
'light handed censorship' which basically means looking at the names and
charters of new groups and deciding if we would be happy to stand up in a
court and say 'Yes mlud, I had no idea that alt.binaries.pictures.little-girls.
erotica could carry the sort of material that you see before you in exhibit
A'. We have basically settled on much the same list that JANET has.
Nigel
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 13:47:35 +0000
From: John Carey
>We (BTnet) took legal advice before deciding which newsgroups to carry. The
>advice returned by our legal office was that common carrier only protects you
>if the data is 'in transit' which is normaly interpreted to mean 'on the
>wires' or 'passing through the packet-switch'. They felt it would be *very*
>difficult to argue that news articles sitting on a server for 10 days were
>'in transit'.
>
>Having said that, they felt that the only legislation we had to worry about
>was the Protection of Children Act. They felt that if a paedophile picture
>was to appear in one of the alt.binaries.pictures groups, and we passed it on
>then we could be interpreted as 'offering for sale' such material, and so
>could be guilty under the Act. The penalties are quite severe and include
>imprisonment.
>However, a reasonable defence is that we were unaware of the content of the
>group concerned. Now it is very reasonable to argue that, say, rec.cooking,
>is unlikely to carry such material, but less easy to argue that
>alt.binaries.pictures.female.erotica is. So, we have had to accept a policy of
>'light handed censorship' which basically means looking at the names and
>charters of new groups and deciding if we would be happy to stand up in a
>court and say 'Yes mlud, I had no idea that
alt.binaries.pictures.little-girls.
>erotica could carry the sort of material that you see before you in exhibit
>A'. We have basically settled on much the same list that JANET has.
>
>Nigel
>
Thanks first to Nigel for saying what he has whhich neatly summarizes the
situation as I see it. It was felt at the Strategy Workshop at Durham this week
that the Criminal Justice act may also be applicable. it was also felt that
sites taking news must realize their responsibilities when storing information
that may run up against one or more of the acts. As UKERNA I think we are
mainly in the clear as the news is only carried over the network but sites do
have to watch out.
It is upto a site as to which news groups it stores. I dont think we should
worry too much about cross-posting.
John
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 10:46:20 +0000
From: John Carey
Sorry for the rather delayed response, I shall blame Phil Jones for being on
extended sick leave.
>Some of the ac.uk's news administrators don't seem to be aware of
>this. Worse, they appear to have the naive assumption that if their
>upstream feed doesn't forward these proscribed groups, then they'll be
>OK. This simply isn't so. Can I suggest that you send out something
>which clarifies matters and *clearly* tells every site that complying
>with the news AUP is their own responsibility and not that of whoever
>provides them with a news feed?
>
>BTW, the position of news fan-out sites (like mine!) needs to be
>clarified. Would I be hauled over the coals because our news system
>forwarded an article that's been cross-posted to a valid and a
>proscribed newsgroup? If so, could someone tell me how to stop my news
>software from doing this without cutting off the downstream feeds
>completely?
No. There arent any proscribed news groups just some we dont distribute cos
they are considered likely to offend or be coypright violations. We have to
avoid any idea that censorship is being actively done cos of cross-postings
etc, this way we avoid any liability for content ( We hope)
>
>PS: It might have been an idea to have consulted the major news
>fan-outs on drafting and implementing this netnews AUP.
Some were.
From: Usenet Administrator
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 12:10:22 +0000 (GMT)
John Carey writes:
>>PS: It might have been an idea to have consulted the major news
>>fan-outs on drafting and implementing this netnews AUP.
>
>Some were.
Which ones? Was it a random sample, or is there a "cabal"?
/Jon Harley
______________________________________________________________________________
Usenet Administrator, Academic Computing Service, Email: usenet@bham.ac.uk
The University of Birmingham, Phone: 021 414 6575
Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. Fax: 021 414 3952
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 94 13:08:20 +0000
From: Jim Reid
> There arent any proscribed news groups just some we dont distribute cos
> they are considered likely to offend or be coypright violations. We have to
> avoid any idea that censorship is being actively done cos of cross-postings
> etc, this way we avoid any liability for content ( We hope)
Eh?
I fail to understand this. UKERNA has decided that certain newsgroups
are objectionable and won't allow them to be distributed over JANET.
Fine. He who pays the piper and all that...
You cannot reconcile a claim that there's no censorship with the AUP
stating that certain groups must not be distrbuted. In effect, UKERNA
has banned these groups and, by definition, these groups *are*
proscribed and censorship *is* being actively done. No matter how you
play with language semantics, censorship is being applied, so why not
just come clean and admit that?
Note that I'm not arguing that these groups should be distributed over
JANET or not. What I *am* arguing is that it is wrong to duck the
issue by trying to pretend that there's no censorship going on when
there clearly is. If comp.unix.wizards started carrying stuff from
alt.sex (say), that newsgroup would soon end up getting added to the
hit-list too. If this isn't censorship, what is it?
Censorship index