[An article by Melissa Mitchell in the Nov. 4th, 1994, _Inside Illinois_, the official faculty-staff newspaper of the U. of Illinois. As more people sign on to the Internet, the rumbling keeps getting louder between those who maintain that the net should remain a wild, woolly haven for freedom of expression and others who believe the beast needs taming. In this final installment in a series on electronic communications, Inside Illinois examines this and other issues related to the use - and abuse - of computer networks. 'Electronic misbehavior' takes many forms on the Internet By Melissa Mitchell "People do things on computers that they wouldn't dream of doing on any other medium." - Beth Kevies User-services consultant, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Just as the Wild West had its share of outlaws, rustlers and gunslingers, the electronic frontier of the late 20th century has its own brand of bad guys. The difference between then and now is that in place of Smith & Wessons, the cyber cowboys are packing laptops. And instead of bullets, they're firing off sharp, pointed, offensive - and sometimes threatening - words. Using communications technology for abusive purposes is nothing new. Because it's easier to harass someone when you don't have to look them in the eye, pranksters and misanthropes have long relied on U.S. mail and the telephone as prime tools for pestering their targets. Various forms of electronic communications such as e-mail and news groups - which are characterized by a certain anonymity, or at least the illusion of anonymity - have built-in appeal for troublemakers. "Electronic misbehavior," as George Badger calls it, takes many forms. "It includes everything from insulting people, dumping information or sending chain letters, to e-mail forgery and more serious forms of harassment," said Badger, the UI's associate vice chancellor for computing and communications and director of the Computing and Communications Services Office. On average, abusive or inappropriate uses of the UI's network come to CCSO's attention "every couple of weeks," Badger said. As soon as CCSO personnel become aware of it, they step in and try to resolve a situation early on, before it becomes more serious. "We usually handle the problem administratively by trying to discourage the behavior," Badger said. That usually means approaching the individual or individuals responsible and informing them that what they're doing will get them into trouble if they persist. If that doesn't work, the culprit - if he or she is a student - is brought before the university's student discipline system. "Many of the incidents turn out to be pranks and aren't intended to be malicious," Badger said. "And often, the perpetrator is a friend. For instance, someone will forge an e-mail message to make it look like it's a letter from the dean, threatening the student with expulsion." Other times, the situation can be much more serious. Last year, for example, a UI freshman learned the hard way that sending e-mail threats to the president of the United States is no different from sending them through U.S. mail. The medium may be different, but the act is equally illegal and the offense equally punishable. If a person uses electronic communications to repeatedly or maliciously harass someone, Badger said, he or she is subject not only to university rules and regulations prohibiting such behavior but "all other kinds of laws and policies that cover harassment or stalking." In such cases, the university police are notified, he said. When a person is sexually harassed or otherwise threatened over the networks, university policies and civil law clearly outline measures that can be taken against the perpetrator. However, Badger said, what many people don't understand is that a number of other types of behavior may be offensive but aren't necessarily illegal or even in violation of university policies. "Even statements that are pretty obnoxious - name-calling or some of the things posed on the public bulletin boards - turn out to be well within an individual's right to freedom of speech," Badger said. "That's all well-protected. But if you go after somebody repeatedly and they ask you to stop, that's another matter. The difference is the focus on continuing harassment. That's something else." While rumors continue to appear on the nets about the possibility that the federal government eventually will step in and regulate the medium, many longtime network-watchers doubt that will happen any time soon. "The issue with the Internet is whether it should be treated as a broadcast system (subject to government regulation) or as a phone or mail system that simply passes along information," Mitt Jones writes in an article, "Censorship in Cyberspace," published in this month's issue of Home-Office Computing. One area of concern that continues to fuel the fires of computer- and network-related debates on censorship - both nationally and here at the UI - is the practice of displaying images of nude or scantily clad women on computer screens, usually in public sites or in student labs. Those who defend the practice claim they're within their First Amendment rights; those opposed - usually female students and faculty and staff members who can't avoid looking at the screens when they pass through the labs - maintain it's a form of sexual intimidation and harassment. At the UI, the issue was addressed last year in a report on the status of female graduate students and faculty members in the College of Engineering. The architects of the report noted that other universities' solutions to the practice have been to "either ignore the problem or put together a sweeping policy banning offensive actions." The latter recourse - attempted at the universities of Wisconsin and Michigan - has been struck down in court as a violation of the First Amendment, according to the report. At Carnegie-Mellon University, computer science graduate students and staff members upset by the use of nude pictures as backgrounds on screens banded together with a public appeal to other members of the university community. According to the UI report, the CMU appeal stated clearly that the women "were not advocating banning such displays but were requesting that people voluntarily remove them out of sensitivity to others." The appeal generated both "friendly and hostile reactions," and "attempts at changing people's behavior were somewhat, but not highly, successful," the UI report noted. Before drafting its recommendations on how to address similar situations at this campus, the UI committee consulted with Carl Kadie, a UI graduate student in computer science and an authority on computer networks and individual rights. According to Kadie, "a rule banning computer porn is unnecessary because university computer facilities can - and should - be treated as any other university facility. That means banning the act of harassment, not the materials that can be used to harass but that can also be used without harassing anyone. "Similar reasoning was used by a federal district judge in June 1994," Kadie said. "In the widely reported case, he said that 'quiet reading' of a Playboy magazine by a firefighter does not create a sexually harassing atmosphere." Further, Kadie said, a university-imposed ban on potentially offensive computer images "would be unnecessary and too broad because 'pornography' is not a well-defined term." "For many people, 'pornography' means any nude or sexually suggestive material. While you may intend only to stop computer science students from looking at Playboy centerfolds in your computer labs, your rule also may stop liberal arts students from viewing the growing number of fine art collections on the net," he said. For example, nearly 3,000 images are on-line at the Australian National University, including Manet's "Olympia," he said, noting that "when this now-famous nude was unveiled in 1863, it caused an outrage because of its blatant sexuality." While such images "could be used to sexually harass someone," Kadie said, "so could many noncomputer images on your campus such as art on the university's walls and the Playboy centerfolds that are likely in your university library." The best policy is not to create new overarching policies, but to allow existing university policies governing sexual harassment to take effect where applicable, he said. "At least in the U.S., virtually every university has a sexual harassment policy that not only covers harassment via computers but also that dictates the exact procedure for handling sexual-harassment complaints," Kadie said. "Having a procedure is important because the line between constitutionally protected expression and unprotected expression is dim and uncertain. Computer sites should publicize the university's sexual harassment rules; they should not try to preempt them." The UI report by the committee on the status of women in engineering made a number of recommendations, including posting notices about the UI's existing sexual harassment policy in public computer labs and adapting language in various publications that address the issue. Mary Ellen O'Shaughnessey, assistant dean of students, said the University Code on Campus Affairs and Handbook of Policies and Regulations Applying to All Students has been amended to include computer-related harassment. O'Shaughnessey said she "has gotten some complaints about computer pornography." The complaints have originated from students who find sexually explicit screen-savers loaded on the machines they log onto at the public sites. When that happens, O'Shaughnessey said, "We remove them." A more common complaint, occurs "when one individual student is sending sexually harassing e-mail messages to another," she said. When that happens, the situation is handled in the same manner as would be any other case of sexual harassment. While many advocate using existing university policies to counter sexual harassment on the nets, others - like UI speech communication professor Cheris Kramarae and H. Jeanie Taylor, associate director of the Center for Advanced Study - say those policies don't go far enough. Writing in "Women, Information Technology and Scholarship," a book they edited with Maureen Ebben, Kramarae and Taylor maintain that "universities have the unique opportunity at this moment to change the structure of interaction on campus." "Without new policies guiding the use of these public nets, we will be losing a chance to plan new structures to benefit everyone in the university. Policies will need to deal not only with freedom of speech but also the protection of women and 'minorities' on campus." Despite their call for dialogue that could result in real change, Kramarae acknowledges that the current climate on the networks and in the courts doesn't support the kind of change she and Taylor advocate. "Given the minority status of women on the Internet and the frequent postings of many men about the wonderful anarchy of the Internet, we can not expect that regulation of racist and sexist writing is going to receive a lot of symbolic support," she said. "The 'vision' of the Internet as articulated or otherwise expressed by most people writing on and about it is individual freedom rather than collective civility."