Besides being difficult to access for the blind computer user, America
Online has another disadvantage: being the unofical censor of t he
Internet. If you want to be free of thought police, consider usenet or a
mailing list. This article was on the front page of today's New York
Times
kelly
January 31, 1999
Worries About Big Brother at America Online
By AMY HARMON
Like the divided generations of Irish before them, the two
opposing camps of contributors to America Online's discussion group
on Ireland rarely agree on anything. But when the world's leading
online service suspended their contentious electronic debate last
month, participants on both sides were united in their dismay.
"Don't stop just to appease the AOL Thought Police," one proponent
of a united Ireland wrote to the Unionist contingent. "I'd much
rather have someone vehemently disagree with me than know that
anyone has been silenced!"
America Online reopened its Irish Heritage discussion after a
17-day "cooling off" period, and if there was a strangely muted
quality to the contributions at first, things are mostly back to
normal. The politics folder, which now bears the slogan "a place
for cordial political debate in the spirit of harmony," has spawned
more than 12,000 of the usual postings regarding British treason
and Sinn Fein terrorism since the beginning of the year.
But the episode has fed a growing discomfort with the social and
political power America Online has come to wield by dint of its
surging popularity and its unusual purview over individual
communication. And it underscores the challenges the company may
face as it seeks with mixed success to maintain both civil
discourse and satisfied customers while presiding over 180,000
continuing conversations on topics from the teen-age idols 'N Sync
to Presidential impeachment.
Balancing free expression with civility has always been a struggle
for America Online and other electronic publishers that provide
areas where people can voice their opinions by typing them into the
ether. But it is America Online's scope combined with its editorial
control that some critics say is cause for concern.
With 15 million subscribers, America Online is now the gateway to
cyberspace for more Americans than the next 15 largest Internet
service providers combined, according to a report released last
week by the International Data Corp., a market research firm. This
week, announcing strong earnings, the company said 1.6 million
accounts were added in the last three months of 1998 alone.
But some members have begun to chafe at its definition of civility,
or at least the way it seems sometimes arbitrarily applied. And
some civil liberties advocates are scrutinizing the service more
closely as a new breed of institution that governs speech and yet
is immune from First Amendment claims.
A flurry of recent clashes in discussion areas ranging from race
relations to fiction writing have served to heighten concerns over
the company's more subtle methods of monitoring the discussions on
its message boards -- the continuing discussions that subscribers
can follow and contribute to over time, as distinct from the
simultaneous and sometimes chaotic (but also monitored) exchanges
in what it calls chat rooms. In particular, some subscribers cite
the online service's practice of deleting message board postings
without explanation and of attaching the equivalent of demerit
marks to the accounts of individuals deemed to have offended
another subscriber.
Who Decides What's Offensive?
T he question is, who gets to decide what's 'offensive?"' says
Renee Rosenblum-Lowden of Riegelsville, Pa., who recalls being
cited for a violation for posting a message in a debate on abortion
advising an opponent, "If you can't stand the heat get out of the
kitchen."
Under America Online's contract, universally referred to among
members in both noun and verb form as TOS, for "terms of service,"
all subscribers promise not to "harass, threaten, embarrass, or do
anything else to another member that is unwanted." Often
transgressions are reported to America Online officials by other
discussion group participants, whose identities are not released to
those they accuse. According to the company's subscriber contract,
three such violations may result in the suspension or termination
of an account.
Ms. Rosenblum-Lowden -- whose screen name is now "Prejteach 2"
because her "Prejteach" account was closed -- says she and a group
of other women who take part in discussions on the Women in Action
board have been picked as targets for complaints by those who
disagree with their liberal views. "Unlike a court of law, you
don't face your accusers," she said. "That gives people free rein."
America Online officials concede that judging what is unduly
offensive in often-complex political disputes or long-running
personal battles can be tricky, especially given the volume and
range of messages. That is why the company has enlisted nearly
14,000 volunteers to patrol the boards, and employs a group of
about 100 known as the Community Action Team to determine when a
comment crosses the line.
In intervening in conversations between its users, America Online
says its objective is to maintain a sense of community. Although
legal liability for libelous statements appearing on its boards was
once more of a concern, a provision of the Telecommunications Act
of 1996 essentially grants online services immunity from
prosecution over such matters, characterizing them as a "common
carrier" like a telephone company -- simply a means by which
information is transmitted, with no responsibility for the
information itself.
Most terms-of-service violations are handled case by case. In an
extreme case like the Irish board, where dozens of violations were
being reported every day by the most active participants, the
company said there were enough profane and offensive postings that
it became necessary to shut down the whole discussion. The
discussion archives, which sometimes remain on the service for
several years, were wiped clean during the weeks that the board was
shut down, so no trace remains.
"There's a certain amount of judgment required in situations on
whether something is particularly harassing or threatening of other
members," said Katherine Boursecnik, America Online's vice
president for network programming. "That's where things get the
most difficult. We train people to be agnostic about the specific
content and to look more at things like tone: Is it threatening,
harassing, profane, vulgar?"
But given the well-documented tendency of normally sober citizens
to act out on line, the problems of privacy protection and threats
to minors -- as well as Congressional efforts to regulate online
speech -- Ms. Boursecnik said the company's supervisory policies
were necessary to provide the open atmosphere its customers wanted.
"We are a service that prides ourselves on having a wide-ranging
appeal to a wide range of individuals," she added. "But at the same
time we're also a family service."
For Some, Control Is Seen as a Virtue
I ndeed, for many subscribers, America Online's virtue is its
controlled environment. A members-only online service distinct from
the unfettered Internet, America Online has achieved market
dominance by promoting itself as a place where families and
first-time Internet users can feel comfortable. While members can
venture out into the World Wide Web and other parts of the Internet
from the online service, many seldom do, preferring America
Online's relative safety and familiarity.
The service is far from the only Internet discussion area to
enforce its own standards of acceptable speech. Popular Web
destinations like the search and directory site Yahoo,
discussion-oriented sites like Theglobe.com, and sites operated by
traditional publishers (including The New York Times) reserve the
right to remove postings on the message boards they provide to
Internet users. And those who find America Online's terms
unacceptable can always go to another online service, or to the
Internet's entirely unmonitored forums called news groups.
But America Online's extraordinary market dominance, critics argue,
makes it the only place in practical terms for a growing number of
people to speak their mind in cyberspace. Many Internet users find
the unmoderated news groups too technically complex to use and too
overrun with advertising to be productive for discussion. Since it
serves as an Internet service provider, America Online has a far
more potent enforcement mechanism for its rules than most other
discussion areas on the Web. Since subscribers pay a monthly fee
with a credit card, the company can bar individuals from logging on
-- thereby denying them, among other things, access to e-mail.
"America Online is the operating system of the Internet," said
Andrew L. Shapiro, the First Amendment fellow at the Brennan Center
for Justice at New York University Law School, comparing the
service to the Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, which
runs on 90 percent of the world's personal computers.
"We've moved distressingly close to the model that the Internet was
supposed to replace, which is a couple of big companies having a
disproportionate amount of control over the information market,"
Shapiro added. "A good argument can be made that AOL needs to take
on more responsibility for protecting free speech, whether courts
require it or consumers simply demand it."
Canceling Service as Sign of Protest
A lthough some subscribers, like John Navin, 38, of Mount Lake
Terrace, Wash., said he had dropped his America Online account to
protest the Irish board shutdown, others dissatisfied with its
interventions remain with the service out of choice, habit or
necessity.
When Sheila Fahey found the Irish discussion shuttered last month,
for example, she and others tried to migrate their discussion to a
site on the World Wide Web called Ireland Uncensored. But she found
the forum confusing and too difficult to follow. Instead, she says
she and several other Irish nationalists now screen each other's
postings before making them public to vet them for possible
terms-of-service violations.
"We've all learned not to use first-person pronouns," said Ms.
Fahey, 41, a paralegal in Chicago. "If an English teacher looked at
some of our postings, they are so passive-language-filled they'd
have a cow."
(When the discussion was reopened, the monitor posted a message
pleading for harmony: "We encourage you to make this a more amiable
place where any person, regardless of faction, can openly discuss
political issues and current events.")
For Robin Olderman, 54, a high school English teacher in Houston,
it means putting up with what she describes as feeling like a kid
in a playground whose friends go running to the teacher.
"I take issue with the way the rules are enforced arbitrarily,"
said Ms. Olderman, who is currently operating under a "mutual
nonharassment notice," an e-mail message from America Online
explaining that she and another subscriber are never to speak to
each other via the service again.
Perhaps more disturbing to some subscribers is the removal of
postings from message boards. On the Writers Club board, which like
many areas of America Online is administered by a separate company
that contracts with the service, more than a dozen of the most
active participants over the last several years recently left en
masse after the board monitors began removing their postings and
reporting terms-of-service violations more frequently to the
Community Action Team.
The writers now congregate on a board called "Sanctuary" in the
American Civil Liberties Union area on America Online, where the
terms-of-service rules do not apply.
On the race relations message board, Jay Lutsky, 31, of Edison,
N.J., said he compared an active participant who accused everyone
on the board of being his enemy to Robespierre, the French Jacobin
leader responsible for the revolution's Reign of Terror. It was
removed by monitors after the other participant said it was
slander.
"I said it was opinion; I'm entitled," Lutsky, a teacher, said. "I
understand AOL is a large private corporation, and I guess it's
technically their property, but I don't think it should be allowed
to interfere with the First Amendment rights of people."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
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