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25853
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1 Censoring my Software
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2 Richard Stallman
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3 [From Datamation, 1 March 1996]
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4
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5
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6 Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to "prohibit
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7 pornography" on the Internet. Last fall, right-wing Christians made
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8 this cause their own. Last week, President Clinton signed the bill,
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9 and we lost the freedom of the press for the public library of the
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10 future. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.
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11
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12 No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It is a software package,
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13 an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law
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14 that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits
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15 "indecent" speech, which can include anything from famous poems, to
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16 masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex...to
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17 software.
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18
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19 Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from
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20 people who use the Internet, and people who appreciate erotica, but
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21 from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.
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22
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23 But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the
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24 forces of censorship responded with a lie: they told the public that
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25 the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a
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26 presupposition in their statements about the issue, they succeeded in
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27 misinforming the public. So here I am, censoring my software.
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28
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29 You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous "doctor program",
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30 a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor Weizenbaum at MIT.
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31 This is the program that imitates a Rogerian psychotherapist. The
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32 user talks to the program, and the program responds--by playing back
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33 the user's own statements, and by recognizing a long list of
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34 particular words.
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35
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36 The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse
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37 words, and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, "Would
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38 you please watch your tongue?" or "Let's not be vulgar." In order to
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39 do this, it had to have a list of curse words. That means the source
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40 code for the program was indecent.
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41
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42 Because of the censorship law, I had to remove this feature. (I
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43 replaced it with a message announcing that the program has been
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44 censored for your protection.) The new version of the doctor doesn't
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45 recognize the indecent words. If you curse at it, it curses right
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46 back to you--for lack of knowing better.
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47
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48 Now that people are facing the threat of two years in prison for
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49 indecent network postings, it would be helpful if they could access
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50 precise rules via the Internet for how to avoid imprisonment.
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51 However, this is impossible. The rules would have to mention the
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52 forbidden words, so posting them on the Internet would be against the
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53 rules.
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54
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55 Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what "indecent" means.
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56 I have to do this, because nobody knows for sure. The most obvious
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57465
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57 possible meaning is the meaning it has for television, so I'm using
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25853
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58 that as a tentative assumption. However, there is a good chance that
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59 our courts will reject that interpretation of the law as
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60 unconstitutional.
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61
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62 We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of
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63 publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely
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64 reject any law prohibiting "indecent" publications on the Internet.
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65
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66 What really worries me is that the courts might take a muddled
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67 in-between escape route--by choosing another interpretation of
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68 "indecent", one that permits the doctor program or a statement of the
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69 decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that children can
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70 browse through in the public library and the bookstore. Over the
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71 years, as the Internet replaces the public library and the bookstore,
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72 some of our freedom of the press will be lost.
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73
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74 Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the
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75 Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this
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76 country--its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how well
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77 does our government respect them? And do you care enough to preserve
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78 them here?
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79
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80 If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch.
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81 Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information
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82 and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but
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83 we can beat it in November.
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84
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85 Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
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86 Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium
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87 provided this notice is preserved.
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