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[Emacs-diffs] Changes to emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP [emacs-unicode-2]
From: |
Miles Bader |
Subject: |
[Emacs-diffs] Changes to emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP [emacs-unicode-2] |
Date: |
Thu, 14 Oct 2004 05:19:41 -0400 |
Index: emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP
diff -c /dev/null emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP:1.1.24.1
*** /dev/null Thu Oct 14 08:50:12 2004
--- emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP Thu Oct 14 08:49:58 2004
***************
*** 0 ****
--- 1,88 ----
+ Censoring my Software
+ Richard Stallman
+ [From Datamation, 1 March 1996]
+
+
+ Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to "prohibit
+ pornography" on the Internet. Last fall, right-wing Christians made
+ this cause their own. Last week, President Clinton signed the bill,
+ and we lost the freedom of the press for the public library of the
+ future. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.
+
+ No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It is a software package,
+ an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law
+ that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits
+ "indecent" speech, which can include anything from famous poems, to
+ masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex...to
+ software.
+
+ Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from
+ people who use the Internet, and people who appreciate erotica, but
+ from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.
+
+ But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the
+ forces of censorship responded with a lie: they told the public that
+ the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a
+ presupposition in their statements about the issue, they succeeded in
+ misinforming the public. So here I am, censoring my software.
+
+ You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous "doctor program",
+ a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor Weizenbaum at MIT.
+ This is the program that imitates a Rogerian psychotherapist. The
+ user talks to the program, and the program responds--by playing back
+ the user's own statements, and by recognizing a long list of
+ particular words.
+
+ The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse
+ words, and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, "Would
+ you please watch your tongue?" or "Let's not be vulgar." In order to
+ do this, it had to have a list of curse words. That means the source
+ code for the program was indecent.
+
+ Because of the censorship law, I had to remove this feature. (I
+ replaced it with a message announcing that the program has been
+ censored for your protection.) The new version of the doctor doesn't
+ recognize the indecent words. If you curse at it, it curses right
+ back to you--for lack of knowing better.
+
+ Now that people are facing the threat of two years in prison for
+ indecent network postings, it would be helpful if they could access
+ precise rules via the Internet for how to avoid imprisonment.
+ However, this is impossible. The rules would have to mention the
+ forbidden words, so posting them on the Internet would be against the
+ rules.
+
+ Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what "indecent" means.
+ I have to do this, because nobody knows for sure. The most obvious
+ possible meaning is the meaning it has for television, so I'm using
+ that as a tentative assumption. However, there is a good chance that
+ our courts will reject that interpretation of the law as
+ unconstitutional.
+
+ We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of
+ publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely
+ reject any law prohibiting "indecent" publications on the Internet.
+
+ What really worries me is that the courts might take a muddled
+ in-between escape route--by choosing another interpretation of
+ "indecent", one that permits the doctor program or a statement of the
+ decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that children can
+ browse through in the public library and the bookstore. Over the
+ years, as the Internet replaces the public library and the bookstore,
+ some of our freedom of the press will be lost.
+
+ Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the
+ Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this
+ country--its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how well
+ does our government respect them? And do you care enough to preserve
+ them here?
+
+ If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch.
+ Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information
+ and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but
+ we can beat it in November.
+
+
+ Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
+ Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium
+ provided this notice is preserved.
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