Online Censorship & Free Expression
Focus on Internet Blocking
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Featured News
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Court: Network Associates Can't Gag Users -
In a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that Network Associates can't prevent people from talking about its products, ZDNet (January 21, 2003)
Owning the Future -
U.S. law is disturbingly supportive of Internet censorship, Technology Review (requires fee) (January 18, 2003)
AT&T Ad Trips Over a Trademark -
Kembrew McLeod, assistant professor of communications studies at the University of Iowa, believes that "freedom of expression" — or at least the phrase — belongs to him, because he registered it as a trademark in 1998, New York Times (January 18, 2003)
Supreme Court Decision Spurs Debate -
The Supreme Court's ruling this week to uphold the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) reignited the debate over whether Congress' 1998 decision was unconstitutional in granting extended copyright protection and whether that extension impacts free speech guarantees in the First Amendment, InernetNews.com (January 17, 2003)
Network Associates Can't Gag Users -
In a victory for free-speech advocates and product reviewers, a New York state judge has ruled that the security software company can't prevent people from talking about its products, CNet News via Business Week Online (January 17, 2003)
More Headlines
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Intellectual freedom (including freedoms to think, believe, read, speak, write,
publish, perform, create art, produce software, and protest, among many others)
is one of the most fundamental of basic human rights, and is protected by
the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as national and state
constitutions, amendments, and caselaw in democratic parts of the world. Unfortunately,
it is also the most frequently attacked of those rights. Censorship comes in many forms,
and from many sources, ranging from governments and corporations, to educational
institutions and reactionary individuals. EFF opposes imposition of censorship
laws and policies, and believes that the full democratic and empowering potential of
the Internet can only be realized in a true marketplace of ideas and expression.
Archived Materials
Subtopics
Descriptions of Subtopics...
Files
(Much more material may be available under the subtopics above)
Heins's Not in Front of the Children Excerpt-
An excerpt from Not in Front of the Children:
"Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth by Marjorie Heins
of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). Republished with
permission. (May 2001)
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/200105_heins_book_excerpt.html
960805_french_isp_investigation.announce -
Association des Utilisateurs
d'Internet (French Internet Users' Association) press release strongly
criticizing French government's attempt to hold ISP system operators
liable for Usenet content.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/960805_french_isp_investigation.announce
960705_videazimut_cajamar.declaration -
"Declaration of Cajamar": Resolution
of participants in "Media for Citizenship in the Electronic Age"
seminar convened by Videazimut in Cajamar, Brazil, July 3-5, 1996.
Resolution supports UN declarations of rights, McBride & Maitland
Commissions' reports, and conclusions of Beijing Conference on Women.
Declaration concludes: "we encourage all individuals and organisations
worldwide working in the field of communications for development and
democracy to collaborate in solidarity and work together, at
every opportunity, to achieve these goals." Declaration also asks
government of Brazil to shape up in this area.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/960705_videazimut_cajamar.declaration
9606_cassandra_netdangers_livraghi.article -
"Cassandra": A look at
where, in government and elsewhere, threats to the Internet are or may
be coming from, globally. By Giancarlo Livraghi of ALCEI/EF-Italy.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/9606_cassandra_netdangers_livraghi.article
access_rights_johnson.article -
"Access Rights -- All Power to the
Sysop?", article by David Johnson. Excerpt: "Some enlightened sysops will
create mechanisms by means of which users can participate in making rules
and overseeing their enforcement. Will those sysops prosper in
preference to others who act less accountably? Will the
existence of checks on arbitrary exercises of raw power help to
keep other, external, regulators at bay?"
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/access_rights_johnson.article
aclu_opposes_porno_censorship.article -
ACLU article explaining why the
ACLU opposes censorship. The article answers a series of questions,
providing a broad defense of the ACLU position.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/aclu_opposes_porno_censorship.article
anarchist_censorship.article -
Article on anarchism on the internet and
commentary about the innacuracies and censorship of anarchists
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/anarchist_censorship.article
apple_cdrom_revisionism.articles -
articles and posts regarding Apple
Computer's "censorship" or "revisionism" of a CD-ROM with "politically
incorrect" historical facts.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/apple_cdrom_revisionism.articles
censorship_ala.definition -
American Library Association Definition of
Censorship
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/censorship_ala.definition
child_safety_online.booklet -
The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children (NCMEC) has teamed up with members of the
Interactive Services Association (ISA) to offer this brochure,
written by Los Angeles Times syndicated columnist Lawrence
J. Magid, to educate families about the benefits and risks of online
services.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/child_safety_online.booklet
content_regulation_johnson.article -
"Taking Cyberspace Seriously:
Dealing with Obnoxious Messages on the Net", David Johnson. Excerpt:
"Territorially-based laws fail us when we confront new phenomena
involving participants whose geographical locations span legal
jurisdictions and have little relationship to the locus of the harms they
might inflict...we can reduce the intensity of the debate, and find some
real solutions...if we take seriously the idea that cyberspace is a
separate place...fully absorb the fact that most communications on the
net amount to the joint creation of a new shared space allowing the
assembly of like-minded individuals."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/content_regulation_johnson.article
cyber_barbwire_johnson.article -
"Barbed Wire Fences in Cyberspace: The
Threat Posed by Calls for Ownership of Transactional Information",
article by David Johnson. Excerpt: "Concerned about the threat to
privacy created by such electronic dossiers, some have called for new
laws granting each of us "ownership" of all the transactional
information generated as we move around the network...This may produce
a sort of cattle drive vs. sheep herder battle on the electronic
frontier. Either "information wants to be free" or we can all put
barbed wire around the tracks we leave -- but we can't have both a
free information range and a system of information ownership. The
First Amendment implications of any such privacy regime are staggering."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/cyber_barbwire_johnson.article
cyber_first_amend_johnson.article -
"Volume Controls in Cyberspace? --
Hard First Amendment Questions in the Age of Electronic Networking",
article by David Johnson. Excerpt: "Some call for enforcement of the
First Amendment in cyberspace. Some point out that the First
Amendment is a local U.S. ordinance...But no one has yet come to grips
with the hard question of how we will balance the community
interests in imposing some limitations on speech against the
desire to facilitate open communication over the Net...In other
words, if we did have a "First Amendment" in cyberspace, generally
agreed upon as a global balancing tool for the rights of speech and
the protection of other interests, what would it say?"
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/cyber_first_amend_johnson.article
epic_fbi_crypto_childporn.alert -
EPIC mini-alert, reporting that FBI
director Louis Freeh has already, as of Oct. 95, begun to attack
cryptography as a hindrance to law enforcement with "evidence" that FBI
efforts were hindered by encrypted files in a recent child porn
investigation.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/epic_fbi_crypto_childporn.alert
flagburning_amendment_alert.old -
ACLU alert and issue summary: 1995-6
attempt by US Congress to amend the Constitution to make it a crime to
"desecrate" the US flag. (The amendment failed on a very narrow vote.)
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/epic_fbi_crypto_childporn.alert
gii_censorship_aclu.article -
ACLU action alert regarding freedom of
expression in the GII
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/gii_censorship_aclu.article
gottesman_lords_video_case.article -
Washington AP reports "Former porn
queen Traci Lords' movies play a featured role in a Supreme Court
dispute over whether a federal law against distributing child pornography
violates the right to free speech. Gottesman, owner of X-Citement
Video, was convicted of selling more than 100 Traci Lords videotapes to
an undercover Los Angeles policeman in 1986 and 1987. But lawyers for
Los Angeles porn shop owner Rubin Gottesman say a lower court correctly
found the law unconstitutional on the ground that it didn't require proof
that Gottesman knew Lords was under 18."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/gottesman_lords_video_case.article
granularity_cyberlaw_johnson.article -
"Granularity and the Law of
Cyberspace", article by David Johnson. Excerpt: 'With regard to
intellectual property doctrine, the simultaneous bigness and
smallness of intellectual artifacts in cyberspace causes serious
problems. Should we consider each e-mail message a "work"? How can we
use the "proportion taken" factor in a "fair use" analysis when we are
dealing with the copying and forwarding of "whole" e-mail
messages?...The same can be said about many other areas of law. The
large numbers of small bits traversing a network make it nearly
impossible for a sysop to review messages in advance -- and therefore
requires us to rethink the application to sysops of traditional
"publisher" liability for defamation...'
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/granularity_cyberlaw_johnson.article
human_rights_960420.article -
Shari Steele's Human Rights (A.B.A) article on
current (Spring '96) Internet censorship issues
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/human_rights_960420.article
istook_simpson_95_amend_congress.record -
debate from several months of
the Congressional Record about the Istook "gag" amendment and related
issues.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/istook_simpson_95_amend_congress.record
istook_simpson_advocacy_95.amend -
Amendement to appropriations bills,
by Rep. Istook and Sen. Simpson. Supporters say it will help keep
taxpayers from being ripped off by lobbyists. Detractors claim it is an
attempt to silence non-profit organizations, and censor them out of the
policy-making process.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/istook_simpson_advocacy_95.amend
kids_and_cyberporn_godwin.article -
"CHILDREN, CHILD ABUSE, AND CYBERPORN:
A Primer for Clear Thinkers", article for Internet World By Mike Godwin.
"Here's an interesting experiment. Try combining the topics of Sex,
Children, and the Net in a magazine or newspaper story, or even in an
online discussion. Amazingly, this combination will almost invariably
cause ostensibly intelligent people to shut down their higher thinking
centers...Which is why I came up with the following quick-and-dirty
primer to help folks out...When talking about pornography and child
safety on the Net, one often sees several different terms bandied about
as if they were interchangeable. They're not. Here are some basic
definitions..."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/kids_and_cyberporn_godwin.article
kids_online.article -
"Caution: Children at Play on the Information
Highway; Access to Adult Networks Holds Hazards" by John Schwartz.
"Just when parents and schools are urging children to play with
computers, the nature of their use is changing. Increasingly, computers
are linked by networks to other computers -- and those networks are
connected to other networks worldwide. As a result, users are exposed to
an astonishing variety of information, including some of the raunchier
aspects of human life."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/kids_online.article
lappin_obscen_indecen.article -
Journalist Todd Lappin explains obscenity and
indecency (and the differences between them) in lay terms.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/lappin_obscen_indecen.article
milton_against_censorship.statement -
John Milton's short discussion of
censorship.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/milton_against_censorship.statement
music_censorship_aclu.article -
ACLU article articulating the ACLU position
on the censorship of music
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/music_censorship_aclu.article
obscen_virtcom_stds_godwin.article -
"VIRTUAL COMMUNITY STANDARDS: BBS
Obscenity Case Raises New Legal Issues", an article by Mike Godwin
describing the relationship between the laws of various states
regarding pornography and the internet, focusing in particular on the
AABBS case. This 1994 article first appeared in the San Fransico Examiner.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/obscen_virtcom_stds_godwin.article
obscenity_and_censorship_aclu.article -
ACLU board position on obscenity
and censorship, in which the ACLU rejects several arguments in favor of
censoring obscenity
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/obscenity_and_censorship_aclu.article
obscenity_and_indecency_godwin.excerpt -
Selection from Mike Godwin's
forthcoming book, discussing the legal differences between "indecency"
and "obscenity". Though the general public tends to use these terms
interchangably, and the fundamentlist lobbying groups do so on purpose to
sow confusion, they are very different legal regimes.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/obscenity_and_indecency_godwin.excerpt
obscenity_online_godwin.article -
Mike Godwin's March/April 1994
Internet World article "SEX AND THE SINGLE SYSADMIN: The risks of
carrying graphic sexual materials." Excerpt: "most of this country's
law-enforcement organizations have only recently become aware of the
extent that [sexually explicit] material is traded and distributed
online--now that they're aware of it, they're aware of the potential
for prosecution. In a recent case, an Oklahoma system operator
was charged under state law for distribution of obscene materials, based
on a CD-ROM of sexual images that he'd purchased through a mainstream BBS
trade magazine. He was startled to find out that something he'd purchased
through normal commercial channels had the potential of leading to serious
criminal liability..."
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/obscenity_online_godwin.article
porn_and_first_amend_aclu.article -
ACLU position paper explaining the
ACLU position on censorship (against) and why the ACLU is so persistant.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/porn_and_first_amend_aclu.article
protection_and_net.article -
Article by Steve Cisler (Apple librarian).
Summary: Now that the Internet is becoming popular, many people and
organizations want to protect the Internet, protect people from the
Internet, protect individual systems from casual visitors, protect
children from access to certain files and online interactions, and
protect whole cultures from outside influences.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/protection_and_net.article
red_light_district.article -
Maclean's Magazine article by Joe Chidley,
"Red-Light District....From S&M to Bestiality, Porn Flourishes on the
Internet". An example of the sensationalist journalism that has
catapulted "cyberporn" from a non-issue to the legal fight of the century.
Unlike a lot of such pieces, this article does actually discuss free
speech activism and some of the futility and flaws in the net censorship
legislation being bandied about, but is full of hype and hysteria
nonetheless.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/red_light_district.article
title_18_sect_2251-2.law -
US Code (federal law) Title 18, Part I, Chapter
110: "Sexual Exploitation and other abuse of children" (the child porn
statutes.)
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/title_18_sect_2251-2.law
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Subtopic Descriptions
Internet Censorship Legislation
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Directory of info on legislation, such as CDA and COPA, intended
to censor the Internet.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Internet_censorship_bills/
Censorware/Internet Blocking
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Directory of info on Internet
content blocking, filtering, labeling and rating systems.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/
SLAPP Suits & Legal Abuse
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Directory of info on "strategic lawsuits against
public participation" (SLAPPs) - largely (or entirely) bogus litigation
or other legal tactics, targeting underfunded critics, whistleblowers
or competitors to expose and silence them.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/SLAPP/
Online Services
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Directory of info on (non-governmental) censorship by commercial online
service providers.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Online_services/
Academic & Education Censorship
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Directory of info on censorship and intellectual freedom in academic and educational
environments, including schools, colleges, universities and libraries.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Academic_edu/
Radio & TV
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Directory of info on censorship of radio, and broadcast,
cable and satellite television. Topics include regulation of "indecency",
the "V-chip", and common carrier obligations to refrain from content-based
censorship on public access channels.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Radio_and_tv/
Hate Speech/Discrimination
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Directory of info on intellectual freedom, equal opportunity & the urge to censor those who offend:
hate speech, racism, misogyny, sexual harassment, neo-nazism, holocaust
revisionism, discrimination and the use of regulations
to silence offensive speech.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Hate-speech_discrimination/
Freedom of Religion
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Directory of info on separation of church and state, freedom of religion,
religious censorship
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Freedom_of_religion/
Immigration Bills
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Directory of info on censorship and free expression issues, and privacy
concerns, raised by reactionary anti-immigration
legislation
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Immigration_bills/
Terrorism & Militias
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Directory of information on censorship and free expression
issues, and privacy concerns and surveillance, as they relate to media and political
responses to terrorism and fears of terrorism (including
militia scapegoating, etc.)
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/
Rimm/CMU/Time "Cyberporn" Fiasco
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Directory of info on the Marty Rimm/CMU
cyberporn "study", the Time Mag. article based on it, and similar
academic and journalistic anti-porn gaffes.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Rimm_CMU_Time/
Local, State & Non-US
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Directory of info on Internet censorship at the local, state and
non-US levels.
http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Foreign_and_local/
Freedom of Information
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Link to directory of info on FOIA and open government
http://www.eff.org/Activism/FOIA/
Scientology Cases
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Link to directory of infoChurch of Scientology suits against various individuals,
BBSs, ISPs, and newspaper publishers
http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/Scientology_cases/
Computers & Academic Freedom Project
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Link to EFF-hosted independent project on combatting university & high school
censorship
http://www.eff.org/CAF/
EFF's Blue Ribbon Campaign for Online Free
Expression
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Link to EFF's Internet free speech campaign page
http://www.eff.org/br/
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