By Bernard Hughes (bernard@timedancer.com ).
I care because the Net is a new and powerful place for people to relate. Cyberspace extends the ways of relating beyond what is possible in real space. If we carry our old ways into cyberspace we will destroy its promise. Worse we may well unleash a new horror on the world.
Cyberspace is not real space. In real space, if you make a "rude" noise next to me, I can't help but hear it. On the Net I can choose who I hear. If I don't like discussions of sex on the Net, I don't join them.
The Net is a place where my personal action counts. If I thought it important that people don't easily find sexual material, 1 would do something about it. I would put up my own pages with sexual keywords. Then I could deliver my objections to those searching for sexual content. I wouldn't rely on Big Brother. Having found this freedom of expression, why would I give it away?
The Net is about the exchange of ideas. When "community standards" form the basis for the only acceptable ideas, this simply becomes an opportunity to praise the status quo. 1 believe our world faces many crises that only new ideas can solve. We need to challenge the status quo to survive.
We face a population crisis, and are not doing much about it. We may have to change our ideas about family, sex and children to meet the challenge. How can we do that on a Net governed by the Communications Decency Act?
The most frightening thing to me that most people assume the new cyberlaws are like old laws. The old laws were enforced by human police, intermittently and flexibly. Cyberlaws are enforced by computers, always and absolutely. Suppose America Online decides the word "breast" cannot appear on its Net. It programs its machines accordingly. The word "breast" will never appear in a discussion, ever. Period.
Suppose all the city ordinances in your town were enforced totally, all the time. Do you even know what they are? In real space you may decide to jaywalk if the streets are totally empty. If you are really unlucky you may get caught and fined. In cyberspace you COULD NOT break that law, not matter how absurd the context. Not that you will be fined if you do, but that it will be rendered physically impossible. That is the level of enforcement that is possible on the Net. Only an elite with special powers (either legal or illegal) will be able to get around these restrictions.
What would be the meaning of Democracy in such a world?
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