We need to look very carefully at how we apply our legal system to the issues of electronic bulletin boards.
Predictor: Rickard, Jack
Prediction, in context:Jack Rickard made the following statement in a panel presentation titled “Electronic Speech, Press & Assembly” at the 1991 Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility: ”If they have full faith of their innocence on any number of complex legal issues, and [faith] that they will be found innocent, they can still be completely and thoroughly bankrupt because of the legal costs involved in defending that innocence. So I think that [we need to look at] the problems of some of these system operators if they are to survive past the fledgling stage, or, as Mitch Kapor so aptly put it yesterday, ‘the petri dish of experimentation.’ We need to look very carefully at how we apply our legal system to the issues of electronic bulletin boards.”
Biography:Jack Rickard, the editor/publisher of Boardwatch Magazine, the magazine of the 1990s home-grown BBS industry, was also co-founder of the Online Networking Exposition and BBS Convention (ONE BBSCON). (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: March 28, 1991
Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues
Subtopic: Jurisdiction/Control
Name of publication: Proceedings of the First Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy
Title, headline, chapter name: Electronic Speech, Press & Assembly
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 160
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Schmidt, Nicholas