The prediction, in brief:

I think that it’s a wonderful thing that our network provides identified volitional spaces like alt.bondage and alt.dykes.on.bikes. We should have choice, not regulation, and one of those choices ought to be spaces in which we can maintain anonymity so as to conduct things that may be viewed as offensive by other people. I feel that the notion of enforcing normative values is completely inimical to the idea of freedom. The norm is a statistical construct, there aren’t any people that are normal.

Predictor: Laurel, Brenda

Prediction, in context:

In a 1993 paper, McGill University graduate student, Leslie Regan Shade, discusses free speech and censorship on the Internet. She writes:”At the third annual Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference, the panel on ÔGender Issues in Computing and TelecommunicationsÕ featured a debate on [ethics on the Internet]. Panelist Janet Dixon, Telecommunications Manager at Stanford Linear Acceleration Center, characterized sexual content on the net as Ôsexual terrorismÕ, and questioned whether public funds should be utilized to support the ‘negative behavior’ of some of the Usenet newsgroups, such as alt.sex and alt.sex.bondage. In the question-and-answer period, Brenda Laurel (creator of VR systems), challenged this remark: ÔWhat I’m sensing here,Õ she said, Ôis that we’re concatenating feminism with an attack on sexuality. I think that it’s a wonderful thing that our network provides identified volitional spaces like alt.bondage and alt.dykes.on.bikes. We should have choice, not regulation, and one of those choices ought to be spaces in which we can maintain anonymity so as to conduct things that may be viewed as offensive by other people. I feel that the notion of enforcing normative values is completely inimical to the idea of freedom. The norm is a statistical construct, there aren’t any people that are normal.’Ó

Date of prediction: January 1, 1993

Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues

Subtopic: Censorship/Free Speech

Name of publication: Ethical Issues in Computer Networking: Academic Freedom, Usenet, Censorship, and Freedom of Speech

Title, headline, chapter name: Ethical Issues in Computer Networking: Academic Freedom, Usenet, Censorship, and Freedom of Speech

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca:70/00/org/efc/doc/shade.23nov93

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne