HUMANISM AND FREETHOUGHT
ON THE WORLD-WIDE WEB

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

This paper will appear in complete written form at this address sometime in the future, accompanied by all references and links, so that other individuals may access the resources used by me in writing the paper. The paper was presented to the public on Saturday, April 11, 1998, at the Atheist Alliance Convention in St. Louis.

The subtitle refers to the unparalleled opportunity that the Internet presents to humanists and freethinkers to make their literature, ideals, and arguments available to a much wider audience than ever before in history (the best of times), while at the same time reactionary--primarily right-wing, religious, and Republican--forces are doing their best to censor information on the Internet using a number of methods, including using the power of the state to mandate webpage content restrictions, website content ratings, computer software filters, and Internet censorship (the worst of times). Although most of this censorship effort is directed toward pornography, it can and will also be directed toward any idea or information that is considered "inappropriate" or "harmful" for both minors and adults. I will discuss both the opportunities and the dangers for humanists and freethinkers in the years to come, and what we can do about them.

In the meantime, I post below some of the visuals I will use for my talk.

INTERNET

A network of networks that uses a variety of transmission protocols to transmit data over networks.

• WORLD-WIDE WEB (HTTP = Hypertext Transport Protocol)

  Web Browser (Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer)

• FTP (FTP = File Transport Protocol)

  FTP Client (Fetch, Anarchie, etc.)

• EMAIL (SMTP = Simple Mail Transport Protocol, POP = Post Office Protocol)

  Email Client (Claris Emailer, Eudora, etc.)

• USENET (NNTP = Network News Transport Protocol)

  News Reader (Newswatcher, etc.)

• TELNET (TCP/IP = Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)

  Telnet Client (NCSA Telnet, Nifty Telnet, etc.)

WHAT WAS NEEDED TO MAKE THE INTERNET POSSIBLE?

• Personal computers
   
• Networks connected to the Internet
   
• Client-server network architecture
   
• A universal network protocol: TCP/IP
   
• Software applications that use this protocol with all platforms (Wintel PC, Macintosh, Unix)

THE WORLD-WIDE WEB

• HTTP: Universal language readable by web browsers for all platforms
   
• Client software applications (Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer)
   
• These applications combine a web browser, FTP download client, email client, and news reader
   
• Website construction and administration software
  • specialized applications (Claris Home Page, Adobe Page Mill)
  • text editors (BBEdit, etc.)

Using the World-Wide Web is Easy

The technology and software make it easy to publish your personal or organization's literature on the Web. Grade school students now do it, so you can do it.

Anyone in the world can and will read your website, and they will contact you by email if they have questions or comments.

EVERYTHING is on the Web:

• Corporate, government, professional, organizational, and academic websites.
   
• Pornographic, adult, video sex, XXX CD-ROMS, and gambling websites.
   
• Important, meaningful, interesting, timeless literature.
   
• Useless, meaningless, boring, garbage literature.
   
• Thought-provoking, content-rich personal homepages.
   
• Banal, content-poor personal homepages.
   
• Websites of educators, philosophers, scientists, teachers of wisdom, tolerance, understanding, rationality, skepticism, critical thinking, humanism, freethought, live-life-fully-and-happily philosophies.
   
• Websites of hucksters, con-artists, religionists, purveyors of willful ignorance, superstition, supernatural religion, hate, bigotry, pseudoscience, the paranormal, get-rich-quick and get-to-heaven schemes.

Humanist and Freethought Literature
Was Once Difficult to Find or Read

• Humanism and freethought are not taught in schools or most homes.
   
• Humanist and freethought literature was formerly restricted and censored.
   
• Humanist and freethought literature was formerly difficult to find, buy, and read.
   
• Humanist and freethought literature was thus not readily or easily available to interested individuals.
   
• Expression of humanist and freethought ideals, goals, and arguments was thus not widely available to potential sympathizers and colleagues.
   
• Therefore, many individuals did not discover our literature and existence until they were middle-aged. As young adults, they no doubt had doubts about the superstitious and incredible claims of most religions--the same claims expressed by 90% of society--but they were at a loss about how to react to such claims or about how to investigate and corroborate their own beliefs about the reality of the supernatural; that is, they did not yet have the tools to evaluate their own thinking about religion and claims of the supernatural.

Humanist and Freethought Literature
is on the World-Wide Web

• Now, humanist and freethought literature is widely and easily available on the World-Wide Web.
   
• Anyone in the world, including any grade school or high school student, can access and read humanist and freethought literature.
   
• Thus, for the first time in history, humanist and freethought literature is now readily accessible by any interested person.
   
• This situation--for the first time in history--promises to bring information about critical thinking, free inquiry, rationalism, empiricism, skepticism, and other fruits of humanism and freethought to all individuals.
   
• This circumstance will greatly increase humanist and freethinker numbers and influence as our ideals, goals, and arguments are more widely read and appreciated. This, in turn, will greatly increase the quality of life for all humans and other living organisms on Earth.
   
• Although such a result has been predicted before--at the invention of the printing press in the 15th century and at the success of modern scientific inquiry in the 18th century--results have frankly been mixed. Maybe this time, the revolution of intellectual thought and belief in society that we so earnestly seek will occur.

Suppression of Freedom of Expression
on the Internet and World-Wide Web

• Powerful forces (a "vast right-wing conspiracy") are at work to censor images, ideas, and information on the Internet and World-Wide Web.
   
• While undoubtedly directed primarily at pornography, this campaign has the underlying motive of censoring and suppressing all unpopular ideas by terming them "inappropriate for minors" or "harmful to minors," but this will also have the (intended) effect of making them unavailable to adults.
   
• I believe that humanist and freethought literature is also--or will be--a target of the censors. Misguided and uninformed teachers, administrators, and librarians in public schools and libraries will add humanism and atheism to the list of words and ideas to censor. (Obviously, censorship of such topics in individual homes and private schools is perfectly legal, although still misguided and uninformed.)
   
• The censorship of images, ideas, and information on the Internet takes a variety of forms. Much information is available about the goals, programs, and techniques of the parties that are attempting censorship at my Internet Freedom and Democracy Websites. I will summarize some of that information below:
   
  • The Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA I) was unanimously found to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.
     
  • Despite this, other bills have been proposed to replace the CDA or accomplish similar goals:
     
    • S. 1619 (McCain, R-AZ) - Requires that all public libraries and schools that receive federal funds for Internet access use blocking programs to restrict Internet access to material considered "inappropriate for minors."
       
    • S. 1482 (Coats, R-IN) - Would punish commercial online distributors of material deemed "harmful to minors" with up to six months in jail and a $50,000 fine. (This bill is known as CDA II.)
       
    • New Mexico SB 127 - Regulates Internet speech by making it a crime to disseminate material over the Internet that is "harmful to a minor."
       
  • Filtering software has been developed and widely used to filter websites and their images, ideas, and information. These filters have been used in schools, libraries, and other public institutions to censor pornography sites and much else. Furthermore, some legislation, such as the McCain Act, mandate their adoption by state power. These filters work by filtering websites on the basis of the following:
     
    • Web addresses (URLs) from a public and continually updated list of sites deemed "harmful to minors"
       
    • Key words or phrases found on the webpages of site (e.g. breast, nude, XXX, etc.)
       
  • The latest campaign is to encourage or mandate self-censorship by the website administrators themselves. This method uses a rating system that forces a website administrator to correctly rate one's site by a variety of vague descriptive criteria. Although (again) directed primarily at pornographic and hate websites, other sites containing "unpopular" ideas would also be rated. Filtering programs would then be placed on all school and library computers to filter out websites on the basis of their ratings. Unrated websites (i.e. sites that refuse to rate themselves because of their administrator's objection to self-censorship) would automatically be blocked by the software! And websites that misleadingly rate themselves would be fined or blocked by Internet authorities!
     
• Although ostensibly directed at pornography, the software filters, rating systems, and legislative mandates are directed at all unpopular ideas that some adults would consider "harmful" or "inappropriate" for minors. Make no mistake: Such ideas would include Humanist and Freethought ideals, arguments, and information. The many organizatons that are fighting to preserve free expression on the Internet make the point that all such methods will also restrict the free flow of information to adults, and that the public mandate of such methods is unconstitutional.