1)What is objectionable?

One of the difficulties with issues of censorship is determining what material should be considered "morally or otherwise objectionable." Various religious and political agendas can cloud the issues.

Your in-class assignment is to act as a censor, determining whether or not certain materials are objectionable. There are two questions to decide for each situation presented. First, who is the audience of the material in question? This should affect whether or not the material is objectionable. Then, make a decision on whether or not the material should be censored.

First, decide individually on each issue, and then as a group. The group decisions will be combined to come up with a class decision on each issue.

Material	Censor	Who is the Audience?	Objectionable?
Vulgar language in an opinion column	Newspaper Editor
Racist remarks in an opinion column	Newspaper Editor
Nudity in artwork in a museum	Purchaser
Drug-related information on a web page	Internet Service Provider
Pornographic content on a web page, without a warning	Internet Service Provider
Pornographic content on a web page, with a warning	Internet Service Provider
Pornographic content on a web page, with password protection	Internet Service Provider
Pornographic images posted to an appropriate newsgroup	Internet Service Provider
Pornographic images posted to an inappropriate newsgroup	Internet Service Provider
Vulgar and/or Racist remarks on an IRC channel	Channel Operator
Vulgar and/or Racist remarks on an IRC channel	Internet Service Provider
Vulgar and/or Racist remarks to an individual in e-mail	Internet Service Provider
Vulgar and/or Racist remarks to a group in e-mail	Internet Service Provider
Vulgar and/or Racist remarks to a public e-mail list	Internet Service Provider

After comparing the group results for the class, discuss the differences in answers. Are there any common lines of division, such as gender or race?

2) Debate of a current example

Background:

In the Winter of 1996, a situation arose at Virginia Tech where an alumnus discovered a questionable web page on the computer science department's machine for undergraduate use. The alumnus notified the university of the questionable content, which was then investigated. The investigation led to the discovery of several web pages, some of which contained drug-related information, and one of which contained material related to white supremacy.

• Read the complete scenario and related contributions, available at "http://ei.cs.vt.edu:8000/Public/View/cs3604_spring97/contribution03_je/index.txt".
• Discuss as a class the questions presented, and the appropriateness of the action taken by the university.

3) Writing assignment

Censorship has affected almost everyone at one time or another. Think of an occasion in your life when your expression has been censored. This could be either by someone else, or by yourself (possibly in expectation of disapproval by someone else). If you cannot think of such an occasion, then you may write about an instance of censorship that happened to someone else. Some possible examples may be found in Ethics and Computing by Kevin W. Bowyer.

Give some background information on what happened and what action you and others took. Describe any action taken against the censorship, or any possible action you could have taken. If the situation did not involve electronic communication, discuss how the situation would be different if electronic communication were involved.

There is no length requirement on the assignment, as that would inhibit the free expression of ideas.

(c)John Harding 1997
Last modified: 4/27/97