22111.Cyberspace,If You Don't Love it,Leave it.doc

2021年1月20日发(作者：yelp)
1 Cyberspace: If You Don't Love it, Leave it

1 Something in the American psyche loves new frontiers. we hanker
after wide-open spaces; we like to explore; we like to make rules but refuse
to follow them.
But in this age it’s hard to find a place where you can go and
be yourself without worrying about the neighbors.

2 There is such a place: cyberspace. Formerly a playground for computer
fans,
cyberspace
now
embraces
every
conceivable
constituency:
schoolchildren, flirtatious singles, Hungarian-Americans, accountants. Can
they all get along? Or will our fear of kids surfing for dirty pictures behind
their bedroom doors provoke a crackdown?

3 The first order of business is to grasp what cyberspace is. It might help
to leave behind metaphors of highways and frontiers and to think instead of
real
estate.
Real
estate,
remember
,
is
an
intellectual,
legal,
artificial
environment
constructed
on
top
of
land.
Real
estate
recognizes
the
difference between parkland and shopping mall, between red-light zone
and school district, between church , state and drugstore.

4



In
the
same
way
,
you
could
think
of
cyberspace
as
a
giant
and
unbounded world of virtual real estate. Some property is privately owned
and rented out; other property is common land; some places are suitable
for children, and others are best avoided by all citizens. Unfortunately
, it’s
those places that are now capturing the popular imagination, places that
offer bomb- making instructions, pornography
, advice on how to steal credit
cards. They make cyberspace sound like a nasty place. Good citizens jump
to a conclusion: Better regulate it.
5 But before using regulations to counter indecency it is fundamental to
interpret the nature of cyberspace. Cyberspace isn’t a frontier where wicked
people can grab unsuspecting children, nor is it a giant television system
that can beam offensive messages at unwilling viewers. In this kind of real
estate, users have to choose where they visit, what they see, what they do.
It’s optional. In other words, cyberspace is a voluntary destination
-----in
reality
, many destinations. You don’t just get “onto the net ”; you have to go
someplace in particular
. That means that people can choose where to go
and what to see. Yes, community standards should be enforced, but those
standards should be set by cyberspace communities themselves, not by the
courts or by politicians in Washington.

6 What makes cyberspace so alluring is
precisely the way in which it’s
different
from
shopping
malls,
television,
highways
and
other
terrestrial
jurisdictions. But let’s define the territory:

7


First,
there
are
private
e-mail
conversations,
similar
to
the
conversations
you
have
over
the
telephone.
These
are
private
and
consensual and require no regulation at all.
8




Second,
there
are
information
and
entertainment
services,
where
people
can
download
anything
from
legal
texts
and
lists
of
“great
new
restaurants”
to
game
software
and
dirty
pictures.
These
places
are
like
bookstores,
malls
and
movie
houses-----places
where
you
go
to
buy
something.
The
customer
needs
to
request
an
item
or
sign
up
for
a
subscription; stuff (especially pornography) is not sent out to people who
don’t ask for it. S
ome of these services are free or included as part of a
broader service like CompuServe or America online; others charge and may
bill their customers directly
.
9


Third,
there
are
“real”
communities
-----groups
of
people
who
communicate among themselves. In real-
estate terms, they’re like bars or
restaurants or bathhouses. Each active participant contributes to a general
conversation, generally through posted messages. Other participants may
simply
listen
or
watch..
some
services
are
supervised
by
a
moderator;