Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1995)
____ t.._ The Clackania^jPrint inion Wednesday, Ngjpenyer Restricting e-mail: Censoring the ‘net’ and e-mail whose job is it? Brad Zimmerman Staff Writer Brendon Neal, Opinion Editor, Brad Zimitnerman, Staff Writer Last week’s mass electronic- mailing of the letter to the Clackamas Print and much of the school staff raised concerns about the uncontrolled use of e- mail. We believe that regulations should be based on set, pre-de termined guidelines. Warnings could then be issued, and repeat offenders would lose their e-mail rights. The actual regulations should be determined by a com bination of administratorsand ASG members. Students and staff would then vote on the fi nal draft. A two-thirds majority should be required for each to pass. Such a high vote would weaken claims against the con stitutionality of any regulations passed and help insure that they are fair. Each restriction would be voted on and failed or passed individually on its own merits. Complaints would be fil tered out by the Computer De- partment Chair Baldwin VanderBijl, or if it became too time-consuming, hire an indi- vidual to co ver e-mail and Internet (when it becomes avail able) problems or complaints. If the complaints are deter mined to be legitimate, they could then be sent to a group of individuals made up of a combi nation of members of ASG stu dent representatives and admin istrators who would deal with the situations. One of the more common e- mail problems is unwanted mass mailing, especially e-mail bomb ing. They waste the readers’ time, because they have to at least read far enough into the mail to decide whether to finish it or not. E-mail bombing.is the act of sending extremely large amounts of mail or an extremely high number of messages to other account (s). It can also be used to spread libel. Libel is defined as a written statement that dam ages by defamin g a person’s character or reputation. E-mail bombs could be mostly prevented by putting a limit on the number of copies sent. Programs can be set up to limit the number of copies sent at one time. If someone needed to mass-mail for a legitimate rea son, they could get temporary passwords from school officials to get around the mass-mailing block. The school is currently asking users to limit their sendings to 10 copies, but they currently do not have any sys tem running to stop mass-mail ing. The more difficult portion of regulation would be content. We are not encouraging censorship, defined as the act of suppress ing information deemed objec tionable; however, if people do find e-mail sent to them unac ceptable they need an avenue of complaint. This could not be directly policed because the un wanted action would have to be done before administrators would know it was occurring. Receivers of the unacceptable e- mail would need to contact the regulators. Correspondents using e- mail need to have a consensus of what they feel is acceptable. If we agree that censorship is un acceptable in the mass form then users must censor their own mes sages to each other in order to keep misunderstandings from occuring. While censorship is unac ceptable, regulation is necessary to avoid misuse of e-mail. Cen sorship stops the sending of spe cific topics; regulations would only affect e-mail that is com plained about by the receiver. Regulations wouldn’t stop mis use of e-mail, but it would dis courage senders from misusing e-mail. The Clackamas Print Staff Editor-in-Chief: Chad Patteson (Ext. 2576) Managing Editor;- Amy K. Hanson (Ext. 2576) Feature Editor: Jon Roberts (Ext. 2578) Sports Editor: Jesse Sowa (Ext. 2578) Photography Editor: Josh Kehler (Ext. 2578) Copy Editor: Vicki Welch (Ext. 2578) Opinion Editor: Brendon Neal (Ext. 2576) Business Manager: Cori Kargel (Ext. 2578) ♦ ♦♦♦ Staff Writers/Photographers: Eric Eatherton, Dan Anderson, Tim Countryman, Megan Friedow, Lora Wahrgren, Linda Barr Batdorf, Andrew Beck, Pamela Sirianni, Ryan Humphris, Paul Ulmen, Brad Zimmerman Secretary: JoAnne Gale (Ext. 2309) Advisor : Linda Vogt (Ext. 2310) The Clackamas Print aims to report the news in an honest, unbiased, :ssional manner. The opinions expressed in The Clackamas Print do not ssarily reflect those of the student body, college administration, its faculty or Clackamas Print's advertisers. Products and services advertised in The Clackamas Print are not necessarily endorsed by anyone associated with The Clackamas Print. The Clackamas Print is a weekly publication distributed :very Wednesday except for finals week. The advertising rate is $4.50 per col- All signed letters to the editor will be considered for publication and must >e submitted by 1 p.m. the Friday prior to the next issue. We will not print letters hat are libelous in nature. Clackamas Community College, 19600 S. Molalla Avenue, Oregon City, Oregon, 97045; Barlow 104; (503) 657-6958, ext. 2309. E-mail: cccprint@clackamas.cc.or.us America Online sells itself as a “family service” - the common person’s gateway to the wealth of the Internet; using that image, AOL has added many members and made a great deal of money. In order to keep that revenue com ing, AOL strives to eliminate dis cussion, ideas or materials that interfere with its mission to pro vide a service with a family envi ronment. AOL’s censorship is based around its “Terms of Service”(ToS), the con tract that all AOL members supposedly agree to when they cre ate their accounts. The ToS is a set of documents that cover a variety of subjects, ranging from software licensing to purchasing products online to online conduct. Much of this agreement is written in legalese which is not only difficult to un derstand but also very vague. It is quite clear, however, that un der the agreement, AOL is the sole judge of what is “acceptable” and what is a “violation” of the ToS. The ToS bans many broad forms of online expression. The central contract states, “Member is prohibited from posting on or transmitting through the AOL Service any unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pro fane, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectional material of any kind, including, but not limited to, any material which encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law.” The determination as to what ex actly fits any of these categories is entirely up to AOL and its ad ministrators. AOL also maintains a list of words that it considers vulgar. This list has resulted in even fur- ther restrictions, due to the fàct that, besides restriction on sexual slang, it also restricts words re ferring to homosexuality. The most affected by these restrictive guidelines has been AOL’s public messaging areas. If a forum host finds a message un acceptable, he or she can imme diately delete the post without notice. These deletions are sub ject completely to the whims of the forum host; objectional words or conversations can be de leted without notice. Words tamer than the ones men tioned in AOL’s “vulgarity guidelines” have resulted in he deletion of posts. All of this AOL censor ship should be kept in mind as the college formulates its own restrictions on e-mail. The people who are draw ing up e-mail guidelines should keep in mind that one can easily cross over the line of “restriction” to “censorship’’, which is actively searching (and eradicating) that which is deemed objectional. The restriction of e-mail would result in punishment for what has been agreed upon as objectionable. Such actions would not only be detrimental to CCC’s learning environment, but to free speech itself. Student has concerns about newspaper pratices To the Editor: I am compelled as a student of'political science and as some one with eight years experience editing a community newspaper to address some of the problem atic issues raised by your critique of a recent letter to the editor (The Clackamas Print, Nov. 8). As an editor who faced weekly dead lines, real community issues and real consequences I am concerned with the apparent lack of profes sional quality of the “community” owned publication. The leader ship quality seems to be lacking any true experiential knowledge. The students operating this pub lication deserve a clear under standing of the penalties they face by exercising faulty judgement in executing their editorial deci sions. This understanding will be critical to their success. Criticism comes not only from readers but from publishers, advertisers and public officials. Public officials expect professionalism and if they don’t get it they tend to keep the journalist “out of the loop.” Fac ulty advisors who ignore this are woefully derelict in their respon sibilities. This general complaint is based on knowledge I earned facing the real problems of newspapering and dealing with daily issues surrounding civic government, elitist power back ers, and the community welfare. Specifically, I take issue with the manner and message of your editorial response. Personal re sponses to readers are unwise at best. It demonstrates immaturity that obscures judgment and ulti mately damages credibility. The final judgment made by readers and advertisers is based on the credibility and actions of the pub lication itself. That is, there is no reason to take criticism per sonally and there is absolutely no reason to respond by deconstructing the reader’s letter. If the criticism lacks merit, then you will prove yourself through your actions. By responding per sonally, you prove yourself inse cure and immature. Let reader’s comments stand alone on their own merit. Secondly, if readers bring up issues they consider important and you are criticized for ignor ing these issues, then you must reevaluate whether or not your coverage was complete and satis factory in the first place. Any re sponse should be made by either covering the issues raised or not covering them. By responding in the manner that you did, you raise questions rather than answer them, and the appearance is then created that you are indeed a “lapdog” for the administration. If not a lapdog press you certainly would not rely on the administra tion alone for your answers. Dig ging beyond the pat answers and locating the truth is the job of journalists. The heart of any “free” press is the role it plays as watchdog. Thirdly, be careful what you level as a threat. Asking a legiti mate question and then suggest ing that the ACLU might be in terested in the answer is not a threat, unless of course, there is something wrong with the an swer. In this case, the so-called threat comes from a citizen de manding appropriate justification for use of public funds. There is nothing at all to fear or feel threat ened by except your answer to the question. As journalists, you should be more concerned with the answer»and not the questions. Fourth, don’t bandy terms like “libel” and “defamation” around loosely. Above all, never label or insinuate that a reader’s criticism of you is libelous or defamatory. If it was libelous or defamatory you shouldn’t have printed it in the first place. The publication that prints the offend ingpiece is culpable for any dam age it causes. It would be argued that you defamed yourselves. Additionally, who cares if you don’fappreciate being called “so- called” journalists? That is ex actly what you are until you earn the respect the title carries. And Finally, even if the letter was li belous, you, the publication’s rep resentatives, are public figures. You are funded publicly and you continued on page 3
