Slashdot Introduces YRO

Now that the new hardware is in place, I'm happy to announce the first new section on Slashdot: Your Rights Online [YRO] is a place where we can go into greater depth on the issues surrounding freedoms and liberties on the Net, and really in the world at large. So much happens in this area that the Slashdot Homepage just doesn't have enough room to host it all, so while YRO will appear on Slashdot when I think its relevant to everyone, it will largely stand alone. Read on to learn more about the section.

The Net is changing fast, and so are many of the issues surrounding your rights online. The US Policies on Encryption Export, governments filtering websites from their citizens, and right now, the PICS project In fact, the PICS project is what the first article's about. It's part 1 of 2.

YRO will be maintained by Michael Sims and Jamie McCarthy Their job will be similiar to what the existing Slashdot Authors do; read submissions and pick the best articles for publishing, just in a more focused area. In addition, they'll be writing original articles when it's appropriate. YRO will have room to post many stories that wouldn't have been able to appear on Slashdot, while Slashdot will continue to post the stories that we think are more relevant to everyone.

Michael Sims is a programmer for the Department of Energy and online free-speech activist who administers censorware.org. He swears that there won't be a nuclear catastrophe on January 1, 2000. Jamie McCarthy writes perl code all day; if he ever gets free time he works on The Holocaust History Project or censorware.org. He owns every book Theodore Sturgeon ever wrote.

We're pretty excited about this. I hope you are too. Now let's just see if it works...

Comments

You're Rights Online and the New Katzianism

[Arandir]

Reading the PICS article with its comments, as well as similar articles and their comments here on slashdot and elsewhere, I see a new emerging political philosophy that I'm sure will dominate YRO.

The computing populace at large, and hackers in specific, have been classified as neo-libertarian in beliefs. Although there are many exceptions, there does seem to be a libertarian-like streak in slashdot. However, this is as related to libertarianism as fishes are to whales.

Libertarians believe, in a nutshell, that governements should be limited in size, scope and power. This new Katzianism, as I'll call it, goes far beyond this. It's an "us versus them" philosophy. Corporations, proprietary developers, movies theaters, or anyone else that doesn't fit into "us", must be limited as well. Microsoft must be limited in size, scope and power otherwise personal liberty will be in danger.

For example: It's evil if the US Senate mandates music ratings, it's also evil if AOL includes a ratings system with its software, it's also evil if a Mom-and-Pop music store took these ratings into account. In a similar vein, Slashdot posting policies are decried as "censorship".

This Katzian attitude is guaranteed to raise its ugly head repeatedly in YRO. Be prepared for it. Be aware that many calls for freedom are in fact calling for the opposite.

This cries out for its own slashbox

[anticypher]

Nuff said. Then I can keep an eye on the topics, and jump in when it looks good.

the AC