CULTURE: Censoring Cyberspace

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That decision drew fire from all sides. The student council pointed out that the administration was restricting the reading matter of adults to what was acceptable for children. The American Civil Liberties Union complained that the ban was overly broad and included discussions of sexual matters that were clearly protected speech. Mike Godwin, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, made a distinction between words and pictures, arguing that while images are still sometimes found obscene, words never are -- a view confirmed by the Allegheny county assistant district attorney, who told Time there was "not a chance in a million" his office could win an obscenity case based on a written work.

But the central objection was more fundamental: that the university had ignored decades of constitutional law and abrogated its responsibility as a center for free inquiry. "I'm deeply ashamed that Carnegie Mellon capitulated so spinelessly," said one CMU student in a radio call-in debate. "Some lawyer told them they might someday be dragged into court, and they just decided, 'To hell with the First Amendment."'

By midweek, the university had begun to back down. First it seized on Godwin's formula, banning the binaries and leaving the text in place -- pending review by a student-faculty committee. Then, on Thursday night, the faculty senate voted to recommend restoration of all the newsgroups, including the binaries.

But the issue will not go away. There is material on the networks -- child pornography, in particular -- that has been targeted for prosecution by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. Unless computer users exercise some self- restraint, control could be imposed from the outside. If that happens, the next generation of interactive media may not have the freedom and openness that today's users value so highly.