Free speech or freedom to live?

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From the latest issue of "CyberBriefs"---

The parents of a murdered 10-year-old Massachusetts boy have filed a $200 million lawsuit against an Internet site that encourages sex between men and boys. Barbara and Robert Curley are also suing the Internet service provider that hosts the Web site operated by the North American Man Boy Love Association. In their federal wrongful death and civil rights suit filed in Boston, the parents say materials posted on NAMBLA's Web site caused member Charles Jaynes to murder their son, Jeffrey Curley. The boy was tortured and suffocated with a gasoline-soaked rag on Oct. 1, 1997, after resisting sexual advances from Jaynes and another man, who are both serving life sentences for the murder. Curley family attorney Lawrence Frisoli said in Wednesday's Boston Herald that NAMBLA and the Colorado-based Verio Inc. ISP are "clearly attempting to incite people to rape young children." Frisoli said he believes the suit is the first against an ISP alleging that material on a Web site led to murder.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 18, 2000

Answers

Don't see it as an either or, Lars.

Oh, it's rhetorical.

No, the question is melodramatic.

Ah shoot Lars. I'm mean, "Ah, shoot, Lars."

Hypothetically, if Lars were to end up deceased by reasons of gunshot (or arrow) in the near future I could be sued for conspiracy to incite violence against Lars.

Don't hit the Submit butto...

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), May 18, 2000.


Bingo, baby

Wha?

-- (nemesis@awol.com), May 18, 2000.


OK nemesis. This time with clarity.

Subject: Free speech or freedom to live?

Is Lar's requesting we the people choose between the two? I think not.

Is his question rhetorical? I think so.

Is it also melodramatic? I think so.

The 2nd part of my 1st post is a lame attempt to show my disdain for conspiracy charges.

Addendum: The crime portrayed is heinous. I won't for one minute pretend I know this family's pain. It is sad they feel the need to lash out. It simply prolongs the agaony & justifies their anger. Or so I philosophize from a distance. I refer them to Elizabeth Kubler- Ross' book on death & dying.

Hokey-dokey?

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), May 18, 2000.


Bingo 1---

I was being neither rhetorical nor melodramatic. I was being ironic. This tragedy has the potential to polarize two otherwise desirable goals--protection of free speech and protection of vulnerable children.

Too often we see debates on valid issues become captured by opposing extremists who have very different agendas than those about which the debate is publically framed. Gun control is an example.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 18, 2000.


I don't understand this one. A 10-year old boy is surfing unsupervised on the internet with no filter of material [assumption.] He just HAPPENS to run across NAMBLA's Web site, where he apparently meets someone, who apparently learns where this boy lives? goes to school? THEN he is again unsupervised long enough to GO somewhere with these men, or did they kidnap him?

It's no fault of the parents that this happened? I've never been to NAMBLA's site [wonder why THAT is?], but I doubt my filter would even allow me in. Does Verio have ANY connection to NAMBLA, or would any ISP have done?

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 18, 2000.



Anita---

Interesting. I've never been to NAMBLA's site either even tho I am a North American man. It never occurred to me.

But your response made me curious. I did a search on Yahoo and there it was, the NAMBLA Home Page. I clicked on the link and immediately got a gray screen saying FORBIDDEN ON THIS SERVER. So my ISP is policing (censoring?) part of the Internet.

My uninformed guess is that the boy heard about this site, possibly from some buddies. He might have heard he could make some easy money there. He might have even gone there before.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 18, 2000.


They may as well sue the government for allowing NAMBLA to obtain a website in the first place....

Or maybe we should just sign away all our rights and let the government decide what we should and shouldn't be allowed to do?

The parents are grief stricken, and feel guilty, and don't want to appear guilty and so.....lawsuit against anyone they can find.

The phone company is next, no doubt. After all, they made the conection possible, right?

-- idiots for parents! (kid@lucky.soul.now), May 18, 2000.


Interesting, Lars. I sought it out and tried as well. It's forbidden on MY ISP also. I wonder if this censoring occurred BEFORE or AFTER the lawsuit.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 18, 2000.

I can't get in to the Nambla.org web site either. I don't get a "forbidden" message. Just the typical IE 5.x message:

The page you are looking for is currently unavailable. The Web site might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your browser settings.

Lars, not the first time irony sailed well over my head. This is why I carry an extra tank of nitrous oxide at all times. Just smile & wave to the nice people...

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), May 18, 2000.


I get the message "Netscape is unable to locate the server www.nambla.org, the server does not have a DNS entry"

Looks like the domain name was revoked.

-- (no@great.loss), May 18, 2000.



Bingo 1---LOL, irony is tricky. It often sails by me too and it often misfires when I try it myself.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 18, 2000.

Wish I'd gone to law school instead. Ka-ching, Ka-ching, Ka-ching.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), May 19, 2000.

While on the subject of internet policing, can an AOL user verify the following?

From Fred Langa's direct email list:

"But there's a darker side to content filtering. For example, AOL uses its own content filters, which---like almost everything else on AOL---are nonstandard. And they appear to go far beyond filtering for sex, violence, nudity, and strong language." /////////////////

5) Censorship, Big Brother, AOL, and Site Ratings

I recently added content ratings to Langa.Com using a voluntary program run by the Internet Content Rating Association: You embed special codes in a site's pages to alert "nannyware" and browser content filters to the presence (or absence) of potentially offensive materials: specifically sex, violence, nudity, and strong language. (See http://www.icra.org/ and http://www.w3.org/PICS )

I hadn't rated the Langa.Com site before because, well, it's pretty innocuous. In fact, after wading through the ratings process, I got a zero on all counts except language--- because of the occasional mild epithet (e.g. a rare "hell" or a "damn"), I got a language rating of a "one" out of a possible five, and I probably still could have made that a zero if I'd wanted to push it.

With such tame content, why bother rating at all? Well, it turns out some ISPs, browser settings, nannyware, and content providers won't let you view a site at all unless it's been rated; unless it passes their content filters. Although this is a "guilty until proven innocent" approach, I can understand why it's done: Otherwise, the rawest, raunchiest X-rated site or hate-speech site (and the like) could simply remain unrated and accessible to children--- the people these ratings are intended to protect. Rating your site is easy and involves no censorship: All you're doing is describing what's already there. I was glad to add the ratings code to Langa.Com.

But there's a darker side to content filtering. For example, AOL uses its own content filters, which---like almost everything else on AOL---are nonstandard. And they appear to go far beyond filtering for sex, violence, nudity, and strong language.

For example, AOL's content filters can keep you from visiting competitors' sites, and they also appear to be fostering a specific political agenda. For example, with restrictive settings turned on, AOL lets kids visit the home page of the Republican National Committee ( http://www.rnc.org ), but not the Democratic National Committee site ( http://www.democrats.org ). It's not a ratings thing--- I've looked at the source code for both sites, and neither carries internal ratings. Rather, something or someone inside AOL has decided that the Republican site is OK for young minds and the Democratic site is not.

Readers have told me that AOL lets them visit some pro-life/anti- abortion sites, but not some pro-choice/abortion-rights sites; or some pro-gun sites but not some gun-control sites; and in general, allows access to conservative-agenda sites more often than to liberal-agenda sites. I haven't personally checked out every variation--- I avoid AOL as much as possible. But I did specifically check out the Republican/Democrat sites, and it's true that kids can visit the former, but not the latter.

Regardless of your political views, I hope you agree with me that this kind of content filtering is a truly evil thing if it's deliberate; and a truly inexcusable thing even if it's just programmatic sloppiness or stupidity: This has nothing to do with protecting kids. It amounts to censorship, and it's dead wrong.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 19, 2000.


Anita:

Thanks for posting. This really is an outrage. I knew AOL was scum, but this takes the cake. I am skeptical of the market leader in any segment of the economy-and for good reason, as I am always being given information to confirm my suspicions.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), May 19, 2000.


I can't find the link to this story..it was in my local newspaper on May 17, 2000.

Murdered boy's parents sue pedophile association

Boston(AP)

The parents of murder victim Jeffery Curley filed a $200 million federal lawsuit against the North American Man/Boy Love Association, claiming one of the men convicted of killing the 10-year-old Cambridge boy was incited by the group.

Barbara and Robert Curley allege that NAMBLA "encourages its members to rape male children."

The suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court also claims that "NAMBLA serves as a conduit for an underground network of pedophiles in the United States."

Jeffery Curley was killed on Oct. 1, 1997. Salvatore Sicari, of Cambridge, was convicted of first-degree murder in the case, while Charles Jaynes, of Brockton and Manchester, N.H., was convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping.

Prosecutors said the two young men were sexually obsessed with the boy, lured him from his Cambridge neighborhood with the promise of a new bike, and then smothered him with a gasoline-soaked rag when he resisted their sexual advances.

The lawsuit, which also names the Internet service provider that allegedly carries NAMBLA's Web site, alleges that Jaynes joined NAMBLA in the fall of 1996, read the group's publication and web site, and "became obsessed with having sex with and raping young male children."

Immediately before participating in the murder, the lawsuit alleges, Jaynes accessed the NAMBLA Web site at a public library.

End

As I recall from watching the trial, they found evidence in Jayne's Manchester apartment linking him to NAMBLA.

The boy never accessed the NANBLA web site. He knew Sal Sicari from his neighborhood. It was Sal that introduced Jeffery to Jaynes.

The whole thing was incredibly sick...a case of "Do you know where your children are?...And who they are hanging around with?"

-- Peg (not@really.necessary), May 19, 2000.



OT from this thread but picking up on the AOL thing---I know some people on AOL and I assumed that I could email them a URL and it would show up as a hotlink. It works that way with every other provider that I know.

Unless things have changed in the last six months, what the AOL person receives (unless the sender who is himself on AOL) is a dead link that must be copy n pasted to be opened. Irritating, but not a big deal I suppose. Just another example of AOL arrogance. They are trying to define their own little cartoon-sound world.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), May 19, 2000.


While on the subject of internet policing, can an AOL user verify the following?

From Fred Langa's direct email list:

. . . .For example, AOL's content filters can keep you from visiting competitors' sites, and they also appear to be fostering a specific political agenda. For example, with restrictive settings turned on, AOL lets kids visit the home page of the Republican National Committee ( http://www.rnc.org ), but not the Democratic National Committee site ( http://www.democrats.org ). It's not a ratings thing--- I've looked at the source code for both sites, and neither carries internal ratings. Rather, something or someone inside AOL has decided that the Republican site is OK for young minds and the Democratic site is not.

I don't know if this was true at one time, but it is not true now. As an experiment, I set one of my screen names to the most restrictive setting (under 12). Using this setting, I was able to get into both the Democratic and Republican sites without difficulty. I also tried getting into a pro-life site and was denied access. As far as visiting "competitor's sites," I don't know what they mean by "competitors," but I tried getting into MSN and was also denied. However, I should point out that this setting is so restrictive that it will not even allow you to access Yahoo and probably any other search engine.

After changing the setting to the less-restrictive "under 18," I was able to get into Yahoo, MSN, and several pro-choice sites.

According to the AOL Parental Controls screen, they use lists from the Learning Company (makers of CyberPatrol) to determine the sites allowed for their access settings. For the under 12 and younger teen settings, they operate by only allowing access to sites on the Learning Company's "approved" list. It appears that they do NOT utilize the sites "content ratings" for these settings at all.

So, if one is (or was) able to get into the republican site, but not the democratic site, it would be due to the sites listed by the Learning Company, not by AOL. In any case, it would certainly have been possible that the democratic site wasn't on the Learning Company's list due to an oversight as opposed to something more sinister. If so, that oversight has been addressed, since one can now get to that site with no problems. One apparently cannot get to a pro-life site under these settings probably because the Learning Company has not specifically placed the site on their list. I didn't try a pro-choice site, but I imagine access would be restricted for the same reason.

For the less-restrictive "under 18" setting, AOL uses the Learning Company's lists of "restricted sites" to disallow access only to the sites deemed by the Learning Company to contain explicitly mature conduct. I don't know if the Learning Company uses the internal content ratings to come up with this list or not, but it appears that there is no political bias of any kind when accessing web sites with this setting turned on.

So, based on these experiments, I'd have to say Fred Langa is incorrect. I should also point out again that AOL does not appear to be controlling the content in any case, but rather outsourcing this control to the Learning Company.

Hope that helps.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), May 19, 2000.


Anita, I would pull the plug and throw my computer on the dung heap before I'd use AOL. I was on an agnostic forum once and a guy was kicked off of AOL for breaking his Terms of Service agreement. All he did was very politely ask a Christian who had come on the site, why he came on that forum if it made him so angry and he disagreed so vehemently, and why did he believe in the devil? That was it. Can you believe it. They certainly wouldn't mind stooping to filtering at their discretion.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), May 19, 2000.

Hmmm:

Thanks for checking out AOL. I tried a bunch of ISP's when I first got my home computer, and AOL was always busy, as were the OTHERS that came with my software. I pitched them all and went with another.

I didn't have a home computer when my kids were as young as 10, but my son was 12 or so when I got one and he couldn't even start it up without my help......not because he doesn't know HOW, but because I have Windows password-protected. As I mentioned in another thread at another time, each time a kid used the internet, I would check the temp files before deletion. I was pretty amused when I found my son had accessed some girly sites. I then set a moderate filter which requires a password override. I think this is the parent's responsibility, and if you had to set an AOL filter on your own, it seems fair enough to me.

Peg:

Thanks for the information on this case. My opinion is that these two men were perverts before they even SAW NAMBLA. I see no more sense in blaming an internet site for their perversions than I saw in blaming Yourdon or North for "making" folks do things for Y2k. How could NAMBLA "incite" pedophilia in someone who didn't have that desire already?

We drove past the local elementary school on our way to pick up my daughter's car the other day and there were HUNDREDS of cars waiting to pick up children after school. I said, "Doesn't anybody WALK to school anymore?" SO then told me that our next-door neighbor DRIVES to school to pick up her daughter. [We live exactly ONE block from this school.] Even if folks are scared for their children, I would think they could WALK one block to WALK the child home.

It would be interesting to follow this case and learn the details on where the parents were when this child got "lured". Right now, though, with no more information than I've seen, I see them guilty of responsibility avoidance.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), May 20, 2000.


I think LL was on AOL. I guess they don't have a filter for "goofy".

-- (nemesis@awol.com), May 20, 2000.

nemesis (or should we say Lars),

YOU are goofy..............she is beautifu;.

-- (Anti L@rs. at you are . a puke), May 20, 2000.


nemesis, do you deny you are Lars?

-- (We @know .not wondering), May 20, 2000.

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