What Are We Doing On-line? A Debate on the Social Consequences of Online Communications

We are in the middle of the most transforming technological event since the capture of fire. I used to think that it was just the biggest thing since Gutenberg, but now I think you have to go back farther. There has been much written both celebrating and denouncing cyberspace, but to me this seems a development of such magnitude that trying to characterize it as a good thing or a bad thing trivializes it considerably. I also don’t think it’s a matter about which we have much choice. It is coming, whether we like it or not.

Some Comments on the London Times Educational Supplement Article

Clearly, for many women, face-to-face communication could find them at a disadvantage, if they feel less powerful or verbally skilled or even feel physically weaker and smaller. In fact, they may embrace e-mail even more enthusiastically than the men, because it is such an “equalizer.”

Some Comments on the London Times Educational Supplement Article

“Men must be prevented from looking at pictures of nude women! Let’s clean up the net and make it safe for women! Take back the net!” It’s coming folks. Censorship and governmental restrictions are right around the corner … The next steps will be letter-writing campaigns to system administrators, law suits against companies, and new governmental laws – how about two years in prison for an improper post? It’s coming … The net is a beautiful anarchy, just about the only one left on the face of the earth. Don’t kill it with censorship, laws, and lawsuits.

Some Comments on the London Times Educational Supplement Article

The net culture presents challenges (not “problems”) to *all* newcomers … Here’s a word of advice for the women on the net: If you can’t stand the heat, ladies, then get out of the kitchen! Stop whining about how unfair the world is. Stop hiding behind paternalistic (maternalistic?) governmental laws. Stand on your own two feet and *earn* some respect! Sexual harassment on the net, with no possibility of physical contact, is nothing but another type of flame. Learn to handle it. Learn to give as good as you get … The net is a beautiful anarchy, just about the only one left on the face of the earth. Don’t kill it with censorship, laws, and lawsuits. Women of the net, conduct yourselves professionally, and, over time, you will get the respect you want and will then deserve.

Some Comments on the London Times Educational Supplement Article

It’s like trying to predict back in 1910 the impact of the automobile on society – the highway system, gasoline refineries, motels instead of hotels, new dating patterns, increased social mobility, commuting to work, the importance of the rubber industry, smog, drive-thru restaurants, mechanized warfare, and on and on. The net will bring more than quantitative changes, it will bring *qualitative* changes. Things that were impossible will now become inevitable.

The Use of the Internet as a Vehicle for Pornography – Do We Really Care?

Pornography can hurt children, women and men. The objectification of human beings leads us to disregard the humanity of the other and use the other for our own perceived good … Passing laws against such material on the Internet is not the solution. Such laws would seem to be relatively unenforceable and at the same time a violent reaction to this evil. Ultimately it is true that we cannot legislate morality – each of the ethics we have examined comes to this same conclusion … Pornography on the Internet – do we really care? Indeed we do – we care both for the freedom of the Internet to explore and the freedom of the individual from harassment and harm. And so we end up validating both the Internet as a link for the autonomous individual and a vehicle towards and for responsibility.

Crime in Cybercity

We should err on the side of tolerance, and we should err on the side of freedom of expression.

Crime in Cybercity

Some critics and government officials are hoping that Internet service providers … The information highway council is expected later this month to approve a recommendation that would encourage the providers to develop a code of ethics, in the same way that broadcasters have been “encouraged” to regulate themselves in the transmission of violent television programs.

Crime in Cybercity

One of the real problems with the law of the Internet is deciding, where does the offence occur? [The Net may fall subject to regulation in every jurisdiction it touches.] It’s a frightening prospect to think that we are all then bound by the laws of the most strict and puritanical jurisdictions in the world.