Does the fact that people type these words into a machine give them some different status than if they were just speaking out on the street corner?
Predictor: Figallo, Cliff
Prediction, in context:In a 1991 article by reporter Don Oldenburg of the Washington Post, Cliff Figallo makes a remark in regard to how the First Amendment will eventually apply to the Internet: ”I’m just afraid that they [Network Operators] might decide that the lowest common denominator of what is acceptable is going to become the rule, that the main concern is that nobody be offended … Does the fact that people type these words into a machine give them some different status than if they were just speaking out on the street corner?”
Biography:Cliff Figallo, was managing director of the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link, one of the best known conferencing systems and virtual communities in the United States in the 1990s) and a director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Cambridge office in the early 1990s. He later worked with Pandora Systems. Figallo and John Coate are regarded to be the chief architects of the WELL’s implementation of virtual community. (Advocate/Voice of the People.)
Date of prediction: October 1, 1991
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Washington Post
Title, headline, chapter name: Rights on the Line: Defending the Limits on the Networks
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=02d44b96292823d6c73be9f74b1de0e&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbV1s1a1&_md5=26ae14ce2e32e8d916e888fd786edb0a
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Gulbranson, Mathea