🚀 go-pugleaf

Proving that he Just Doesn't Get It,
  cook@rzdisk.enet.qntm.com (Wakko Warner) writes:
> ivler@crl.com (J.M. Ivler) writes:
> 	If you have something against banning smut on the Internet I
> 	have to ask, why? Go to the combat zone. Banning bad
> 	language? Good. Maybe it will clean up some of the filth
> 	around here.
> 
> >You can keep the guns, but you just can't talk about anything "we" don't 
> >like... Gotta love the dinks that think that one side is somehow better 
> >than the other...
> 
> 	whatever.

_What_ they are banning is the least important issue here.

The fundamental issue is that they think they can ban anything at all.
You may be in favor of 'banning smut', but how would you feel if they
decided talk.politics.guns was a likely hangout for militia members,
and had it banned?

Of course, there are numerous other more pragmatic issues as well.
First, if I'm an internet provider and somebody in Amsterdam posts
'smut' on alt.binaries.pictures.misc, when it propagates to my site I
will become a violator of this new law even though I haven't actually
done anything.  What do I do?  Scan every single posting that comes in
to be sure it is clean?  Not bloody likely.

Second, 'obscenity' is determined by 'community standards'.  If I run
a BBS in California, and somebody from Tennessee dials in, if they
find something on the BBS that violates TN community standards, I've
violated the law even if that something isn't 'obscene' in California.