Protest Against ‘Indecency’ Ban on Internet Set

By definition, the people who use the global mishmash of computer networks known as the Internet are a disparate bunch. They have no clear political identity, no designated lobbying group, no cadre of sympathetic politicians ready to do their bidding.

But with a final vote expected this week on a telecommunications bill that includes sweeping restrictions on online “indecency,” several self-styled cyber civil liberties groups are spearheading a last-ditch effort to organize the chaotic sea of “net.citizens.”

Over the weekend, flyers advertising an anti-censorship rally today in San Francisco’s South Park were splattered across the “Net,” and Tuesday has been proclaimed a national day of protest. The goal is to pressure lawmakers to abandon a measure many fear will drastically suppress the evolution of America’s most democratic form of communication.

A House-Senate conference committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday to hammer out the final compromises on the massive telecommunications bill, the main goal of which is to spur competition in the industry by letting telephone and cable television firms into each other’s markets. While the conferees remain at odds over several key issues, they reached a tentative agreement last week on an amendment that would impose fines and prison terms on anyone who made “indecent” material available to children over the Internet.

Although House Speaker Newt Gingrich has opposed the censorship provision in the past and some believe it is unconstitutional, a cross-section of Republicans and Democrats--urged on by the Christian Coalition and other religious groups--have consistently supported the measure, and many observers now expect it to remain part of the final bill.

For those concerned about freedom of expression in cyberspace, Congress’ endorsement of the indecency provision reflects an inaccurate perception of the Net as a preserve of computer geeks and pornography hounds.

In fact, they say, the use of electronic communication--for everything from job hunting to sexual experimentation--is rapidly becoming a part of everyday life for many “average” Americans.

“That’s the whole thing about the Internet,” said Howard Rheingold, author of a book called “The Virtual Community.” “It’s certainly no longer just scientists and academics. And it’s not a giant corporation somewhere with a lot of money. It’s the collection of all the students and teachers and artists and business people who communicate with each other.”

One recent survey of Internet use among the general population found that adults in the United States spend as much time surfing the Internet each week as they do watching videos on the VCR. While much of the network’s growth stems from businesses that have begun to use it as an efficient way to advertise and exchange information, another recent survey of online habits found that most people are logging on at home, not the office.

And it is the burgeoning personal use of the communication medium that civil libertarians, and thousands of regular users, fear will be severely curtailed by the proposed indecency measure.

“There are so few places in our society where people can have a little play space,” said Sherry Turkle, a sociology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Part of the appeal of online life is its sense of openness, and now it seems in danger of being closed down.”

In Turkle’s just-published “Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet,” she describes a woman who had lost a leg in an automobile accident. “She was so frightened by her new body she couldn’t even talk about it, not to mention feel comfortable enough to think about having someone touch her.”

Instead, she created a character in an online community of someone who had lost her leg, and with someone she met online, took off the prosthetic leg from her virtual body and had an encounter. “It wasn’t cybersex, it was cyber-lovemaking,” Turkle said. “And believe me, this woman’s conversation with her online lover would have gone right into the ‘indecent, kick her off’ category.”

In the Hollywood Cafe chat room on America Online, the nation’s largest online service, discussion during the day centers mostly on movies and entertainment industry gossip.

But at night, a group that includes well-known screenwriters and directors, freelance journalists, art designers and record company executives plays a burgeoning online parlor game called “I Never.”

“So far, they can’t kick you off for saying ‘masturbate,’ ” said one Cafe denizen known as Pumpkin. “If you could get kicked off for that, the whole system would go down, I think. At one in the morning, people want to talk about sex. Otherwise, why is anybody in the chat room?”

In comparison to some of AOL’s other chat rooms, indeed, the Hollywood Cafe is tame. Others include Dungeonm4m, Shemale-4Female, Bidads, Whtguyz-4Blkguyz, Wife Is at Work and Flirt Snook.

Even far more innocent fare could be threatened by the use of the broad term indecent . For example, the Louvre’s site on the World Wide Web, where Net surfers can view paintings of naked men and women, or electronic libraries with the novels “Catcher in the Rye” and “Ulysses,” could be subject to criticism.

Though the legislation appears to exempt discussion groups or bulletin boards that require a password or take other steps to keep children out, it would still affect thousands of World Wide Web sites and Internet news groups that cannot readily control entry.

Online providers and civil libertarians are generally opposed to any restrictions and instead favor existing obscenity and child-pornography laws to prosecute the exchange of illegal material.

At the very least, they would like to see the proposed legislation use the narrower standard of “harmful to minors” or language that would exempt material considered to have cultural, literary or scientific merit.

But antipornography groups and religious conservatives say such restrictions are not tough enough to protect children.

It is the political clout of organizations such as the Christian Coalition, the American Family Assn. and Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum that the newly mobilized anticensorship advocates hope to combat.

Several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy and Information Center and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, urged anyone with an e-mail address to contact their representative in Congress on Tuesday, with Gingrich, who has sought to portray himself as a friend of the libertarian Net and a cyber citizen in his own right, as a primary target.

“Netizens! Rally against censorship,” read one flyer distributed over the Internet.

Even without the legislation, online services have begun to run into trouble with their own rules about what is allowed to be voiced on their networks.

Earlier this month America Online angered subscribers in a breast cancer support group when it eliminated the word “breast” from the service. The firm later said it was a mistake.

But Lisa Derrick, a self-described cyber Sybil, says the service already uses selective enforcement of its “decency” policy, and that with additional restrictions it will only get worse.

“I was in a room the other night where someone was in the process of coming out, and someone else came in and said he found our language lewd,” she said.

“He told AOL and this guy got a terms of service violation,” she said. “What, are we supposed to switch to talking about Babe the Pig’s chances for winning the Oscar when someone was in the middle of baring his soul? I don’t think so.”