Despite an orchestrated campaign of attempted censorship by UK-resident news
group readers, TFN did not bow
to demands for a suppression of freedom of speech. TFN general policy on the
 matter is as follows;

Draft Policy on Account Deactivations due to News Group Postings
 ========================================
========================

News group postings occasionally take the form of a message which goes again
st the "topic" of the conference.
For example, a derogatory message about Canadians in the soc.culture.canada.

Members of such news groups then may send a message to the system administra
tors asking that a user's account
be terminated because of such posting.

The Toronto Free-Net Board of Directors has taken the position that the only
 postings that will get a person's
account terminated is material that is illegal under Canadian law. Otherwise
, the Toronto Free-Net will not
take any action.

Freenet Executive Director Mike Anderson had this to say regarding the conti
nued attempts of a minority of usenet
participants to have my account on his system deactivated;

The TFN's policy is not to take action against members unless they contraven
e the Criminal Code of Canada, or
engage in practices such as forgery, attacks against other computer systems 
or mailbombing.

Mr. Corley, while possibly being very annoying, has not contravened the TFN'
s policies. The TFN believes strongly
in freedom of expression, while recognizing that the price for such freedom 
may be a high signal-to-noise ratio in Usenet.

If Mr. Corley breaks the law, we will take action -- until then, he has the 
same rights as any TFN member to post
to Usenet newsgroups. Actions such as mailbombing the TFN in protest will be
 met by strong complaints to the
originating site's postmaster. The best defense against unwanted postings ma
y be simply be to ignore them and deny
the poster an audience.

TFN Executive Director Toronto, Ont CANADA

Personally, I find it gratifying that my contributions to usenet discussion 
are recognized as being conducive
to a high signal-to-noise ratio by their quality and thoughtfulness.

4365


--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]