censoring-emacs.html (7772B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="essays cultural evils" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Censoring My Software 7 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/censoring-emacs.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Censoring My Software</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard 17 Stallman</a></address> 18 19 <p> 20 Last summer, a few clever legislators proposed a bill to 21 “prohibit pornography” on the Internet. Last fall, the 22 right-wing Christians made this cause their own. Last week, President 23 Clinton signed the bill. This week, I'm censoring GNU Emacs.</p> 24 <p> 25 No, GNU Emacs does not contain pornography. It's a software package, 26 an award-winning extensible and programmable text editor. But the law 27 that was passed applies to far more than pornography. It prohibits 28 “indecent” speech, which can include anything from famous 29 poems, to masterpieces hanging in the Louvre, to advice about safe sex 30 … to software.</p> 31 <p> 32 Naturally, there was a lot of opposition to this bill. Not only from 33 people who use the Internet and people who appreciate erotica, but 34 from everyone who cares about freedom of the press.</p> 35 <p> 36 But every time we tried to tell the public what was at stake, the 37 forces of censorship responded with a lie: They told the public that 38 the issue was simply pornography. By embedding this lie as a 39 presupposition in their other statements about the issue, they 40 succeeded in misinforming the public. So now I am censoring my 41 software.</p> 42 <p> 43 You see, Emacs contains a version of the famous “doctor 44 program,” a.k.a. Eliza, originally developed by Professor 45 Weizenbaum at <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of 46 Technology">MIT</abbr>. This is the program that imitates a Rogerian 47 psychotherapist. The user talks to the program, and the program 48 responds—by playing back the user's own statements, and by 49 recognizing a long list of particular words.</p> 50 <p> 51 The Emacs doctor program was set up to recognize many common curse 52 words and respond with an appropriately cute message such as, 53 “Would you please watch your tongue?” or “Let's not 54 be vulgar.” In order to do this, it had to have a list of curse 55 words. That means the source code for the program was indecent.</p> 56 <p> 57 So this week I removed that feature. The new version of the doctor 58 doesn't recognize the indecent words; if you curse at it, it replays 59 the curse back to you—for lack of knowing better. (When the new 60 version starts up, it announces that it has been censored for your 61 protection.)</p> 62 <p> 63 Now that Americans face the threat of two years in prison for indecent 64 network postings, it would be helpful if they could access precise 65 rules for avoiding imprisonment via the Internet. However, this is 66 impossible. The rules would have to mention the forbidden words, so 67 posting them on the Internet would violate those same rules.</p> 68 <p> 69 Of course, I'm making an assumption about just what 70 “indecent” means. I have to do this, because nobody knows 71 for sure. The most obvious possible meaning is the meaning it has for 72 television, so I'm using that as a tentative assumption. However, 73 there is a good chance that our courts will reject that interpretation 74 of the law as unconstitutional.</p> 75 <p> 76 We can hope that the courts will recognize the Internet as a medium of 77 publication like books and magazines. If they do, they will entirely 78 reject any law prohibiting “indecent” publications on the 79 Internet.</p> 80 <p> 81 What really worries me is that the courts might choose a muddled 82 half-measure—by approving an interpretation of 83 “indecent” that permits the doctor program or a statement 84 of the decency rules, but prohibits some of the books that any child 85 can browse through in the public library. Over the years, as the 86 Internet replaces the public library, some of our freedom of speech 87 will be lost.</p> 88 <p> 89 Just a few weeks ago, another country imposed censorship on the 90 Internet. That was China. We don't think well of China in this 91 country—its government doesn't respect basic freedoms. But how 92 well does our government respect them? And do you care enough to 93 preserve them here?</p> 94 95 <p> 96 [This paragraph is obsolete:] 97 </p> 98 99 <p> 100 If you care, stay in touch with the Voters Telecommunications Watch. 101 Look in their Web site http://www.vtw.org/ for background information 102 and political action recommendations. Censorship won in February, but 103 we can beat it in November.</p> 104 105 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary"> 106 <hr /> 107 <p>From <cite>Datamation</cite>, March 1 1996</p> 108 </div> 109 </div> 110 111 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 112 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 113 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 114 <div class="unprintable"> 115 116 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 117 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 118 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 119 the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent 120 to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p> 121 122 <p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph, 123 replace it with the translation of these two: 124 125 We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality 126 translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection. 127 Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard 128 to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org"> 129 <web-translators@gnu.org></a>.</p> 130 131 <p>For information on coordinating and contributing translations of 132 our web pages, see <a 133 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 134 README</a>. --> 135 Please see the <a 136 href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations 137 README</a> for information on coordinating and contributing translations 138 of this article.</p> 139 </div> 140 141 <!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to 142 files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should 143 be under CC BY-ND 4.0. Please do NOT change or remove this 144 without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first. 145 Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the 146 document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the 147 document was modified, or published. 148 149 If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too. 150 Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying 151 years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable 152 year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including 153 being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system). 154 155 There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers 156 Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. --> 157 158 <p>Copyright © 1996, 2021 Richard Stallman</p> 159 160 <p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license" 161 href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative 162 Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p> 163 164 <!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" --> 165 166 <p class="unprintable">Updated: 167 <!-- timestamp start --> 168 $Date: 2021/09/05 07:59:44 $ 169 <!-- timestamp end --> 170 </p> 171 </div> 172 </div><!-- for class="inner", starts in the banner include --> 173 </body> 174 </html>