From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 09:12:40 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: META: Censorship is Going Way too Far
Message-ID: <v03007800af225b8581dd@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Fellow Cypherpunks (of the virtual community, even if not part of any
particular version of the list(s)),


I am about to drive over the Santa Cruz mountains for today's physical
meeting at Stanford, and made my last check of the Singapore archive site
to see if my last several messages to the CP list have appeared. (The
Singapore site archives the main list every four hours; the latest update
is 08:15 PST, local time.)

They have _not_ appeared, on either of the two lists, the main list and
filtered list. I don't know if they have appeared on the "unfiltered" list,
as I don't have access to an archive site for that, and don't subscribe to
it.  Some of these articles are now more than 18 hours old.

(I scanned the archive site carefully and did not see any of my articles.
If I somehow missed them (all four?!), I apologize to the Moderator and
will make an appointment with my eye doctor.)

Further, messages dated _much_ later in time are now on the Singapore site,
meaning they were "approved." (The latest such message I see is from J.
Blatz, and is dated 2/8/97, 02:58 a.m., EST, which is fully 10 hours after
the first of my messages which never appeared on either the main list or
the flames list.)

My articles are dated:

* 2/7/97, 1:46 p.m. PST

* 2/7/97, 1:59 p.m., PST

* 2/7/97, 3:03 p.m., PST

* 2/7/97, 9:46 p.m., PST

I would normally give the message names here, but I suspect that even
mention of the message titles would cause _this_ message to be filtered
into the black hole  list. So, by avoiding even mention of the message
titles, I should be safe. Nothing in this message can be considered flamish
(beyond normal criticism) or libelous.

(Many articles with dates later than these have already appeared on the
main list, and some have already appeared on the Flames list. Why have none
of my articles gone through as of this morning?)

The subjects of my articles deal with the claims made by "Against
Moderation" and Vulis that certain articles were filtered from the stream
of articles without appearing on either the main list or the flames list,
and with no mention by the Moderator of this significant change to the
moderation policies.

I surmise that my articles are similarly vanishing into a black hole,
presumably because I have questioned the policies here. (Possibly my
articles have been side-tracked for further review, or for review by a
certain company's legal staff, or whatever. If so, this should be explained
to the main list. And the implications of this, if it is happening, should
be discussed on the main list.)

By the way, I will deliberately make no mention of the details of my
articles, or of those by Against Moderation, as I also surmise that any
articles dealing with a certain product by a certain company will be
filtered out completely.

(I carefully did not repeat the claims made against one of these products
in my articles, so there is no way under the sun I can be charged in any
court with "libel.")

To paraphrase the Detweiler of a couple of years ago, "I am quite shocked
by this situation." It is one thing to filter out posts which contain
infantile, barnyard taunts and insults, it is quite another to filter out
_content_.

And it is even worse to not pass on these filtered comments to the "flames"
list, which was putatively set up to contain such comments. Worse still
that the list as a whole is not being told of this policy, and that posts
which mention it are not going out.

(There has been some discussion of articles not going out, such as in Igor
Chudov's recent articles, but I surmise from his article that Igor is
unaware of the filtering I'm talking about here. I am copying Igor on this
message, to ensure he knows at least part of what is going on here.)

There is no justification in any of the stated moderation goals for
blocking articles such as mine, or this one.

As my posts yesterday did not contain flames or insults (beyond normal
minor turns of phrase some might not like, just as _this_ post contains
mildly flamish comments if one is so inclined to see _any_ criticism as
flamish), they should have appeared on the main list. They have not, so
far, even though articles generated many hours later have already appeared
on the main list.

And, as of minutes ago, they have not appeared on the Flames list, even if
the Moderator decided they were flamish. (Even if _one_ was, arguably, not
all of them were.)

So, we are increasingly in a situation where:

a. the moderation policies appear to be changing on a daily basis

b. articles which are not even flamish are being dumped

c. some of these dumped articles are not even appearing on the "Flames" list

d. the appearance of a conflict of interest is increasing

e. discussion is being squelched

I am cc:ing this message to a handful of Cypherpunks to ensure that it gets
some propagation before today's meeting.

I find it very sad that things have come to this.


--Tim May

Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."