Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.censorship Path: sn.no!uninett.no!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!logbridge.uoregon.edu!europa.clark.net!205.252.116.205!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!hkhenson From: hkhenson@netcom.com (Keith Henson) Subject: Re: Internet Ventures, Inc. (Response) Message-ID: Followup-To: alt.religion.scientology,comp.org.eff.talk,alt.censorship Organization: Netcom On-Line Services X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] References: <344cca1d.8671929@news.supernews.com> <344f85c8.61309398@news.calstate.edu> <34513C75.312B433B@tidepool.com> Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 11:01:59 GMT Lines: 103 Sender: hkhenson@netcom2.netcom.com Xref: sn.no alt.religion.scientology:387623 comp.org.eff.talk:73767 alt.censorship:171218 Donald Janke (donjla@tidepool.com) wrote: : This is an open letter to Netizens who have been following the dispute : between Grady Ward and Tidepool Internet. : I am the President of Internet Ventures (IVI), Inc.; and Northcoast : Internet (NCI), Inc. is part of IVI's family of Internet Service : Providers Thank you very much for coming on line to discuss this. That takes real guts. : (one of seven wholly owned ISP subsidiary corporations). Tidepool : Internet : is a d.b.a. (doing business as) of NCI. : As a long time netizen (I might even be able to say that "I was : Internet : before it was cool" since I've been online since 1988), and as the : leader of : IVI I feel it is my responsibility to participate in the postings. I bet it has been a while. You need to set the margins down about ten characters for posting. snip : Our actions in this dispute were necessitated by abusive and : defamatory : comments, in a single posting, That posting was not unusual for what Grady has been posting for a *long* time. that Grady directed towards another human : being. The target of the posting might well dispute this. If you could get them to answer honestly, they don't consider themselves humans, but the spirits of long ago murdered space aliens. We became drawn into this posting when we received a formal : complaint regarding his : postings. We had no choice but to terminate his account, under the : original : terms he himself agreed to upon opening his Tidepool account. Could you post this document pointing out the specific part you think Grady violated? I have seen fragments posted, but no pointers by tidepool to exactly what was the problem. : As we all know, the bounds of free speech limits on the Net are : fragmented and unclear. However, there must be some outer limit to free : speech. Exactly where that limit occurs is subject to interpretation. : I have determined, for my life, where : to set my outer limit. Others have certainly set their limits to the : left and right : of my position. Within the IVI family of companies we certainly find : ourselves with : a spectrum of opinions on how far is "out of bounds" for free speech. : However this dispute is not about mine or other's personal opinions : of free : speech, it is about the outer limits that a company must set when they : decide to be : in business. As a company our limit is set when a another netizen : complains that : they were offended by language so strong that a lawsuit could result. : However, : even here the law seems open to interpretation until one stands before a : judge and : says "YOU DECIDE". The easy way to deal with this kind of a problem is to claim common carrier status and let the offened person sue the offender. : Rather than taking it to the "Judge" I am proposing that we (Grady and : Tidepool) take it to the netizens. What I am suggesting is that this : dispute be opened to all on a newsgroup where both sides of the issue, : and opinions of interested parties, can be presented in an open forum. : In order for Grady to participate, and present his opinions, I have : asked the : Tidepool folks to "unlock" Grady's user account. This does assume that : while participating in a "court of netizens" Grady will abide by the : original terms which : he agreed to when he opened his Tidepool account. Again, please post these terms or at least supply a pointer to them. And, please, post or point to the terms in force when Grady paid for the service, not the ones posted after his account was "locked." : I would like to suggest a newsgroup, for this discussion, should be : where we are : "on topic" to discuss "the acceptable outer limits of free speech" as : opposed to a newsgroup where free speech is utilized to state opinions : about other topics. Two suggestions are "alt.censorship" and : "comp.org.eff.talk". I would welcome Grady's opinion on where he feels : a discussion of "free speech" would be "on topic". Those two are fine, and the topic is of great interest to alt.religion.scientology. Thank you again for coming on line to discuss this matter. Keith Henson PS, Since many will make references to these subjects, I suggest you will want to check out the historical background involved. At least read the web page http://www.primenet.com/~cultxpt/lisa.htm. There are far worse things involved than vulgar language.