Extracted from the University of Arizona Library ("sabio")
at URL: http://dizzy.library.arizona.edu/
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Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 08:45:12 -0500 (EST)
From: "Shabbir J. Safdar"
Subject: INFO: Internet users painting the net black on
Thursday (2/6/96)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FEBRUARY 6, 1996
Contact: Steven Cherry
(201) 596-2851
stc@vtw.org
Shabbir Safdar
(718) 596-2851
shabbir@vtw.org
New York, NY
INTERNET DAYS OF PROTEST TO BEGIN WHEN
PRESIDENT SIGNS TELECOMM BILL
INTO LAW
When there's a funeral in New Orleans, they don't just
stand around looking at a casket, there's a marching
band, and when they mourn on the Internet there's lots
of noise as well. Virtual noise that is. Inside the
casket lies the First Amendment, and the noise is people
turning their World Wide Web sites black.
The last gasp for the First Amendment will be heard later this week when President Clinton signs the long- awaited Telecommunications Reform Bill. Buried just below its surface, like a bomb waiting to explode, lies the descendant of the Communications Decency Act, legislative language that will ban "indecency" in cyberspace. George Carlin-style indecency, broadcast- media style indecency. An FCC-enforced ban on indecency, as if the government could monitor the millions of Web pages, Usenet postings, email listservers, and chat messages generated across the Internet each day. As if American law could restrict what's available on a global Internet, where pinup photos, cancer support-group advice, and currency exchanges can move at the same speed and in packets that are essentially indistinguishable, and servers can move around the globe in a way that physical goods manufacturers can only look at, black with envy.
Black, as in the traditional color of mourning. The Grim Reaper wears black. Judges wear black -- black robes symbolize a lack of favor to one side or the other. The black of the "Day Without Art." The black that people wear at funerals, to underline the loss of something important to them.
On the Internet, a network, a networked community, based entirely on speech, nothing is more important the freedom from censorship enjoyed up to the moment when President Clinton's pen puts an asterisk next to the First Amendment, an asterisk that says, "except on-line speech," an asterisk it will probably take the Supreme Court months, if not years to erase.
That black can be seen at http://www.surfwatch.com/, a popular site on the Internet, and an especially ironic one to see it in. Surfwatch is devoted to perfecting just the kind of parental controls that work far more effectively than any government regulation could, and which facilitate free speech instead of criminalizing it.
That black can be seen at sites large and small, commercial and noncommercial. Christopher L. Barnard, who maintains Illinois Virtual Tourist, says that his black pages are all ready to be loaded as soon as he hears the bill is signed.
Turning the pages black, involves changing the backgrounds so that light text appears on a dark background. It may not be aesthetically desirable, as some, who are changing their pages anyway, have pointed out. It can involve proprietary extensions to the formatting language of the Web, complain others. It's been characterized the "Paint it Black" campaign by some, and the "Thousand Points of Darkness" by others.
All in all, just the sort of free-wheeling, outspoken, opinionated activity that has characterized the Internet since its inception over twenty years ago. "What can we do?" asks Shabbir Safdar, co-founder of Voter's Telecommunications Watch, one of the many on-line activist organizations organizing the campaign. "It also can't be seen by text-only Web browsers, or by people with net-access that doesn't include the Web. But we couldn't let the day go by unmarked." The campaign asks Web-based information providers to turn their pages to black for forty-eight hours after the President signs the telecomm bill into law.
Sometimes it is easy to comply. Josh Quittner of Time- Warner's Pathfinder, says, "Heck, our pages are black half the time anyway. But for those two days they'll be black because of the telecomm bill." Pathfinder is one of the largest and most-used sites on the Internet.
Sheryl Stover, marketing director at Internet On-Ramp, Inc., of Austin, Texas, said her personal page is already black. But all non-client pages are being altered from Monday February 5th through the two day period after Clinton's pen adds a black-ink graffiti scrawl across the Bill of Rights.
SurfWatch can be contacted at http://www.surfwatch.com/ or 800-458-6600.
Christopher L. Barnard and the Illinois Virtual Tourist
can be reached at 312-702-8850, ilinfo-
www@cs.uchicago.edu, and
http://www.cs.uchicago.edu/html/external/illinois/index.
html
Pathfinder's Netly News can be found at
http://pathfinder.com/Netly/nnhome.html
Sheryl Stover and the Internet On-Ramp, Inc. are at 509-
624-RAMP and http://www.ior.com/
Voters Telecommunications Watch is a volunteer
organization, concentrating on legislation as it relates
to telecommunications and civil liberties. VTW
publishes a weekly BillWatch that tracks relevant
legislation as it progresses through Congress. It
publishes periodic Alerts to inform the about immediate
action it can take to protect its on-line civil
liberties and privacy.
More information about VTW can be found on-line at
gopher -p 1/vtw gopher.panix.com
www: http://www.vtw.org
or by writing to vtw@vtw.org. The press can call (718)
596-2851 or contact:
Shabbir Safdar Steven Cherry
shabbir@vtw.org stc@vtw.org
[Note: To turn your WWW page black see links below]
[NEW: For non-Netscape browsers, please also add a black
strip across your page.
It will be a good idea to modify pointers, so that they
say something like: "This page is blackened (and has a
black band across it for browsers that don't support
background colors) in protest of the passage of the
Communications "Decency" Amendment to the Telecom Bill"
or something to that effect.
It will also be good to add:
ALT="#################################################">
to the IMG tag with which you link in the black strip
image, so that a black strip is simulated for text-only
browsers. - mech@eff.org]
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bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
"Why is this Web page blackened (and why does it have
a black strip across it for browsers that don't support
background colors)?"
########################################################
For the 48 hours after the signing of the Telecom Bill
(and its Communications Decency Amendment) into law,
please take part also in the Blacked-Out Web Page
Campaign (I.e., do it now, until Sat.)
THE BLUE RIBBON CAMPAIGN
for Online Freedom of Speech, Press and Association Last
updated: 8:30pm PST, Feb. 8, 1996.
__________________________________________________________
BLUE Ribbon Campaign Introduction
A BLUE ribbon is chosen as the symbol for the preservation
of basic civil rights in the electronic world. The BLUE
ribbon is of course insprired by the yellow POW/MIA and
red AIDS/HIV ribbons, and also by the (U.S.) Second
Amendment & public land usage rights BLUE ribbons, the
breast cancer pink ribbon, etc.
EFF and other civil liberties groups ask that a BLUE ribbon be worn or displayed to show support for the essential human right of free speech. This fundamental building block of free society, affirmed by the U.S. Bill of Rights in 1791, and by the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, has been sacrificed in the 1996 Telecom Bill.
The BLUE ribbon will be a way to raise awareness of these issues, from locally to globally, and for the quiet voice of reason to be heard.
The voice of reason knows that free speech doesn't equate to sexual harassment, abuse of children, or the breeding of hatred or intolerance.
We insist that any material that's legal in bookstores, newspapers, or public libraries must be legal online.
See below for info on how to get BLUE Ribbon graphics
for your pages.
________________________________________________________
BLUE Ribbon Graphics
All Web users are strongly encouraged to place a BLUE
ribbon graphic on their servers, such as the ones below.
(see link below)
Many other versions are available, including border- less transparent, grey and black backrounds, smaller versions, an outline version, and a textless version for incorporation into larger banners (as a standalone icon, please use the versions with text, so people have some idea that there IS a BLUE ribbon campaign and what is about when they first encounter it - not everyone has a color monitor, so the verbal name of the campaign is important to pass around. Thank you for your support and activism, and remember - it's YOUR rights you are fighting for! Wear a real BLUE ribbon, so people ask you what it's all about.
If you are not sure why you need to participate in the BLUE ribbon Campaign and stand up for your free speech, or uncertain how your rights are threatened, please see the Internet Censorship Legislation Alerts Page
_________________________________________________________
Other BLUE Ribbon Pages
Here are some other sites providing BLUE Ribbon pages. You
might wish to refer people to one of these sites as well
as or in place of ours. This will help reduce load on our
system, and help spread the word into other online
communities (e.g. via having someone within each community
provide a BLUE ribbon page, rather than everyone having to
figure out who we are and how we relate to their
interests) this is *not* a list of people supporting the
BLUE ribbon campaign by putting BLUE ribbons on their WWW
pages - there are already thousands!
NOTE: For the time being, we're also listing WWW Blackout pages here (see above - for 48 hours after Clinton signs the CDA into law, which is threatened for Thu. Feb 8, turn your Web pages black in mourning for the Internet.) As with the ribbon effort, we're just linking resources for more info on the black-out campaign, not every supporter of it.
* EFF (2nd server)
* EFF (3rd server)
* EFF (4th server)
* Center for Democracy and Technology
* Voters' Telecom Watch
* APK Net
* Yahoo!
* HotWired
* Dave Winer
* Thousand Points of Darkness (black-out info site)
* Surfwatch
* Emperor & Jammer (a rebellious spin on the concept)
* Ryan Thornburg (the Black and BLUE All Over page)
* Raleigh Muns, UM-St. Louis Reference Librarian
* Ryan Thornburg
* Karl Simanonok
* EFF Welcome Page
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LUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BLUE b=BL
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Visit the University of Arizona
Library ("sabio"), and review all the links to the first
paragraph for details on the "black page" and "blue ribbon" projects.