2/7/01   6:18 pm GMT
		19 January 1996 The Right To Be Offensive Living Marxism is in favour of free speech on the Internet. We are opposed to legislative control or corporate curbs on what can be said online, and we are also against the increasing acceptance of self-censorship among many Net-users. The moral panic over computer pornography has been the backdrop to the attempted introduction of statutory controls over the Internet. But the global Internet operates on a scale which is largely beyond the reach of national governments; and the 'gatekeeping' techniques associated with traditional forms of censorship are no longer operable. The corporate sector has so far proved equally unsuccessful in limiting and controlling online traffic. For the time-being at least, the Internet has the capacity to re-route itself around most legal obstacles to free speech. The majority of Net-users we have spoken to agree that externally applied controls are undesirable. But there is growing support for internal policing. If this simply meant that Net-users should make their own decisions about what goes online, we would have no objection. But it goes further than that. Underneath what appears to be a plea for autonomy among Net-users, there is a hidden agenda which dictates that everyone should be made 'aware' of what constitutes 'inappropriate' and 'offensive' behaviour online. Universities and other academic institutions are at the forefront of 're-educating' their Net-users on the do's and don't's of online intercourse. This ethos brings a note of anxious pruderie to the digital frontier. It introduces the possibility that Net-users will censor themselves at a time when governments and corporations are happily unable to do so. Faced with the prospect of a 'politically correct' Net, Living Marxism stands for the right to be offensive. Andrew Calcutt writes on the Communications Decency Act 1995, Join a discussion on this commentary
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