[Emacs-diffs] Changes to emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP [emacs-unicode-2]

[Miles Bader]

Index: emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP
diff -c /dev/null emacs/etc/CENSORSHIP:1.1.24.1
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+               Censoring my Software
+                  Richard Stallman
+                       [From Datamation, 1 March 1996]
+ 
+ 
+ Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to "prohibit
+ pornography" on the Internet.  Last fall, right-wing Christians made
+ this cause their own.  Last week, President Clinton signed the bill,
+ and we lost the freedom of the press for the public library of the
+ future.  This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.
+ 
+ No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography.  It is a software package,
+ an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor.  But the law
+ that was passed applies to far more than pornography.  It prohibits
+ "indecent" speech, which can include anything from famous poems, to
+ masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex...to
+ software.
+ 
+ Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill.  Not only from
+ people who use the Internet, and people who appreciate erotica, but
+ from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.
+ 
+ But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the
+ forces of censorship responded with a lie: they told the public that
+ the issue was simply pornography.  By embedding this lie as a
+ presupposition in their statements about the issue, they succeeded in
+ misinforming the public.  So here I am, censoring my software.
+ 
+ You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous "doctor program",
+ a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor Weizenbaum at MIT.
+ This is the program that imitates a Rogerian psychotherapist.  The
+ user talks to the program, and the program responds--by playing back
+ the user's own statements, and by recognizing a long list of
+ particular words.
+ 
+ The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse
+ words, and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, "Would
+ you please watch your tongue?" or "Let's not be vulgar."  In order to
+ do this, it had to have a list of curse words.  That means the source
+ code for the program was indecent.
+ 
+ Because of the censorship law, I had to remove this feature.  (I
+ replaced it with a message announcing that the program has been
+ censored for your protection.)  The new version of the doctor doesn't
+ recognize the indecent words.  If you curse at it, it curses right
+ back to you--for lack of knowing better.
+ 
+ Now that people are facing the threat of two years in prison for
+ indecent network postings, it would be helpful if they could access
+ precise rules via the Internet for how to avoid imprisonment.
+ However, this is impossible.  The rules would have to mention the
+ forbidden words, so posting them on the Internet would be against the
+ rules.
+ 
+ Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what "indecent" means.
+ I have to do this, because nobody knows for sure.  The most obvious
+ possible meaning is the meaning it has for television, so I'm using
+ that as a tentative assumption.  However, there is a good chance that
+ our courts will reject that interpretation of the law as
+ unconstitutional.
+ 
+ We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of
+ publication like books and magazines.  If they do, they will entirely
+ reject any law prohibiting "indecent" publications on the Internet.
+ 
+ What really worries me is that the courts might take a muddled
+ in-between escape route--by choosing another interpretation of
+ "indecent", one that permits the doctor program or a statement of the
+ decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that children can
+ browse through in the public library and the bookstore.  Over the
+ years, as the Internet replaces the public library and the bookstore,
+ some of our freedom of the press will be lost.
+ 
+ Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the
+ Internet.  That was China.  We don't think well of China in this
+ country--its government doesn't respect basic freedoms.  But how well
+ does our government respect them?  And do you care enough to preserve
+ them here?
+ 
+ If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch.
+ Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information
+ and political action recommendations.  Censorship won in February, but
+ we can beat it in November.
+ 
+ 
+ Copyright 1996 Richard Stallman
+ Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium
+ provided this notice is preserved.