Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sun, 7 Jan 2001 22:30:14 -0500 | From | Gregory Maxwell <> | Subject | [OT] Re: [OT] Re: .br blacklisted ? |
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On Sun, Jan 07, 2001 at 08:22:28PM -0500, Michael H. Warfield wrote: > I already run several sugarplum sites with teergrubes. I also use > various blackhole lists and take other action against spammers, including > blocking entire rogue domains. If that rogue domain happens to be a two > letter TLD, so be it. If it gets bad enough, maybe they'll fix it.
You are suggesting that it is acceptable to implement technological barriers to a minority expressing speech that is unacceptable to the majority. This is not acceptable.
When you subscript your mailbox to list of 'spammers' to avoid associating with them, with the knowledge that you may lose some valuable mail, that is fine.
The situation is similar to not visiting a gay bar if you don't like homosexual people. However, that is not what you are doing blocking whole countries. That is like building concrete barriers around cites to punish them for not oppressing their own minority citizen ("I'm going to block your whole country until you outlaw this class of speech I find offensive").
Spam is not good, but destroying freedom is worse. I suggest that every person who is eager to use oppressive technological measures to stop spammers please consider the potential wider consequences.
Today the majority thinks spam is wrong, today you are a part of the majority. The Internet should always avoid the tyranny of the masses, even when it's operators are a part of the 'mass' today. Tomorrow the issue will not be spam, and you might not be in the majority. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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