Will Access to the Net Be a Privilege Or a Right?
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Winter/Spring 1996 Netizens and Online Access Volume 7 No 1 “People need communication to represent themselves, and e-mail for that reason, as well as Netnews.” from a post at the San Francisco Public Library during the NTIA online conference, Nov. 14-21, 1994 Will Access to the Net only an important concern for the individuals involved, it is also a concern for those online who will benefit Be a Privilege or a Right? from the broadest participation of all and their contribu- tions to the online community. Those who have to pay This issue of the Amateur Computerist is on the by the hour or by the amount of data they use, are subject of Netizens and Online Access. The issue dis- limited in what they are able or willing to contribute. cusses both the cooperative online community and the Also, commercial profit oriented access has led to abuse effort to extend access to the online community. We have of Usenet. While those connecting from academic or included articles about the development of the online community networking sites must often agree to act Usenet community and about the challenges it faces. according to acceptable use policies which prohibit Also, this issue contains articles about efforts to extend advertising, chain letters, pyramid schemes, etc, some access to the Net (to Usenet, e-mail and a text based commercial sites have been less willing to enforce browser like lynx), to those who are not yet online but acceptable use policies to prevent such abuse. who want to contribute to the Net. In August of last year, the Telecommunities ’95 From the earliest days of networking developments, Conference was held in Victoria, British Columbia. The the vision guiding networking pioneers was of a com- slogan of the conference was “Equity on the Internet.” puter utility that everyone would have access to. What The conference set as a goal, access of all in Canada to is now becoming clear, however, is that for networking Usenet and e-mail and local community information by access to be ubiquitous it has to be available free or at the year 2000. The commitment was stressed at the its actual low cost (i.e. $4 to $8 per year per person). conference that there was a need to protect the public Such access should not be limited by geographical or online space. “Cyberspace *Is* public space.... We each income factors. have a RIGHT to be there,” one of the speakers at the The right of all to have access to the Net is not conference emphasized. A similar sentiment had been expressed in the US Table of Contents in November, 1994 during the online public hearing held by the National Telecommunications Information Net Access: A Privilege or a Right? ........Page 1 Administration under the U.S. Department of Com- Canadian Community Networking .........Page 2 merce. The online conference requested citizen input Netizens and Community Networks ........Page 5 into what should be the future of the National Science Letter to the Editor ......................Page 7 Foundation (NSF) backbone to the Internet. Many par- Access For All FAQ .....................Page 7 ticipants at the online conference expressed the impor- The Future of Democracy ...............Page 12 tance of having e-mail and Usenet access available for Old Freedoms and New Technologies ......Page 16 all and there was a concern that the so called “free Forming the Usenet Online Community ....Page 21 market” policy of networking development would only History of Cleveland Free-Net ............Page 24 exclude important sectors of U.S. society from access Universal Access to E-Mail ..............Page 26 to these important new communication resources. Prototype for Policy Decisions ............Page 27 In the early days of Usenet and the ARPAnet, there In Honor of ‘Doc’ Wilson ...............Page 37 Page 1 was an ARPAnet Mailing List known as Human-Nets. Canadian Community Networking Those contributing to Human-Nets recognized the importance of their participation in a new form of Report From communication. A goal of those on Human-Nets was to Telecommunities’95 Conference create a World-Net, a worldwide computer and com- by Jay Hauben munications network. Today that goal of a world-wide [email protected] computer and communications network has become a goal within reach, but the question of how to make Something big is happening in the world. There is access to it available to all is still an unsolved public rapid development and deployment of new technology policy dilemma. making possible an incredibly inexpensive global com- This issue of the Amateur Computerist is dedicated munications system. This is a report about a grassroots to examining some of the efforts to take up this pubic effort across Canada that is attempting to insure partici- policy goal, by examining the creation of Cleveland Free- pation in the development and use of this technology by Net, reporting on the Community networking movement community level people. The organization formed to in Canada and including the Access For All FAQ sent coordinate this Canadian community network move- to us from Germany. We hope this will provide a broader ment is called Telecommunities Canada. view of the issues involved in developing the Internet In February, 1995, a conference announcement ap- than the limited commercial view that dominates media peared on electronic mailing lists and Usenet news- attention in countries like the U.S. We also look at how groups. It began, “Telecommunities Canada is pleased the early days of Usenet took on the problem of having to extend an invitation to Free and Community Net- a democratic foundation as a basis for the creation of an works across Canada and around the world to attend the ever growing and expanding online community. In International Community Networking Conference and addition, we have included articles in this issue about the First Annual General Meeting of Telecommunities potential of the Net to make direct democracy feasible Canada.” The announcement encouraged the widest and available. possible attendance from participants in Freenets, Crucial to the health of not only the online com- Community Networks and other forms of electronic munity, but also the future of our society is the need to community based activities with the hope it would lead have the cooperative contributions to the Net. These are to the founding of an International Telecommunities only possible by having a healthy social policy toward Organization to encourage the development of commu- networking development and access. Though the U.S. nity networking around the world. It also pointed to government is not currently pursuing this goal, there is their vision of ubiquitous access to electronic communi- a broad sentiment within the U.S. and elsewhere that this cations for all Canadians by the year 2000. is a crucial public policy issue and these voices need to The conference took place from Aug. 19–23, 1995 find a way to influence public policy both on and off the in Victoria, British Columbia. Over 300 people attended Net. the four days of tutorials, speeches, concurrent sessions and a barbeque. Most of the participants were Canadi- [Editor’s Note: The U.S. Telecommunications Act of ans, but also present were community networking 1996 was passed while this issue of the Amateur Com- people from the U.S., England, Australia, and a few puterist was going to press. The law ignores the Free-net other countries. Most of the more than 30 operating and community networking movement and lacks any Canadian community networks were represented as historical perspective of how the Net has developed and were many of the 70 or so community networks that are spread. For a future issue we invite comments on the new in various stages of organization. Since the first Cana- law and views about what it is necessary to do to influ- dian community network, Victoria Free-Net, came ence what the U.S. government will do to implement the online in November, 1992, over 200,000 Canadians or universal service provisions of the new law.] a little less than 1% of the Canadian population has gained free or very low cost access to the Net via such networks. The conference sessions were for the most part serious and many pressing issues were discussed and Page 2 debated. This report covers a few. Most Canadian community networks retain free access, All Canadian community networks are staffed most- covering their operating costs by voluntary donations ly by volunteers, sometimes numbering in the hundreds. from their users and other fund raising mechanisms. But Most of the work of figuring out, setting up and main- the money question and the question of being sustain- taining these networks is done by volunteers from the able seemed on everyone’s agenda. communities or cities involved. In fact, one of the major Speaking to the principles on which to base the purposes of these community networks is to provide money and other decisions, Garth Graham one of the training for local community people in electronic com- theoreticians of the Canadian community network munications technology and network management. In movement has written: “A community network is elec- that way these communities hope they might participate tronic public space where ordinary people can meet and in the development of advanced technology and their converse about common concerns. Like parks, civic people could take jobs or participate in decisions which squares, sidewalks, wilderness, and the sea, it’s an require such technical knowledge. Many of the students, electronic commons shared by all, not a cyberspace people between jobs, librarians, and senior citizens who shopping mall.” To maintain their value as a public volunteer, do so with this purpose in mind.