it better. He tells an interesting story of something peculiar that happened in Munich, Germany. Apparently, a prosecutor there told CompuServe, a large worldwide ISP, that they were allowing Usenet groups with sexually explicit material to be viewed there. CompuServe replied by shutting down all Usenet groups that contained the words sex, gay, or erotic. Unfortunately, the way their system was set up, they blocked this from everyone, not just those in Munich. Anyone who had the CompuServe service was banned from newsgroups that were both legal and illegal. Germany did little if anything to stop this material. Anyone who wanted access to these sites in Germany would have had to change ISPs. This is when it became apparent that the Internet is just too widespread to be able to counteract all material that comes across. Yet still, the governments of the world are trying to pass bills and laws to control the content on the Internet. As Barlow states, the Internet is a place where any discussion can be made and nobody can fear that anything will happen to him or her. It is exactly reasons such as this that countries such as Germany, China, and the United States are joining forces to fight the net. There has already been a telecommunications-reform bill floating through Congress that calls for fines up to and over $100,000 for indecency on the Internet. According to Barlow, however, the first amendment already protects any type of indecent material (76). In the future, this problem will only grow and grow until there is little we can really do to stop the flow of material across the net. Whenever one site goes down, there will always be two or three or more ready to fill in the spot. That is why there have been plans for rating systems to be put in to effect. D’Amico writes about the Bertelsmann proposal in her article. This is a proposal that would involve a self-rating system where those that post the material are responsible for gi...
