To WW readers
Is this pornography
By Leslie Feinberg
Brave student Matthew Schwartz recently struck a blow for
cyber-liberties when he won the unblocking of the Workers World
web site at the computer lab in his Plainview, N.Y., high
school. ("Student Power," Workers World, June 6, 2002)
The revolutionary site had been red-flagged as unsuitable
for youth because it was, allegedly, "pornographic." Not true.
Workers World is fiercely opposed to the exploitation of bodies
and minds--in any form--for someone else's lucrative profit
margin. The many tentacles of the sex industry, like every
other capitalist mega-business, exploit the bodies and labor of
millions and millions of workers in the United States and
around the world--in work that is often dangerous and degrading
and vulnerable to police violence and imprisonment.
Workers World newspaper is fiercely anti-capitalist and
pro-worker. We seek to replace the private ownership of
large-scale industry, where individuals chase after profits,
with socialized ownership and planning to meet human needs and
desires. Those who devote their lives to birthing a better
world, a socialist world, look forward to the day when the
nexus of sex is attraction, not compulsion, and pleasure, not
the Almighty Dollar, is its reward.
Our subscribers know that we don't use titillation or sexual
innuendo to grab readers--as do 95 percent of the capitalist
media, especially in advertising.
So how can Workers World
be labeled pornographic?
Workers World newspaper is for the liberation of women and
all who face discrimination and violence because of their sex,
gender or sexuality. It makes no bones about its support for
lesbian, gay, trans and bisexual liberation. So those four
words are purposely among its web site keywords. That's what
made the censors in cyberspace try to keep a youth from viewing
the socialist web site.
Congress passed legislation in December 2000 requiring
schools and libraries dependent on federal funds to employ
blocking software programs on Internet terminals. The law
requires use of "a specific technology that blocks or filters
Internet access"--like over-the-counter filtering software
programs N2H2, Cyber Patrol, Websense and Smartfilter.
The software, or a pre-filtering provider, is as subtle as a
sledgehammer. It blocks sites that use certain keywords. A
woman searching the information highway for breast cancer
information, for example, could run into a roadblock: denied
access to medical sites because the word "breast" is deemed
sexual.
The list of "objectionable" words is often profoundly
political, including information on abortion availability.
All too often it's the local City Council or the town's
Christian businessmen's association or some other "good ol'
boys" network that exerts inexorable pressure to prohibit
anyone from reading material on the information highway that
includes the words lesbian, trans, bisexual or gay. In reality,
they are promoting a right-wing agenda of censorship and
repression.
Sexually explicit material is ubiquitous on the Internet.
The sex industry, like every other mega-billion-dollar sector
of capitalist commerce, is flourishing in cyberspace, where
virtual anonymity appeals to desire, and to shame, with the
lure of a carnival huckster.
The words used as bait to hook people to these sites are
tactile and descriptive at best; crude, lewd and brutally
graphic at worst. Does anyone really believe that software is
out there screening out sites that contain words like "girls,"
"wild" and "hot"?
Interdiction against any use of the words lesbian, bisexual,
gay, transgender and transsexual doesn't protect young people
from age-inappropriate sexual sites. Instead, it isolates youth
and adults who might fit these self-identifications from
factual information, community support, resources,
self-awareness and pride.
The American Civil Liberties Union won a federal court
ruling on May 31 that the government had gone too far with this
censorship that forces libraries to "filter" what adults and
youth can read on the Internet. "The court today barred the
government from turning libraries into thought police armed
with clumsy blocking programs," said Ann Beeson, litigation
director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program. That
program, along with the ACLU of Pennsylvania and other rights
groups, had challenged the law.
The findings confirmed that the broad brush of software
censors whites out "at least tens of thousands" of web
pages.
That round was won within the legal boxing ring.
And Matthew Schwartz scored another impressive TKO. He
wasn't going to take it sitting down--at his computer monitor,
that is. He stood up and fought back. He threatened to take his
school administration to court and "sue them for all they're
worth" to secure his right to read Workers World newspaper
online. And when the principal's office learned that he was
ready to rumble, the web site was swiftly unlocked. Are other
Workers World readers ready to put this legal victory to the
test in your schools, libraries and work places?
This is ongoing. The battle against censorship is woven with
a thousand filaments to the movement against domestic spying
and state repression by Big Brother Ashcroft, Bush and Company.
That's why Workers World newspaper will be there, on the front
lines, when protesters converge on the FBI headquarters in
Washington, D.C., on June 29.
Want more news about all these raging struggles? Read
Workers World online: www.workers.org.
Reprinted from the June 20, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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