Free Speech

1
Free Speech Censorship, Part 2

• OFFENSIVE SPEECH in Cyberspace
• Dangerous speech
• Harassment threats harmful information
• Rhetoric
• Pornography
• Indecency
• Obscenity

2
Dangerous speech

• Illustration
• Should you be arrested? Serve a sentence?
• Why??

• Courts often must decide if speech is advocacy,
  rhetoric, a threat, or harassment. Case by case
• ____________ Government can restrict you from
  continuing to send 1-to-1 or 1-to-few
  communications that are annoying or offensive.
• Direct ________ (unless poll rhetoric) not
  protected.

3

• Where speech takes place often plays an important
  role
• Many illustrations

• IMPORTANT CASE Jake Baker
• Who was Jake Baker, and what did he do?
• What happened to him?
• Final outcome?

4

• LANDMARK FREE SPEECH CASE The New
  Nuremberg Trials
• Important preface
• 1995 Wanted posters distributed by ACLA FBI
  investigates.
• Jan 1997 Neal Horsley others put up web sites
• Oct 1998 Outcry after shooting death of Dr.
  Barnett Slepian Doctors consider sites as
  threat.
• Jan 1999 Lawsuit filed against ACLA. Trial.
• Nuremberg Trials Visualize Abortionists on Trial

5

• CLASH
• Did they cross a line here?
• Information? Incitement or advocacy?
• Threat? Privacy invasion?
• 2 Feb 1999 Result of trial in Portland, Oregon.
• Verdict appealed.
• Separate but related issue ISP shuts down site.
• (Later, Horsley sued Mindspring)
• Result of appeal 28 MARCH 2001
• But it didnt end there
• Latest Decision

6

• Headline High school kids download bomb recipe
  public outraged. Forum!
• If you provide a bomb recipe on your Web page,
  should you be arrested? Serve time? Why or why
  not?
• What if you publish a book that contains a bomb
  recipe? Should you be arrested? Go to jail?
  Why or why not?

• Hate speech Team presentation!
• If hate speech (that doesnt incite, etc.) is
  protected IRL public forums, should it all be
  protected on the Net? Why or why not?

7

• IMPORTANT questions to consider.....
• Should the manner of delivery (or ease of access)
  matter in these cases?
• Is Web browsing, or downloading a file, more like
  using the print media (protected), or like
  broadcast TV (censored)?
• Digression What did the federal judges, then
  the Supreme Court, compare it to when they
  decided the CDA case?
• Consider Intrusiveness Doctrine Should that
  still be true?

8

• Pornography

• Text, images, hot chat, tiny-sex, animated
  sequences that are sexually explicit in nature.
• Remember Pornography that is found to be
  obscene or child pornography is already
  ____________ speech.
• Defining obscene (no national standard)
• Obscenity test (1973 Miller v. California)
• 1. Would average person, applying contemporary
  community standards, find the work (taken as a
  whole) appeals to prurient interest? (intended
  audience matters)
• 2. Depict or describe sexual conduct in a
  patently offensive way? (Intent hard core,
  not just nudes)

9

• 3. Does whole work lack serious literary,
  artistic, political, scientific, or other social
  value?
• burden of proof on the government---sticky
• Obscene if yes to all three.

• Do you see any problems with this test?

• Possession of obscene material is legal
  only _________________.
• Stanley v. Georgia (1969)
• Still excludes child pornography
• artistic value is no defense

• Is indecent speech protected? Why?

10
MOST ON YOUR OWN.be prepared to answer all
questions!

• Who contributed to the Great Internet Sex Panic
  of 1995?
• What were some of Rimms findings, as reported in
  Time?
• What impression did Martin Rimms findings have
  on the average reader?
• Why did the study seem so credible?
• What arguments dis-credited Rimms findings?

3 July 1995
10
Cyberporn
11

• What federal legislation did Rimms report
  influence? What did it forbid?
• What rationale did its supporters use to pass the
  CDA?
• Why do you think it passed? (think like a
  politician.)
• What useful information might be considered
  indecent by some local community standards???
• What happened in the Net community? (Blue Ribbon
  campaign turning Web page backgrounds black.)
• What were several important arguments that
  caused the law to be struck down and declared
  unconstitutional?
• First by a three-judge tribunal in Philadelphia
• Then by the U.S. Supreme Court

12

• What is COPA?
• Status?
• What is CIPA?
• Status?
• Problems with filtering software?

13

• WAIT! Then how do we protect children from
  on-line smut??
• Who do you think should be responsible for
  protecting children? (who should censor?)
• www.safekids.com
• www.yahooligans.com/

14

• Some thoughts to leave you with.
• Filtering software will improve. It will never
  be perfect.
• Yes, pornography often serves to exploit and
  denigrate women. (Important but outside scope of
  COMP 96)
• Anonymity can serve as a cloak for the depraved
  but it has important valuable uses that we, as
  US citizens, cannot ignore.
• A function of free speech under our system of
  government is to invite dispute. It may indeed
  best serve its high purposes when it induces a
  condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with
  conditions as they are, or even stirs people to
  anger. Justice William O. Douglas, Terminiello
  v. Chicago (1949)