From 1ae0306a3cf2ea27f60b2d205789994d260c2cce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christian Grothoff Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:29:45 +0200 Subject: add i18n FSFS --- .../blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html | 163 +++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 163 insertions(+) create mode 100644 talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html (limited to 'talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html') diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4c0829 --- /dev/null +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/censoring-emacs.html @@ -0,0 +1,163 @@ + + +Censoring My Software +- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation + + +

Censoring My Software

+ +

+by Richard Stallman +
+[From Datamation, March 1 1996]

+ +

+Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to +“prohibit pornography” on the Internet. Last fall, the +right-wing Christians made this cause their own. Last week, President +Clinton signed the bill. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.

+

+No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It's a software package, +an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law +that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits +“indecent” speech, which can include anything from famous +poems, to masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex +… to software.

+

+Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from +people who use the Internet and people who appreciate erotica, but +from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.

+

+But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the +forces of censorship responded with a lie: They told the public that +the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a +presupposition in their other statements about the issue, they +succeeded in misinforming the public. So now I am censoring my +software.

+

+You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous “doctor +program,” a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor +Weizenbaum at MIT. This is the program that imitates a Rogerian +psychotherapist. The user talks to the program, and the program +responds—by playing back the user's own statements, and by +recognizing a long list of particular words.

+

+The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse +words and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, +“Would you please watch your tongue?” or “Let's not +be vulgar.” In order to do this, it had to have a list of curse +words. That means the source code for the program was indecent.

+

+So this week I removed that feature. The new version of the doctor +doesn't recognize the indecent words; if you curse at it, it replays +the curse back to you—for lack of knowing better. (When the new +version starts up, it announces that it has been censored for your +protection.)

+

+Now that Americans face the threat of two years in prison for indecent +network postings, it would be helpful if they could access precise +rules for avoiding imprisonment via the Internet. However, this is +impossible. The rules would have to mention the forbidden words, so +posting them on the Internet would violate those same rules.

+

+Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what +“indecent” means. I have to do this, because nobody knows +for sure. The most obvious possible meaning is the meaning it has for +television, so I'm using that as a tentative assumption. However, +there is a good chance that our courts will reject that interpretation +of the law as unconstitutional.

+

+We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of +publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely +reject any law prohibiting “indecent” publications on the +Internet.

+

+What really worries me is that the courts might choose a muddled +half-measure—by approving an interpretation of +“indecent” that permits the doctor program or a statement +of the decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that any child +can browse through in the public library. Over the years, as the +Internet replaces the public library, some of our freedom of speech +will be lost.

+

+Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the +Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this +country—its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how +well does our government respect them? And do you care enough to +preserve them here?

+ +

+[This paragraph is obsolete:] +

+ +

+If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch. +Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information +and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but +we can beat it in November.

+ + + + + + + -- cgit v1.2.3