From: gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
Subject: Re: soc.feminism editorial policy 
Summary: Is moderation censorship?
Organization: mydog in exile
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 16:55:19 GMT

The story thus far: someone posted a complaint that the
moderators of soc.feminism had been practicing censorship.
This has been a frequent charge against soc.feminism,
curiously not carried over to other moderated groups such
as soc.religion.christian or comp.sources.misc.  Discussion
of the matter has largely been about what censorship is,
both generally and in the Net context.

My definition of censorship has been "to prevent from 
appearing," applied to expression or utterance.  I would
add "by means of authority", but it seems my definition is
already too narrow for some people.  Another participant
in this thread, greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield) 
prefers a much broader definition, and I quote,

| From a formal standpoint, I accept an objective definition of censorship
| as in the following definition (from my Webster Handy College Dictionary):
| 
| censor
| 
| n.   1, one empowered to judge the fitness of manuscripts, communications,
|      etc. for publication.
|      2, one who censures censures; a faultfinder.
| v.t. judge critically; examine for fitness; delete as unsuitable

I did not like this definition, which seems to me to
include any form of editing or selection.  In a previous
article, I have doubted that the person complaining of
"censorship" in soc.feminism was thinking of it in this
way, or he would have to complain about most of the public
media.

I wrote:
|   >        ....  For instance, if the _New_York_Times_ chooses
|   > not to print full-page frontally-exposed nudes, it is not
|   > said to be censorship, because this sort of material can
|   > easily be found at the same newsstand.  If, however, the
|   > nudes are excised from all publications by the government or
|   > by public pressure, most people call this censorship.  I

hairy@sloth.equinox.gen.nz (Phil Anderson) writes:
| OK, so you maintain that if some material is barred from one medium 
| because of its content, but can still be published in some other 
| medium, it hasn't been censored. Isn't this analogous to saying that 
| if it's banned from all publications in one country by the government, 
| but is still available in some other country, then it hasn't been 
| censored?

No.  I said "this sort of material can easily be found
at the same newsstand" in the paragraph you're following
up.  I'm assuming a common audience.

gf:
|   > Even using such a broad definition, however, newsgroup
|   > moderation can't be called censorship, because an article
|   > which the moderators refuse to publish can be published in
|   > another newsgroup ....
|     [...]
|   >             ...  What maddens the enemies of soc.feminism is
|   > that they cannot censor feminist articles by overwhelming
|   > them with flames  ....

pa:
| If moderation isn't censorship, then I don't see how flaming could be 
| considered even vaguely close to censorship.

I'm glad you asked that question.  To answer it I'll give an
answer from real Net life which has nothing to do with
either flaming or feminism.  There is a newsgroup called
alt.postmodern in which a rather wide variety of subject
matter appears -- to put it mildly.  About the only constant
is that, once every two or three months, some cutie posts an
article declaring that "postmodern" is an oxymoron.  There
has been, however, a certain resentment by some towards the
newsgroup, much as there is a certain resentment toward
intellectuality or contemporary art.  Sometimes some people
have felt like bugging the regulars a bit.

Several months ago, alt.postmodern became the home of a
practice called "cascades."  A cascade is a modern version
of a very ancient art form in which each player composes a
line which plays on the previous line, often rhyming it,
or making puns or other plays on its sound or meaning.  It
is a game, and can be played with a good deal of wit, but
given the Net environment wit was not much in evidence in
poor alt.postmodern's cascades.  There were twenty or thirty
such articles a day, two hundred in a week.  When some of
the other participants in the group started using kill files
to skip them, the cascaders made subtle changes to their
headers to ensure that they would continue to be read.
Besides, a lot of people's news readers don't have an
efficient kill function.  In effect, the cascaders had
effaced the newsgroup.

Now, the cascaders were just playing, and eventually they
went away, but certain subjects -- especially feminism --
inspire deep feelings of antagonism and fear in a 
significant minority of Net participants.  These people
fought very hard to keep any mention or development of
feminism from appearing in soc.women or elsewhere, and 
to keep soc.feminism from being created, and once it was
created, they have continued to struggle to change the
moderation or moderators so that they could apply the 
same techniques within soc.feminism that have evidently
been successful elsewhere.  _That_ is censorship, in
my definition: to prevent from appearing, to prevent
from being seen.  Anywhere.

Now, moderation does not cause these antagonists be
suppressed; it only ensures that there will be some 
space free of their efforts at suppression.  They are
free to publish the same articles in other newsgroups,
some of which are better distributed than soc.feminism
(see below); they are not deprived in any way of the
common audience.

pa:
| Re the newsgroup hierarchy itself being a form of censorship, given 
| there is, in general, nothing to force people to "stay on topic" in a 
| newsgroup, I don't think existence of the hierarchy is censorship per 
| se - it's nothing more than a vague guide to content.

There's much more to it than that.  The real function of
the newsgroup hierarchy has little to do with finding a
given subject; rather, it confers a judgment of value on
the newsgroup.  I take the usual ordering to be sci, comp,
soc, rec, talk, alt.  Many news sites utilize the names
at the top of the hierarchy to select which parts of the
newsfeed they will take.  A few years ago I worked at a
business that did not take the alt groups; when the 
management decided to cut back on resources (mostly, the
phone bill) the talk and rec groups were removed as well.  
That's real censorship -- certain articles are prevented 
from appearing.  It has little to do with content or
quality and a great deal to do with politics.  (And this
is why such battles erupt over propossed newsgroups such
as "sci.objectivism" or "sci.scientology" -- the repute 
of the sci designation is being defended.)

If every site took every newsgroup, you'd be right about
the "vague guide to content" idea.  But they don't.

I might add, though, that some newsgroups are 
specifically excluded from some sites.  I found this
out when I published the transcript of an article in
soc.feminism and put up a note in some other groups
about it.  I got about half a dozen messages requesting
that I e-mail copies of the article, because even
though soc.feminism has the soc prefix, it is excluded
by name from many machines.  (The distribution software
supports acceptance or exclusion by either prefix or
explicit name.)  Evidently the SA's of these machines
have special feelings, eh?

pa: 
| BTW, another definition of censorship to add to the collection: 
| "Content-based restrictions on what expression is permitted in some 
| forum."

I think this is closer to the usual meaning of the word,
although I would add that censorship is also often
practiced per author or supposed subject, as well as per
content; for example, the exclusion of soc.feminism
alluded to above, or the exclusion of certain of the sex
groups from certain businesses and, I believe, certain
countries, like Canada, which explicitly practice
censorship of sexual materials.
-- 

 )*(    Gordon Fitch    )*(    gcf@panix.com    )*(
( 1238 Blg. Grn. Sta.,  NY NY 10274 * 718.273.5556 )
Newsgroups: alt.censorship