Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister of France and a founder of Doctors Without Borders, has an interesting but somewhat unsettling op-ed in today’s New York Times. Entitled “The Battle for the Internet,” it’s a call to arms in
the battle of ideas . . . between the advocates of a universal and open Internet — based on freedom of expression, tolerance and respect for privacy — against those who want to transform the Internet into a multitude of closed-off spaces that serve the purposes of repressive regimes, propaganda and fanaticism.
It’s a subject dear to my heart, as you probably know; I, too, believe that preserving what the Center for Democracy and Technology aptly calls the “free, open, and innovative Internet” is of the deepest importance for the future — literally — of human society on the planet. I like where Kouchner’s coming from:
The Internet is above all the most fantastic means of breaking down the walls that close us off from one another. For the oppressed peoples of the world, the Internet provides power beyond their wildest hopes. It is increasingly difficult to hide a public protest, an act of repression or a violation of human rights. In authoritarian and repressive countries, mobile telephones and the Internet have given citizens a critical means of expression, despite all the restrictions.
He’s right about that – at least, I agree wholeheartedly. (Libertarian blogger Adam Thierer called my book about the Net “an extended love letter to both cyberspace and Jefferson,” and though I’m not entirely sure he meant it as one, I took it as a compliment. Though we academics are supposed to take the posture of ironic detachment from pretty much everything we encounter, I happen to think, and I’m happy to say to whomever is listening, that the Net is an astonishing achievement with the potential, only partly but tantalizingly realized to date, to become a true milestone in the history of human communication and a possibly unstoppable force for the spread of liberty and freedom around the globe. I realize (see Evgeny Morozov’s rather peevish piece in Foreign Policy, denying that the Net has been (or can be) a force for good in the world) that it has not instantly transformed everything it touches into the Earthly Paradise – but that’s a pretty high standard to hold it to.
And I’m certainly with him when he writes:
However, the number of countries that censor the Internet and monitor Web users is increasing at an alarming rate. The Internet can be a formidable intelligence-gathering tool for spotting potential dissidents. Some regimes are already acquiring increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology. If all of those who are attached to human rights and democracy refused to compromise their principles and used the Internet to defend freedom of expression, this kind of repression would be much more difficult.
The Net is under siege, and will require some serious work to keep it free and open. But somehow, I can’t work up much enthusiasm for Kouchner’s call to action:
Multilateral institutions like the Council of Europe, and nongovernmental organizations like Reporters Without Borders, along with thousands of individuals around the world, have made a strong commitment to these issues. No fewer than 180 countries meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society have acknowledged that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies fully to the Internet, especially Article 19, which establishes freedom of expression and opinion. And yet, some 50 countries fail to live up to their commitments.
We should create an international instrument for monitoring such commitments and for calling governments to task when they fail to live up to them. We should provide support to cyber-dissidents — the same support as other victims of political repression. We should also discuss the wisdom of adopting a code of conduct regarding the export of technologies for censoring the Internet and tracking Web users.
These issues, along with others, like the protection of personal data, should be addressed within a framework that brings together government, civil society and international experts.
It sounds a bit, to my ears, too much like asking the UN to run the Net (which, as readers of my work know, we tried once before, with notable lack of success).
Kouchner also makes me nervous when he begins his list of what the “enemies of the Internet” are up to this way:
Extremist, racist and defamatory Web sites and blogs disseminate odious opinions in real time. They have made the Internet a weapon of war and hate. . . . Violent movements spread propaganda and false information.
There are many threats out there to the free and open Internet, but I don’t regard “extremist, racist, and defamatory Web sites,” or “blogs disseminating odious opinions,” as among them. Although Kouchner has ringing words for freedom of expression — “Freedom of expression, said Voltaire, ‘is the foundation of all other freedoms.’ Without it, there are no ‘free nations.’” — somehow I think that his agenda is to the contrary. Freedom of expression without “extremist, racist, and defamatory web sites” and “odious opinions” is not freedom of expression — not in my book, anyway. Something tells me that when the “World Summit on the Information Society” gets its hands on the Net, true freedom of expression on the Net will not be high on their list of preferred outcomes.
So, on the one hand, I’m glad Kouchner has sounded the alarm; he ends his piece by declaring that “the defense of fundamental freedoms and human rights must be the priority for governance of the Internet. It is everyone’s business” and I think he’s right — importantly right — about that. But I think we need — rather desperately — alternate governance models to deal with this problem, alternate models that move in a direction away from the UN and towards something that better reflects the wishes and desires of the world’s people, not the world’s governments. It’s not going to be easy, though I’m working on it . . .
Chris Travers says:
I would point out that it isn’t just the regimes we typically think of as repressive that are trying to censor the internet or engage in deep surveillance. The NSA has according to some reports been eavesdropping on packets on major backbone providers, and Australia has begun a censorship effort that rivals that of China.
Designating the Internet as an international space would also help with the censorship problem but it would also provide fewer problems for governments who wish to spy on citizens.
May 14, 2010, 6:21 pmtroll_dc2 says:
“Australia has begun a censorship effort that rivals that of China.” I would like to know more about this.
May 14, 2010, 7:01 pmjstar says:
FWIW, wikipedia on Internet censorship in Australia.
May 14, 2010, 7:12 pmA. Zarkov says:
In my opinion, our own Obama regime has been sending (albeit in coded form) some disturbing signals about the Internet and information availability. Recently Obama addressed the graduating class at Hampton University. He said,
He inappropriately lumps the iPad (an information device) with the Xbox (an entertainment device) and then warns us about “distracting” information. On it’s face, his statement seems innocent enough, but I’m afraid he’s really expressing his concern about being criticized on the Internet. That’s what he means by “distracting” information. I fear that “hate speech limitations” are going to get imposed on blog sites. As usual the early warning signs come from Europe.
From Paul Belien writing at the Brussels Journal,
More ominously,
Meanwhile back at home, Jim Taylor writes,
Who does he trust? The government, naturally.
He tells us that everyone but the government has a self-serving agenda. Put this together with Obama’s attack on the iPad, and a pattern begins to emerge.
May 14, 2010, 7:13 pmlukas says:
http://tinyurl.com/ycv5cj2
May 14, 2010, 7:13 pmDavid Schwartz says:
troll_dc2: You can start here. The fact is that pretty much every country has embarked on efforts to censor those things it objects to. The United States has fought against everything from child pornography to gambling.
May 14, 2010, 7:13 pmChris Travers says:
Sources:
Wikipedia
EFF
CBS News
It’s also caused an interesting spat between Australia and Google with Australia defending China’s censorship efforts.
May 14, 2010, 7:24 pmChris Travers says:
Yes, but mandatory ISP filtering is somewhat unusual here in the US….
May 14, 2010, 7:25 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Thanks for the links, guys. Why is Australia so uptight?
May 14, 2010, 7:31 pmtroll_dc2 says:
David Schwartz, we are fighting Internet gambling by blocking the payment process, not by using filters.
May 14, 2010, 7:33 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Yup. It’s the old “Two wolves and a sheep discussing dinner” ploy.
May 14, 2010, 7:40 pmConstant says:
The first quote already shows worrying signs, specifically the mention of “tolerance”, “respect for privacy”, “propaganda”, and “fanaticism”, all of which have been used as justification to limit speech. Therefore, even early on, it’s possible to guess that Kouchner is going to end up attacking “racist and defamatory Web sites and blogs disseminate odious opinions”, with the suggestion that something ought to be done about them.
In light of where he ends up, even the phrase “multitude of closed-off spaces” takes on a new meaning. On a first read-through one naturally interprets him as referring to governments that censor the Internet. But in light of where he ends up, he may also be referring to things like odious websites that are “closed-off” in the sense that their editorial policy excludes the right-thinking opinions that he endorses.
May 14, 2010, 7:57 pmElliot says:
I’d say the common factor here is that the internet is a danger to politicians everywhere…China, USA, France, Gabon… all of them. Given the common goal of prohibiting criticism, the last thing we need is any form of international regime.
And now we have a president who raises tons of cash on the internet, then whines about iPods, iPads, and Xboxes. Makes you wonder who writes his stuff.
May 14, 2010, 7:59 pmPlugInMonster says:
Noawdays, it can be interpreted that being pro-Arizona law is “fanatical”, “hateful” and “racist” and can land you in prison IF we adopt laws of UK.
May 14, 2010, 8:01 pmMikhail Koulikov says:
…alternate models that move in a direction away from the UN and towards something that better reflects the wishes and desires of the world’s people, not the world’s governments.
For what that’s worth, all governments are composed of people. And maybe taking this further – of people who have the courage to actually turn their ‘wishes and desires’ into reality. A blog post is easy enough; getting yourself into a position where you can actually make *your* wishes and desires policy/reality is something else entirely.
May 14, 2010, 8:28 pmChris Travers says:
This is the precise danger. But there’s more. When we look at the Australian situation, for example, the current approach is to require the government to maintain a secret list of banned web sites which all ISP’s are legally required to block. But nobody can actually look at the web sites to see if they are legitimately banned.
The current proposal calls for banning the following specific types of web sites:
1) “Refused classification” sites. I.e. porn that involves so much as spanking, or doesn’t have an adult verification system, etc.
2) Which provides practical information on committing crimes (including, btw, circumventing the filter to, say, view banned sites)
3) Child pornography, etc.
Unfortunately, the blacklist is not made public and nobody is allowed to review the material on banned sites in order to verify that the ban is legitimate. Nothing could possibly go wrong with that…..
But the point is that this is a plan that, though controversial, is not entirely without broad-based, popular support.
As long as we worry about what the people want, minority views cannot be protected. What’s really funny about this though is to watch proponents defend the “transparency” of the Australian government here.
May 14, 2010, 8:40 pmChris Travers says:
I don’t know. However the specific measures at issue are very concerning. Secret blacklists, no ability to review banning of web sites, etc. This is a recipe for abuse of the worst sort.
May 14, 2010, 8:46 pmpc says:
That’s some tinfoil hattery if I’ve ever seen it. I’ve worked on multiple sides of the internet information equation and I can say that private companies can extract a disturbing amount of information, without government intervention, based on public information people leave scattered about the web. CPU cycles are cheap and storage is even cheaper. The only thing that is tragically heartening is — at least in the US — TLAs are still looking to private companies to mine and analyze information (terrorists, keep the children safe, etc.).
May 14, 2010, 8:59 pmThe Unbeliever says:
Nonsense! Using the UN to protect commonly agreed rights is an excellent idea. For example, to use an area even more important than mere Net censorship, we could establish some sort of commission or council to protect human rights. We could then open it to any country who wants to join, so that all the member states with excellent human rights records could take the lead:
Oh. Well, surely this membership glitch is an anomaly in the glorious track record of transnational non-governmental organizations, which responsible nations are actively correcting:
Oops.
At some point, a rational observer is forced to conclude that all these smaller data points aren’t just hiccups in the history of international organizations; they are readily apparent structural flaws in the very concept of such organizations.
May 14, 2010, 9:31 pmChris Travers says:
Agreed here, but I would note that some UN agencies which run technical standards groups (ITU etc) do an excellent job. Having the UN run the internet is unnecessary given the excellent work of the IETF, but if the IETF went away, I would be the first to suggest pushing it to the ITU.
May 14, 2010, 10:00 pmA. Zarkov says:
You have wholly misunderstood what I wrote. Technical intrusions are another matter. I’m concerned with a slippery slope towards regulation and censorship of Internet speech. In Tayor’s own words, he writes,
This would give the government control over what’s a “fact.” This goes way beyond censorship of inflammatory material. It would mean only government approved information would be available on the Internet. Thus he would close down websites like Shadow Government Statistics, which provides economic data the government has decided not to give out.
Now do you understand?
May 14, 2010, 10:23 pmDavid Schwartz says:
18 USC 1084(d).
Also, look closely at 1084(a):
It’s true we don’t use filters, but we do use criminal prosecution. We’ve even threatened to prosecute Americans who provided technical assistance to foreign gambling operations.
May 14, 2010, 10:26 pmBlue says:
“the defense of fundamental freedoms and human rights must be the priority for governance of the Internet. It is everyone’s business”
Ah, yes, fundamental freedoms like the right for murderers not to have their names and faces made public.
May 14, 2010, 10:47 pmThe Unbeliever says:
Maybe. But at the risk of nitpicking a point we don’t particularly disagree on, technical standards are better regulated by committees or bureaucracies than moral standards.
This is due to the nature of those standards and to the “benefit” that comes from introducing politics into the debate in either case: technical standards are usually developed based on some objective or feature-oriented basis, but the barrier to their widespread acceptance is usually political or commercial. Moral standards are usually developed based on subjective criteria, and are tied very closely to a particular culture, religion, nationality, or other sub-group; the barrier to their widespread acceptance are the fact that other groups are not similar enough to agree. Thus politics and committees can actually facilitate and add value to the former, but will never deliver a satisfactory result for the latter.
If Kouchner wanted to set up a UN group to establish a non-censor-able Net protocol, that would be a decent idea**. But it looks more like he thinks a UN body would help to help push European morality upon national Internet policies; and that’s the kind of well-intentioned-but-dangerously-bad idea that should be killed before it has a chance to get a government grant.
———————————————————————–
**It’s a philosophically decent idea. But as a software engineer who’s worked in the area for 15 years, I can promise him nothing but stress and failure in the attempt. The closest thing to an elegant solution would be (1) forbidding countries from banning strong encryption, (2) working to make nearly unbreakable encryption ubiquitous in every aspect of consumer software, and (3) providing absolute immunity to content-based prosecutions (national and international) for ISPs and hosts.
But 2 out of 3 of those suggestions are political actions that directly cut against state interests; so they are, per my above analysis, not ever going to get implemented.
May 14, 2010, 11:15 pmChris Travers says:
I was referring specifically about ITU stuff. Philosophically it’s decent. I don’t think it’s technically doable however.
May 15, 2010, 12:44 amTruffle says:
This is true. Someone is being prosecuted in New York for engaging in a “fraudulent scheme to influence a debate” on the grounds that he blogged anonymously about a dispute over the Dead Sea Scrolls and sent out an ironical email poking fun at an NYU department chairman. Where would Kouchner feel that places the United States on the scale of internet freedom? For documentation on the New York case, see:
http://tzvee.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-raphael-golb-guilty.html
and the interesting First Amendment papers signaled there.
May 15, 2010, 2:52 amRicardo says:
Jim Taylor — you mean that bald middle-aged singer? Seriously, who is this Jim Taylor guy and why should you or anyone else care what he says?
May 15, 2010, 4:52 amnoahp says:
A commenter here at VC suggested last week a desire to anally rape Sarah Palin. I wish there were some way to shut that sort of thing down…not prosecute but exclude from commenting. Its disturbing to me anyway.
Palin made a offhand comment a while back that we were a Christian nation at the founding. This elicited over 10,000 comments at HuffPo most of them hyterical (in the original sense) ad wominem(!). Yet our AG can not bring himself to utter ‘radical islam’. A widely played clip of an articulate woman muslim in CA endorsing the slaughter of Jews in Israel (where it was hoped that they would all gather so they would’t have to be rounded up).
These are incongruous events?
May 15, 2010, 9:36 amnoahp says:
The HuffPo volcano over sarah Palin reminds me of monkeys eventually reproducing Shakepeare: surely among those 10,000 comments there must be the very essence of pithy anti-palin hate!
I leave that judgement as an exercise for the reader.
May 15, 2010, 9:44 amMaasterTheBlasta says:
excellent article. btw, check out this politics site i think u guys might like it!
ThePartisanDialogues.com
May 15, 2010, 9:45 amWBarletta says:
Those interested in advancing the cause of global cyber stability, freedom of expression, and elimination of repression on the internet may be interested in the work of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Information Security of the World Federation of Scientists. This can be found at http://www.unibw.de/infosecur/publications/papers_published .
May 15, 2010, 10:02 amInstapundit » Blog Archive » THE BATTLE for the Internet. says:
[...] THE BATTLE for the Internet. [...]
May 15, 2010, 10:08 amrhhardin says:
and I’m happy to say to whomever is listening
Whoever. It’s the subject of is listening.
May 15, 2010, 10:28 amken Arromdee says:
Reading through that, it sounds to me like the guy is a major jerk whose bad behavior skirts near the edge of violating the law as much as he could. I have little sympathy for someone who does that and goes a bit too far, steps over the line, and violates the law for real a couple of times.
And of course calling it an “ironical email” is spin.
May 15, 2010, 10:35 amThe Battle for the Internet | KEYTLaw says:
[...] David Post’s comments about this article on The Volokh [...]
May 15, 2010, 11:39 amBruks says:
Can’t we at least hope for the regulation of grammar nazis?
May 15, 2010, 12:07 pmChris Travers says:
Especially when the grammar nazis are wrong according to typically accepted prescriptivist rules….
May 15, 2010, 1:45 pmtehag says:
Removing extremist hate sites form the Internet is a good idea. I propose we prioritize them. After 100% of the first group is eliminated, move onto the second and so forth. In the first group will be all anti-Semitic sites; in the second, all anti-American; in the third, all anti-White. We can prioritize everything else after these three have been cleansed from the internet. Since the first will never happen-output from the UN and Arabia would fall dramatically, the Internet will never be censored.
May 15, 2010, 1:59 pmTruffle says:
At first this is what I thought too, and then I read the full story in the legal briefs linked on Zahavy’s site.
All parody is at bottom an ironical use of language, and not “violating the law.”
The issue here is not sympathy. If it’s illegal to be a “jerk” on the internet, then we will always be tempted to punish people for “stepping over” a “line” and “influencing a debate” in ways that some prosecutor judges to be “fraudulent” or too “malicious.” This verbal “line” is a very slippery slope.
Having read through the briefs, I also have to disagree that this person was a “jerk.” It looks rather like he exposed a scandal and responded to all kinds of abuse directed against his father. I wonder how many of us would step up to bat and defend our fathers on the internet?
May 15, 2010, 3:16 pmKen Arromdee says:
The line is already there. As long as there is such a thing as legal activity and illegal activity, there’s always going to be a line.
The problem isn’t that the line slipped, it’s that the guy slipped. If you keep doing jerkass things, it’s a good bet that sooner or later you’re going to do something illegal–not because the law is fuzzy, but because a lot of jerkass things are already illegal and if you keep acting like a jerk in various ways you’ll probably run into one eventually.
Releasing things under someone’s name in order to discredit them is being a jerk. Using 50 different pseudonyms to make it look like you’re supported by a crowd is too. (Not because they’re anonymous, but because there are 50 of them and implying you have support that you don’t is deceitful.)
May 15, 2010, 4:00 pm1040 says:
I agree. I was on the phone call of the secret liberal cabal that has been charged with virally embedding this message in Society.
May 15, 2010, 4:12 pmTruffle says:
When someone commits plagiarism, he’s being a “jerk.” Thousands of people use “sockpuppets” all over the internet, I don’t see them being prosecuted for it. Many people thought Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin were jerks. (They also used pseudonyms.) Fernando Pessoa used at least 70 pseudonyms, fooling academics into believing that all kinds of literary figures existed all over the world. Was that fraud?
From what I’ve been reading about this case, it looks like the shifting pseudonyms here were themselves part of the message, which was: a “consensus” about the “Dead Sea Scrolls” is being deceitfully “fabricated” by wrongful means, including “smears,” “misrepresentations,” “plagiarism,” “exclusion,” and what looks like all kinds of hit-and-run scholarship. I can easily see the humorous answer to that being a different, mock “consensus” of amateur sockpuppet commentators roaming the internet and posting information about this kind of an academic scandal. Maybe some people in the ivory tower feel threatened by that kind of an intellectual joke, but it seems to be just that – an intellectual joke, not a crime.
As for the “line,” I read that it’s when you use someone’s name to steal his money, his private information, or to get some other fraudulent benefit. “Influencing a debate” or blowing the whistle on plagiarism through an email parody isn’t fraud. If some “jerk” sees someone commit a murder on the street and “releases” a mock email “confession” in the murderer’s name, I find it hard to imagine that would be considered a crime.
May 15, 2010, 5:32 pmElliot says:
I doubt the Tea Party movement would have become so large and successful without the internet. That in itself is sufficient reason for many to fear the power of free communication.
The established news media tried very hard to kill the Tea Parties, but the internet made it ineffective. That is a huge loss of power. (Look what Craig’s List did to their revenue.)
There are lots of interests that want to limit the internet. We should oppose them all, regardless of what any other country wants us to do.
May 15, 2010, 6:11 pmChris Travers says:
Yeah. I read through the article and the following came to mind:
“Who made me a big success and brought me wealth and fame?
May 15, 2010, 7:36 pmNikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!”
Kenneth Brooks says:
I don’t think you can successfully block all content on the internet. It is entirely possible to modulate the packet cloud with a encyphered scheme that would appear to the untrained user as noise. All the while it is a clear channel of communication.
May 15, 2010, 8:27 pmChris Travers says:
I don’t think that works. While ESP is probably the best approach to this, it’s still somewhat problematic for a couple of reasons, namely that ESP itself can be detected and blocked.
May 15, 2010, 8:37 pmKen Arromdee says:
This particular remark was in response to the claim that the guy wasn’t a jerk. I’d say that those people using sockpuppets are being jerks.
As I said, the jerkish part isn’t that he used a pseudonym, is that he used 50 of them at the same time.
Also, just because someone is famous enough to get into the history books doesn’t mean they’re not a jerk. If anything, saying “I think these famous people acted in similar ways and they were called jerks too” *supports* my point.
Umm… yeah.
If you see someone commit a murder and want to do something about it, you can call the police. You aren’t supposed to take the law into your own hands and try to punish the murderer yourself. You especially don’t do it by deceiving other people.
May 16, 2010, 3:19 amKen Arromdee says:
By your reasoning, if you wanted to send a message that people are being unnecessarily shot, you should go out and shoot someone.
May 16, 2010, 3:21 amTruffle says:
My statement, “I don’t see them being prosecuted for it,” was actually in response to what seemed to be a suggestion that we should not have “sympathy” for someone who uses sockpuppets to expose a scandal and gets prosecuted for the crime of “fraudulently influencing a debate,” because he’s a “jerk.”
That doesn’t seem right to me. The briefs seem to do a good job of explaining there’s a difference between shooting someone, stealing someone’s money, etc., and engaging in an “intellectual” crime like plagiarism. Bellesiles, for example, was not prosecuted for anything he did. I think that’s because if the state gets involved in this kind of thing, a “line” is crossed towards fascism. This is the difference between civil disputes and crimes. Criticizing someone with even the most vicious forms of parody and irony is simply not a crime in anything I’ve seen, even if the guy doing it seems like a “jerk” to some of us, and it could actually be an interesting way of generating discussion about a scandal.
Anyway, my basic point about the “jerk” thing was that switching pseudonyms can itself be part of the content of a message (and thus is protected by the First Amendment), which can also be relevant to one’s feelings about whether someone actually is a jerk simply because he did this. There seems to be something wrong if I can blog about the Vatican child abuse scandal calling myself Henry Truffle today, Donald Mushroom tomorrow, and Lawrence Piggy the next day, then parody the Pope in an email, and then it’s okay for me to be charged with fraud because I’m a “jerk.”
Making different names can also be entertaining, depending on what side of the debate you’re on. Staging a discussion about the “Dead Sea Scrolls” scandal between all kinds of imaginary online characters sounds like someone’s having some fun on the internet, not like a crime; but I guess if you wish to conceal the scandal, then all you have to do in America is have this prosecuted as a fraudulent scheme to influence a debate.
May 16, 2010, 4:59 amwhit says:
WA state (a liberal state) fights it by making it a C FELONY
despite the fact that gambling is perfectly legal in casinos throughout the state.
but they need to protect us from EVIL INTERNET GAMBLING
… think of the children…
May 16, 2010, 6:01 ammariner says:
Not bloody likely. Do you sing Kumbaya a lot?
The Net requires electronic infrastructure which will be censored or even shut down when seen as a threat to whoever is in power, in various places around the world.
Including the United States. I understand that a bill has already been passed, giving Obama “emergency powers” concerning the Internet. Does anyone know more about this? Is it even true?
May 16, 2010, 9:32 amKen Arromdee says:
There’s a difference between using pseudonyms as a point, and using them to deceive (including using them to deceive but setting up “I was just making a point” as an excuse). There’s also a big difference between you parodying the Pope, and you writing a message in the Pope’s name and sending it to people who might reasonably think the Pope would send them genuine email, in order to deceive them into thinking that the emails are from the Pope.
And as I point out above, “I did bad things because I wanted to send a message that bad things are happening” is a lousy excuse. It’s a troll excuse and is up there with “I was acting like a jerk because it’s a social experiment”.
May 16, 2010, 11:57 amTruffle says:
This seems a bit puritanical to me. Is any kind of “misbehaving” evil? Presumably there’s a difference between humorously “trolling” about an outrageous scandal to call it to people’s attention, and engaging in some kind of horrible deceit. The lines get fuzzy. I think I read somewhere that “those things aimed at virtuous goals should not be called deceits.” Then Kant came back and said any kind of lie was immoral, but not everyone agrees with him.
Besides which, there’s a rather obvious absurdity involved in an academic department chairman sending out a message (apparently from a newly created “gmail” account) to his colleagues accusing himself of plagiarism. This makes it difficult for me to believe this “line” into criminal “jerkhood” was meant to be crossed. I mean, what would that say about the chairman and about the educated professional colleagues themselves, that they would “reasonably think” such an email was genuine, instead of immediately suspecting it must be a prank?
Anyway, this whole “crossing the line into jerkhood” thing simply confirms my point about the difference between civil and criminal cases. This is what they call the “void for vagueness” doctrine in the First Amendment brief which Professor Zahavy links:
http://scrollmotions.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/raphael-golb-first-amendment-motion.pdf
May 16, 2010, 2:04 pmChris Travers says:
Yet Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky was never, in real life, accused of plagiarism…… The only accusations came from Tom Lehrer as a way of making fun of plagiarism generally.
May 16, 2010, 5:16 pmFub says:
Technically true, sort of. But there apparently was a controversy about plagiarism. He, Gauss and Janos Bolyai independently published works on geometries in which the Euclidian parallel postulate was false.
As I’m not an academic, and haven’t studied the era, I don’t know whether the stories of Gauss accusing Lobachevsky of plagiarism are true, but there appears to be at least a grain of truth that Gauss made some comment about it to Bolyai. See this Cecil Adams Straight Dope discussion. For a coherent synopsis of the lives and publications of Bolyai and Lobachevsky, see this.
May 16, 2010, 6:28 pmDavid Schwartz says:
Lehrer explained that “Lobachevsky” was inspired by the Danny Kaye routine about Russian director Constantin Stanislavski:
May 16, 2010, 7:06 pmTruffle says:
The preface to my edition of Walden tells how Thoreau was teaching in a school where they had corporal punishment, and he refused to take the stick to any pupil. So the principal called him into his office and said, “I’m sorry, but we have corporal punishment here, and you will have to choose whether you remain with us or leave.”
Upon hearing this, Thoreau went out in the hallway, randomly chose six pupils, and thrashed their hands with the stick. Then he calmly left the school and never came back.
I guess Thoreau was a jerk. But which is worse, thrashing hands or sending an email parody in the “name” of a department chairman who’s an alleged plagiarist?
May 16, 2010, 7:11 pmTruffle says:
The preface to my edition of Walden tells how Thoreau was teaching in a school where they had corporal punishment, and he refused to take the stick to any pupil. So the principal called him into his office and said, “I’m sorry, but we have corporal punishment here, and you will have to choose whether you remain with us or leave.”
Upon hearing this, Thoreau went out in the hallway, randomly chose six pupils, and thrashed their hands with the stick. Then he calmly left the school and never came back.
I guess Thoreau was a jerk. But which is worse, thrashing hands or sending an email parody in the “name” of a department chairman who’s an alleged plagiarist? I still find it hard to comprehend that they arrested this guy and charged him with the crime of “fraudulently influencing a debate.”
May 16, 2010, 7:17 pmTruffle says:
Sorry for my double post above. I’ve been reading the book “Stolen Words” by Thomas Mallon. He explains that whenever anyone is accused of plagiarism, they always try to twist it around against the accuser, so people are often hesitant to openly make such accusations. He also says plagiarism is actually a form of identity theft, because the ideas of an author are his identity. I like that — “stealing the identity” of a thief to expose the theft.
May 16, 2010, 7:34 pmFree Speech and “Tolerance” on the Internet @ Helian Unbound says:
[...] op-ed in the New York Times on Friday entitled, “The Battle for the Internet.” (hattip Volokh Conspiracy) Apparently it was conceived as a call for freedom of expression on the Internet, which Kouchner [...]
May 17, 2010, 10:12 am