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At 10:02 PM 9/12/96 -0400, Donovan White wrote:
>> Would a Nazi hate group then
>> have a constitutional right to have a Nazi chat room on AOL? 
>
>Interesting question. They probably could, except every other participant
>would most likely be an FBI informant. So long as the traffic in the chat
>room conformed to AOL's TOS, or it was a private room, there isn't any
>reason I can think of that a hate group couldn't hold a virtual cross
>burning on AOL. So far as I know there aren't any organizations in this
>country that it's illegal to belong to, barring a few country clubs down
>along the Potomac. So the answer to your question is probably Yes. Any
>group can create a chat room on AOL. So long as the public (?) _content_
>conforms to the standards defined in the TOS there isn't any problem. I
>think.

The public TOS is vague on this, but the internal Guide policies aren't:

(from http://www.aolsucks.org/censor/guide/vulgguid.html)

7. Racial Issues. Racial slurs are not allowed. Rooms promoting racism (KKK
Unite) are not allowed, but discussion of racial issues (KKK Discussion) are.

[...]

>> It's no contradiction to oppose the CDA -- a blatantly unconstitutional
>> governmental action -- and support the right of a private carrier to set
>> broad, general parameters in deciding whether it wishes to serve its users'
>> interests or the special interests of outsiders. 
>
>AOL's users' interests are best served by developing a decent mail client,
>not by censoring commercial email content.

Amen.  Issues of spam should be dealt with by the mail client and by
Congress and not by network providiers receiving spam.

-james
--
 James Egelhof, jme9@cornell.edu
  Why America Online Sucks: http://www.aolsucks.org

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