December 18, 1995

Free-speech activists and Netizens took to the streets and to their keyboards last week, condemning as unconstitutional the new measures for censoring the Internet that are being considered by Congress.

But while most of the outcry has raised valid concerns about the First Amendment and civil liberties, little of the discussion has focused on how censorship could cripple much of the Internet’s commercial potential.

The restrictions, part of the communications legislation being completed by a House-Senate conference committee, would make it illegal to use computer networks to transmit or store “indecent” material. Proponents said the bill would protect children on computer networks.

If the provisions become law, any user or provider of network services or information who is convicted of violating it would face a possible sentence of two years in jail and fines of as much as $100,000.

The legislation is expected to include, with some exceptions, private electronic mail, data stored on Internet servers and World Wide Web sites, and information transmitted by commercial on-line services and Internet-access providers.

What is particularly worrisome is that the legislation could create restrictions on free speech that are as sweeping as they are vague.

Indecency is a broad legal category that has been be used to ban some foul language and sexually explicit material on radio and television broadcasts, during periods when young listeners and viewers were likely to be exposed to them.

But “indecent” has been also been used successfully by various groups to ban books like J.D. Salinger’s novel “Catcher in the Rye” from high-school libraries, and to curtail the distribution to minors of safe-sex educational materials.

In the context of the Internet, even nonpornographic material accessible and legal in other media would be off limits. And new Internet entrepreneurs might not be aware of transgressions until the decency police knocked at their door.

“The real danger is to the smaller companies, the new World Wide Web providers and people who want to put up content on the Internet,” said Donna Hoffman, a Vanderbilt University business professor who specializes in electronic commerce.

“With the Web creating a new wave in commercial activity,” she said, “we’re expecting a boom in content providers who are starting to say, `People are on the Net. Let’s put stuff up and make money at it.’

“But this legislation scares them,” she added. “They’re saying, `I could go to jail if someone thinks it’s indecent and I don’t even know what words I’m allowed to use.’ ”

Though Net censorship might pose the greatest threat to small companies unable to afford big fines or costly court cases, large companies also expect to feel the chill.

Scott Kurnit, president and chief executive of MCI/News Corporation Internet Ventures, said: “We are at less risk than the entrepreneurs, because as a large company we have the resources to screen what we pass through the network. But we don’t believe that’s what the Internet is about.

“And such a law would significantly diminish what we could offer – it would be a very small version, sanitized for a lowest-common-denominator audience. You couldn’t even call it the Internet anymore. I’m not sure that product would be interesting enough to consumers that anyone would buy it.”

A restricted Internet would become unmarketable because, like a telephone network, it becomes more valuable as more information is made available on it.

Now, anyone with an Internet account can use a connected computer to find information about subjects from nuclear fission to dog grooming, and link up with millions of people around the world. The vast range of topics and opinions exchanged on the Net are both its attraction and its raison d’etre.

Katherine Fulton, president of the Institute for Alternative Journalism and former editor of The Independent, a newspaper based in Durham, N.C., said, “If Jesse Helms had been able to stop me from publishing things he deemed indecent, we couldn’t have published an independent alternative newsweekly.” Sen. Jesse Helms is a well-known Republican conservative from North Carolina.

“This proposal will have more than a chilling effect. It may well mean a cold death for everyone except very rich and very cautious media companies.”

The Internet is a powerful example of free speech and the free market in action; it is curious that the Net has alarmed the lawmakers of a nation founded on those principles.

Those who condemn the proposed Internet censorship measure do acknowledge the existence of a problem: the need to protect children from pornography and anything else a parent deems harmful. But when it comes to Internet technology, “most of these laws are advanced by people who don’t `get it,’ ” said Will Hearst, the venture capitalist who is acting chief executive of the Internet start-up company ATHOME and the former editor and publisher of The San Francisco Examiner.

If the Internet is to become a true consumer technology that is welcomed into the home, Hearst said, parents should use technology to filter out offending material.

But making censorship the filter would signal a fundamental change in the role that the government plays in regulating communications.

Hearst said, “I’d hate to see government succeed in doing in the interactive space what they’ve failed or chosen not to do in traditional publishing and broadcasting, which is to set moral standards by regulation rather than by individual choice.”

Denise Caruso

c.1995 N.Y. Times News Service