From: harling@miki.pictel.com (Dan Harling)
Subject: Re: I Have Been Forbidden to Speak the Truth From THIS Account
Organization: PictureTel Corporation
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 21:21:59 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.072244.25226@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> guy@coos.dartmouth.edu (Guy Schiavone) writes:
>  ...  I have discussed the matter with the
>folks at AT&T.  The people who removed John DiNardo's access are concerned
>about the "offensive" content of his posts.  Thus, they do *not* treat
>all their employees in exactly the same way:  Those with "acceptable"
>or mainstream political views may discuss political issues on the net, but
>those with beliefs similar to DiNardo's will have their access removed if
>they discuss political issues on the net.
>
>  I have no argument with AT&T's right to prevent its employees from using
>their facilities to express personal opinions, just so it is done in a fair
>and equitable manner.  For example, IMO AT&T would be perfectly within their
>rights to restrict employees posts to "non-political" newsgroups only,
>such as the sci.* groups.  IMO, AT&T would also be perfectly justified in
>banning across the board all posts made for personal reasons.  What I object
>to is censorship (short defn) - the selective filtering of communications
>for the purpose of eliminating ideas deemed unorthodox, nonconformist or
>otherwise unacceptable.

I suspect it's more like "the selective filtering of communications for
the purpose of eliminating frequent complaints that are being received
by the SysAdmin."


>  Consider the following situation.  Let's say, for the sake of argument,
>that you are a highly motivated member of the Republican party.  Further,
>let's imagine that your sysadmin interpreted HP's NetNews policy as meaning
>that only the views of the dominant party, the Democrats, are appropriate
>material for posting to NetNews, and the views of all other political
>parties must be suppressed on the grounds that they are offensive to the
>majority.  Would you then consider your company, HP, guilty of practicing
>censorship?

The above example could also be related to a company policy toward
solicitation.  PictureTel might not look kindly upon me if I went
around to all my co-workers' desks and handed out pamphlets sponsored
by the Republican party.  They might even ask that I stop.

Since this was in my employment contract when I signed it, I am bound
to honor it.  Likewise, if the folks at AT&T consider Mr. DiNardo's
posts to be representing an outside interest, or inflammatory in
nature, this may also fall under his contract of employment.  They have
apparently caused a bit of a disruption at his place of employment,
either between himself and his fellow employees, or between himself and
the person receiving the complaints.

The above is purely speculation; I have no specific facts to support
any of these suggestions, as the details are none of my business.
____________________________________________________________________________
Daniel A. Harling                        (harling@pictel.com)
PictureTel Corp.             Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of
Peabody, MA  01960                 PictureTel, but they ought to be!
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy.jfk:3736 alt.conspiracy:11892 alt.activism:18402 alt.society.civil-liberty:6465 alt.individualism:5926 alt.censorship:8596 talk.politics.misc:58310 misc.headlines:6921 soc.culture.usa:8263