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- BUSINESS, Page 65Business NotesINFORMATION SERVICESBigots and the Bulletin Board
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- Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt used radio to spread very
- different messages, proving that powerful new media have the
- potential for evil or for good. That is a lesson Prodigy
- Services is learning all over again. The home-computer network,
- which IBM and Sears jointly operate, offers electronic bulletin
- boards on which subscribers can exchange typewritten comments.
- Last week the Anti-Defamation League, a national monitor of
- hate groups, disclosed that Prodigy boards are being used to
- promote anti-Semitic propaganda. Messages have appeared
- contending, among other things, that the murder of millions
- during the Holocaust is "fantasy and exaggeration." Prodigy
- argues that such comments, however distasteful, fall within the
- realm of free expression. Even so, the company last week
- announced a restriction against "blatant expressions of bigotry"
- and will be meeting with the A.D.L. to discuss its complaints.
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