Certainly the Internet didn’t invent threats, defamation, copyright infringement and other illicit speech. But with its anonymous remailers, the Net does enable speakers to avoid apprehension and punishment for such illegal utterances. Banning online anonymity would go much too far, stifling the 99 percent of legitimate speech in pursuit of the 1 percent of criminal speech.
Predictor: Bates, Stephen
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article in CQ Researcher, Charles Clark quotes Stephen Bates, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program, talking about the government’s attempts to maintain regulated amounts of surveillance on the Internet. Clark writes: ”[A] logical possibility would be forcing all Internet users to identify themselves. ‘Certainly the Internet didn’t invent threats, defamation, copyright infringement and other illicit speech,’ writes Stephen Bates, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Washington Program in communications. ‘But with its anonymous remailers, the Net does enable speakers to avoid apprehension and punishment for such illegal utterances.’ Still, the cure, he adds, may be worse than the disease. ‘Banning online anonymity would go much too far, stifling the 99 percent of legitimate speech in pursuit of the 1 percent of criminal speech.'”
Date of prediction: June 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Anonymity/Personal Identity
Name of publication: CQ Researcher
Title, headline, chapter name: Regulating the Internet
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/search.php
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney