[From Professor John McCarthy of Stanford]

Here's the abstract of my University of Waterloo talk.  It went quite
well, but it seemed that I was preaching to the choir.
[...]
Notice that the abstract emphasizes positive benefits from a new
information system.

NETWORK PUBLICATION AND FREE EXPRESSION

by John McCarthy, Stanford University

Abstract: A superior form of publication is developing that will
gradually supplant print media.  Usenet newsgroups are a preliminary
form.  The advantages are greater freedom of publication, greater
immediacy and reduced costs.  Since anyone can "publish" a comment on
anything and anyone can look up the comments, controversial statements
have to be written so as to withstand criticism.  There are already
more than 1,500 newsgroups including users of certain computers and
software, scientific topics like geology, pornography and discussion
of current affairs like the war in the Gulf.  The field needs to find
a way of supporting professional editors and authors and to
universalize availability by merging the networks.

So far, establishment notice of network publication has only taken the
form of feeble and ignorant attempts at censorship.  We'll tell about
manifestations of this at Stanford, U. Waterloo and in Norway.  The
Stanford situation was resolved correctly by applying the same
principles of freedom of speech and universality of libraries to
network publication that apply to print publication.