Summary: Looking for information on university policies re access to newsgroups
Keywords: pornography; internet; universities
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 04:40:39 GMT
Lines: 21
I'm a newspaper reporter in Vancouver, B.C., writing a story about the
University of B.C.'s recent recommendations on how to handle computer
networks and newsgroup access as a result of complaints about pornography
coming in on them. I'd like information on policies at other universities
and people's comments on the recommendations UBC made (reasonable/unreasonable/
impossible to enforce/whatever you think).
To summarize the recommendations, they say that the university should provide
access to all newsgroups since it shouldn't ban electronic communication betweenwilling participants "of messages and images which others might find offensive,
since no such ban applies to other forms of communication." But they do say
people who get accounts should have it made clear to them how the internet
operates and what the penalities are for offensive uses, as well as the
possibilities of criminal charges under Canadian law. They also say admins
of computing units should establish procedures to deal with abuses, and that
someone on campus be appointed to handle complaints about abuse.
As well, I'm interested in any attempts at legislation made anywhere to
restrict network use to any group because of concerns about pornography.
