} I've got a number of (hopefully) relevant thoughts on this one,
} but no real solution, so here goes.
} Next, getting into the sticky issues part. I work for what they
} call a Community Access Cable Station, which basically means that anybody
} who creates a program which is not blatantly obscene or obviously
} commerical can get it aired on one of the channels we run. We make it
} very clear that we are not responsible for the content, and it is the
} First Amendment in action (unlike USENET, the First Amendment to the
} Consitution of the United States actually /does/ apply, by order of the
} Federal Communications Commission.)
} Because of this, we'd even air Nazi propaganda if somebody went
} through the paperwork to request airtime. We're already airing speeches
} by Rev. Louis Farrakhan in which he is using blatantly racist, often
} anti-semetic language.
} So the question is, is this a valid comparison? Should it be?
It's fairly close. But the differences are still significant. There
are legalistic ones (eg: FCC rules doesn't cover Usenet), but these
should just be considered an artifact.
The real difference is due to the nature of the ownership of Usenet,
and the fact that the "means to transmit" aren't significantly restricted.
With broadcast/cable radio/TV, all "producers" (I mean original
tranmitting station, not creator of a work) and "carriers" are either
regulated commercial providers, or "community property" (eg:
government owned, or PBS). In Usenet the vast majority of "producers"
and "carriers" of Usenet are not providing Usenet services for money -
they're private citizens or companies providing services to their own
employees, and interconnection is free pure volunteer work. Consider
it thusly, if a cable company turned off the provision of service to
your community, you could sue. You can't sue if someone turns off a
volunteer newsfeed.
You "work" for your cable station - I assume you're paid - you have
a legal/moral obligation to "serve". The news.answers team are purely
volunteers - you can't force association on a volunteer - a volunteer has
no obligation to "serve". A volunteer has only an obligation to
him/herself to acquit themselves well. While you can (usually) fire a
volunteer, you can't make them work.
Secondly, having the news.answers team refuse to carry a FAQ doesn't
prevent it from being posted, just from being associated with the other
news.answers FAQs. This is not censorship. Whereas, if your cable station
refuses, then chances are it's impossible to send it out.
As such, I believe the news.answers team has the right to refuse to
have their names and volunteer work associated with a posting if they
wish. I wouldn't want to have to generate an "Approved:" line for Nazi
propaganda either. Yes, news.answers should be very careful in what they
refuse to "approve" in order to maintain public confidence, but they
shouldn't necessarily approve everything.
They can still post. And if they want, they can lobby to have their own
parallel "news.otheranswers" infrastructure.
-- Chris Lewis: _Una confibula non sat est_ Phone: Canada 613 832-0541 Latest psroff: FTP://ftp.uunet.ca/distrib/chris_lewis/psroff3.0pl17/* Latest hp2pbm: FTP://ftp.uunet.ca/distrib/chris_lewis/hp2pbm/*
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