1125  Freedom of Speech

Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 09:56:16 -0700
From: Pablo Tapia <pablo.tapia@ASU.EDU>
Subject: Freedom of Speech

A list serve is not a public forum (in the First Amendment sense of public
forum). It is a group of people who agree to enter a discussion group to
talk about an agreed upon subject. All of us who joined tango-l had the
understanding, when we signed up, that the subject for this discussion group
was tango, not world politics, not human sexuality, tango. So this is a
PRIVATE forum formed to discuss about one particular subject. When you
agreed to enter the list, you consented to stay within the boundaries of the
subject matter: tango. So saying that you are being censored is really a
contradiction. You agreed to be censored when you signed up for the list!
So yeah, the internet in general is a public forum where you can say
whatever you wish, but when you agree with other people to limit the subject
of your discussion in a subset of the internet you have entered a private
forum. Welcome to the censored world of tango-l!

Pablo