ACN Volume 1 No 3 Oct. 1988

                        COMPUTERS AND FREE SPEECH
                                                by Michael Hauben

     Should there be unlimited freedom of speech? Should the Supreme Court or
any other federal court have the right to censor? Does EVERYBODY have
freedom of speech? These are some of  the questions based on freedom of
speech. When Hitler came to power in Germany, he limited freedom of speech
by ending constitutional law. When the Chairman of the opposing party made a
passionate plea, Hitler said, "Late you come, but still you come...during
the time we were in the opposition...in those days our press was forbidden
and forbidden and again forbidden, our meetings were forbidden and we were
forbidden to speak, and I was forbidden to speak, for years on end. And now
you say: criticism is salutary!"(1)
     For our society, freedom of speech is part of the Bill of Rights of our
Constitution. Many of the states that ratified the Constitution did so with
an understanding that a Bill of Rights restricting the power of the federal
government would be adopted. Patrick Henry was one of the many to demand the
Bill of Rights. He argued successfully for the Bill. The different freedoms,
including freedom of speech, protected by the Bill of Rights have been and
still will be defined through various cases brought up in federal courts.
     The concept of freedom of speech has a long history. It expanded to
speech on paper in the 15th Century when Johannes Gutenberg invented
moveable type in Europe. Books that were cheap and common replaced the
valuable, rare manuscripts immediately after the press was introduced.
Information could now be delivered to all who could read, instead of only to
those within earshot of a speaker. In England, the governing body thought
the power of the printing press dangerous enough to assign a censor.  That
censorship was shut down by Parliament and then reinstalled after a flood of
licentious and seditious literature came out of the mighty presses. Many of
these new uncensored books were politically or theologically based.
     John Milton, a 36 year old poet and a classical scholar of known
reputation, published on his own and without a license in the 17th Century,
an answer to the Parliament's censoring of printed materials. He called it
Areopagitica. In it he says "First, the decision of a censor cannot be
trusted unless the censor is infallible and beyond corruption. No mortal
possesses such grace; therefore no mortal is qualified to be a censor.
Second, since anything may tend to evil if misused, an effective system of
censorship will end up suppressing everything even music, dancing, windows,
balconies, eating, drinking, clothes and `the mixt conversation of our
youth, male and female together.' Third, if a scheme for issuing licenses be
instituted, what does one do with books already printed and in circulation?
Fourth, the job of censor is so dull and unsatisfactory that no able person
will want it."(2)
     In the five parts of Milton's text, he talks about the types of people
for whom he is writing this book. The main type, the humanist, is devoted to
the debate and the discussion of things like freedom of speech. He was the
man of learning that Milton had in mind. Milton knew that the person who
talks about freedom of speech requires freedom of speech.
     Freedom of speech has been a topic widely debated around the world on
university campuses. For example, in 1964 on the Berkeley Campus of the
University of California, there developed the Free Speech Movement which was
a forerunner of the student-based civil rights and anti-war movements that
were active for the next ten years. From Berkeley came several leaders for
the up and coming computer Homebrew movement which was the beginning of all
personal computers we know today. In the last two years, there have been
student revolts against the political system in China and France.
     Freedom of speech is still freedom of speech even for bad causes. In
North Carolina, and several other states, one can pay $5.00 for an "open
sesame" password onto the Aryan National Liberty Net, an electronic Bulletin
Board. It contains the latest in neo-Nazi thought offering sections entitled
"Know your Enemies", "ZOG Informers" and "Patriotic Groups." One of the main
concerns is that of kids who like to hack into closed computer bulletin
boards. They are the most vulnerable to this type of hate propaganda.
     An important vehicle in the fight for free speech is the personal
computer. The personal computer can be a facilitator of free speech because
it is an information machine. It grew out of the supporters of the anti-war
movement who wanted a personal computer for the masses. At the time, the
computers available were the mainframes made by IBM and other big
manufacturers, affordable to only huge companies and the government, and the
mini-computers manufactured by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and
others. The minicomputers were more of a people computer because
universities could afford them and make them available to students.
     Many clubs formed that had people interested in a people's computer.
California's Homebrew Club was one of the famous ones. Many important
founders of the personal computer blossomed in the Homebrew Club. The first
couple of real personal computers were made exclusive, because the
manufacturers wanted to make profit from them. The hackers soon defeated the
exclusive rights that these manufacturers wanted. They figured out and
standardized different aspects of the machines to fit the hacker ethic,
which stated everything should be in public domain so that people could
learn something from, be able to benefit from, and finally be able to
enhance it. As a result of these pioneers, IBM was forced, when it entered
the personal computer market, to conform to the pioneers and to make an
open, public machine. IBM of all companies! IBM was the Godfather of the
Mainframes. These pioneers achieved a victory for free speech!
     In 1987, on the campus of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), free
speech was again brought into question. On an electronic bulletin board
available to the University community, a file of ethnic, racial and other
jokes offensive to specific groups was made available by certain students.
The file kindled the fire of debate on freedom of speech and computer
propriety. After the student who started the file, was pressured to close
it, more debate flourished. Some students started files with page-long
essays on the evils of bigotry, while others started new joke files. So some
students answered the discontinued joke file, while others restarted it. Now
that's definitely freedom of speech!
     Even more debates have been started about whether to limit what people
can say by computer, whether bad jokes should be allowed as a category.
"Some schools such as Dartmouth and Carnegie-Mellon have imposed a code of
ethics for students using their computers, with violators facing removal
from the system. Dartmouth specifically prohibits offensive material in a
code that warns: `Obscenities should not be sent by computer nor stored
where they could offend other users'."(3) Supporters of the joke file say
that no one was forced to read the file and that they had to go out of their
way to read it. Isn't there always a temptation though? Robert Parnes,
programmer of the software used for the electronic bulletin board, said that
he thought that the students would try to test the bounds of decency.
     Our world would have to be made better to have unlimited freedom of
speech. Most people in the world who have a type of Bill of Rights have some
protection of their freedom of speech. As Barbara Amiel writes in her
article "Censoring One, Censoring All", "You either have free speech for
everybody or you do not have free speech"(4), you have to have unlimited
freedom of speech or you are discriminating against a viewpoint. The result
of unlimited freedom of speech is that if someone exercises their freedom
and expresses their viewpoint on a matter, a person of an opposing viewpoint
would be able to answer the first person's work. This way everyone could
hear all sides on that matter and make up their own minds on what they agree
with.

1. Barbara Amiel, Censoring One, Censoring All, MacLean's, April 15, 1985, p 11.
2. Irving Younger, "What Good Is Freedom of Speech?", Commentary, vol 79, Jan. '85, pp 45 - 46.
3. Isabel Wilkerson, "Ethnic Jokes in Campus Prompt Debate", New York Times,
April 18, 1987, Sec 7, p 6.
4. Barbara Amiel.

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