| July 1996 | http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/jul/shapol.html |
The Wired World According to Women, by Leslie Regan Shade
Women's Views on Free Speech, Censorship, and Online Harassment
The issue of offensive material (including pornography, hate material, harassing messages, and defamation) on the Internet has generated considerable controversy and coverage, both well-informed and sensationalistic. Stephanie Brail's experience with online harassment, which she details in her essay, "The Price of Admission: Harrassment and Free Speech in the Wild, Wild West," became a bit of a media sensation and, for many feminists, problematized the fine distinctions between free speech and censorship. Her nonlegal definition of online harassment is 'wanna fuck' e- mail: unsolicited e-mail for dates or sex, typically from men to women. Even though such harassment is 'only words', when "words hurt," the fuzziness sets in. Bozo filters and kill-files are some of the technical solutions for eliminating such nuisances, but many women find that these remedies can't ameliorate the situation. Riotgrrl sensibilitiesħspeaking outħmay be the only solution now for 'taking back the Net'.
As well, issues over free speech and censorship has
certainly impacted one community of users--the academic
community and users of Usenet. Recent controversies in the
Canadian and U.S. academic community, including several
cases at universities where various Usenet conferences in
the alt.sex hierarchy have been removed, from university
computing facilities due to their sexually explicit and
offensive content, raise several troubling questions: what
are acceptable use policies for networks?; what constitutes
proper use of university computing facilities?; what is
free speech in the electronic
environment, and on university computing facilities?; can
offensive
newsgroups and offensive messages be considered sexual
harassment
or hate literature? In
"Sex, Fear and Condescension on Campus:
Cybercensorship at Carnegie Mellon"
Donna M.
Riley examines what happened at
Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh when administrators
attempted to censor the alt.sex hierarchy. Riley, a pro-sex
anti-censorship feminist organized the Clitoral Hoods, who
have continued to work on issues of censorship and women's
sexuality, debunking the notion that the censoring of
supposedly salacious Usenet newsgroups 'protects' women.
| Contents | Archive | Sponsors | Studies | Contact |
|---|