There's recently been a big fuss in
uk.net
over current government moves (in the UK) towards censorship of
usenet and web content.
The justification most commonly cited in the UK (specifically the
one focussed on by the Observer newspaper in their campaign to
bring in censorship of a competing medium) is the supression of
child pornography.
Here's my personal take on the whole issue. Shameless editorial
follows ...
From: charles@fma.com (Charlie Stross)
Newsgroups: uk.misc,uk.legal,uk.politics.misc,alt.censorship,uk.net,news.admin.censorship
Subject: Moral panics in cyberspace
Organization: fma
Reply-To: charles@fma.com
Message-Id:
X-Newsreader: slrn (0.8.8.1 UNIX)
Date: 3 Sep 96 15:08:36 GMT
Lines: 134
Path: news.fma.com!charles
Xref: news.fma.com uk.misc:72991 uk.legal:26147 uk.politics.misc:23947 alt.censorship:62888 uk.net:15035 news.admin.censorship:8537
J Fisher<johnf@epcc.ed.ac.uk> wrote
(in article <Dx5MxA.CGI.0.staffin.dcs.ed.ac.uk@dcs.ed.ac.uk>):
>I think it's clear from this case that there's something
>else going on. It isn't *only* the harm done to the children
>that outrages people about molestation cases, no matter what
>they say. It's something else. I don't know exactly what
>it is, but it's atavistic and I distrust it profoundly.
It's that charming little phenomenon known as a 'moral panic'.
My girlfriend, being a neo-pagan, has made something of a study of the
phenomenon. It happens in all times and cultures, and usually occurs
at times when (a) there is generalized fear and insecurity, and (b)
there's a convenient out-group whose behaviour sets them apart from
the body of society. You can also add (c) a source of information that
spreads rumours, gossip, and disinformation about (b) to their detriment,
but that's optional.
In this day and age, you'd have to have a pretty thick skin to assert that
nobody feels insecure or afraid. And it must be said that paedophiles
are close to being the ultimate out-group. Add a media campaign against
this inchoate group that, for the most part, doesn't have a shared sense
of cultural identity, and you have the ideal enemy for a moral panic
to feed off: they're invisible, they're everywhere, they're insidious,
and they're a threat to some deeply-held ideas about the family, personal
development, and teen sexuality.
I think that anyone who forces or coerces someone else into taking
part in an intimate sexual act against their will (or in the absence
of their ability to give informed consent) is despicable. I don't see
why those who coerce small children are qualitatively worse than, say,
violent rapists of adult men and women (except insofar as the victim in
a specific case may suffer to a different extent afterwards).
However, I do see a strong social dynamic for persecuting paedophiles
(as opposed to rapists and serial killers). By existing they subvert the
sentimental ideal of childhood innocence. They also act as a scapegoat
for our inability to do better for our children in general; it's much
easier to feel good about burning some paedophiles than to do something
about the 30% of children in the UK who live in poverty. Thus, we get
a moral panic; the ultimate mass social form of evasion behaviour.
The issue of pornography is a loaded one. By existing, paedophile
porn forces us to confront the existence of the out-group, confirming
our worst fears about human nature and fanning the flames of the
witch-burning. But by the same token, it's very hard to prove that it
directly causes harm. And there's a real problem in detatching the nature
of the material from its implications. Is a photograph of a man buggering
and strangling a young child obscene? (I think most people would say
"yes".) But what if the photograph is a photomontage, and no actual
physical contact took place, and nobody was harmed? Take it further:
what if the photograph is entirely synthetic, a fiction generated in a
computer, and no such man and no such child exist?
Let's take it further. Sexually abusing people is bad. But what do
you say about a man who fantasizes about, say, abusing young girls,
but who sublimates their desires by sexual role-play with a consenting
(adult) woman?
(They thought impure thoughts, even though they found an acceptable
outlet for them. Throw them on the fire too, lest we risk contamination
ourselves!)
Moral panics feed off guilt that is spread by contagion.
Usenet adds a new twist to the whole issue. It's a very lawless, somewhat
crazy environment. Anyone can say anything, anywhere. And this adds to
the illusion that speech is equivalent to action. If someone posts to
usenet saying that they fuck ducks, it is a fair bet that someone else
reading usenet is going to believe them. Thus, even sarcastic or ironic
comments are misunderstood and we run the risk of losing our grip on
reality -- of drifting with the rhetoric and mistaking sound and thunder
for substance. This is the usual disease that afflicts the press -- paper,
after all, is just a slowed-down, inconvenient analogue for the net --
but to make matters worse, when journalists discover usenet the first
thing they tend to do is to catch all the pathologies that are going
round. Usenet is full of lurid corners that can't help but fascinate
someone whose vocation is to go digging for information. You don't need
to go looking for porn; alt.conspiracy will do for starters. Usenet
is bound, almost by design, to confirm an ignorant journalist's worst
prejudices while fanning their fears (including the subconscious one of
being rendered obsolete by a new medium).
The web acts as the final trigger that makes the whole damned mess go
critical. The web is the ultimate paper publishing medium (if you discount
it's poor speed, worse resolution, high cost of access, and the difficulty
of curling up on the sofa with a cup of coffee and a good website to
read). It cuts the cost of publishing until the production costs diminish
towards zero; editorial and content reign supreme. Thus, people who
would hitherto have been marginalized to the point of communicating in
mimeographed fanzines can suddenly turn out professional-looking sites as
eyeball-friendly as those of a national newspaper. And thus, many minority
group interests are dragged kicking and screaming into the public eye.
Take me as an example. I'm an SF fan. SF fandom has existed as a distinct
subculture (not the same as the set of people who like reading SF or
watching SF movies) for some years. It's practiced furtively, in dark
bars and conventions at obscure hotels, predominantly by shady people
with beards, beer-guts, glasses, and jackets with too many pockets.
It doesn't obviously harm anyone, but who's to say that next year
corrupting innocent children by feeding them works of speculative fiction
might not rank in our social scale of demonization just short of rape,
murder, and giving succour to the Tory party? If that ever happens,
I'm in for the high-jump. There's (gasp) evil hideous abusive science
fiction content all over my web site! I'm publishing this awful filth! I'm
a purveyor of the hard stuff! I've got to be locked up and my website
erased before it corrupts any more innocent young minds! So it goes.
My conclusion: take a social out-group who do something that many people
disapprove of. Add misinformative media. Add media access. Add
widespread social insecurity and you've got a full-scale witch-hunt
on your hands.
My second conclusion: child abuse is indefensible, but witch hunts are
also indefensible. In fact, I think they're worse. They eat innocents
along with the guilty, and they take a terrible toll of the mutual trust
that holds a society together.
I also have an opinion: witch hunts and censorship are frequently
encouraged by those in a position of power because ...
- They distract the populace from the real issues of the day,
leaving those with a vested interest in the status quo to keep
running things without interruption.
-
People with a vested interest in the status quo hate
unconstrained communications; it makes it difficult to stop
people saying uncomortable things in public and stirring up
trouble.
- People with a vested interest in a communications industry hate
new competing communications channels: see (a) and (b).
- New communications systems are often followed, after a period of
assimilation, by new political or governmental trends. It should
be obvious why those with vested interests in the status quo
don't want a new communications system to rock the boat.
I don't believe there is an orchestrated conspiracy to censor
usenet. But there does seem to be a confluence of interests working to
limit our freedom of expression, the boundaries of acceptable political
discourse, and our ability to discuss real issues in a clear-headed
and unemotional manner. And this coalition of interests is emerging
world-wide. I'll be writing at length about it in issue 105 of Computer
Shopper ...