Dear colleagues:

(My apologies for the inevitable length of this message.)

Since my posting to CPHC on the subject of Harold Thimbleby's lecture at the
BA on Pornography on the Internet, I have been involved in extensive direct
correspondence on the subject, little of which has been copied to CPHC. This
is in part good, since I did not want to cause a mail storm. However I have
been urged to prepare a summary for CPHC, and choose to do so now. One reason
for this timing is that I will be away from my office for most of the coming
week. The more important reason is that, as indicated in my last message to
Harold (to be found at the end of this summary):

  "It is evident that my well-meaning (but in restrospect perhaps naive)
  attempts to get you to (i) see and accept that the way you are
  treating this admittedly serious subject is counterproductive, and
  (ii) take a lead in undoing some of the harm, have failed. I am indeed
  very sorry that this is the case, since I believe we are all losers as
  a result. I will therefore just produce and circulate a summary of the
  correspondence I have had on this subject, and leave it to others to
  continue the discussion, should they so wish."

In the following I have tried to provide fairly chosen quotations from all the
substantive resulting messages, and have erred on the side of including rather
than excising text. I am aware of only two substantive messages to me that are
not represented here. One, and my reply to it, was amongst a set that I lost
because of a disk crash. It was a brief message from someone whose name was
not imediately familiar to me, and hence which I was unable to recall - I
requested and obtained copies from the respective correspondents of (I
believe) all the other lost messages. (For the record I recall that the
unrecovered message was critical of mine.) The other unrepresented message was
explicitly labelled as confidential so I would not have quoted it here in any
case. (However, again for the record let me say that it criticised inter alia
my decision to copy my original message to the CPHC mailing list - it was the
only such criticism I received.)

I do not feel I have the right to identify the authors of the messages that
were sent to me, except where the message was copied to CPHC). (Authors can of
course step forward now if they so wish.) I have, in the time available, tried
to obtain confirmations from everyone that at least unattributed quotation was
acceptable. My sincere apologies to any correspondents who feel that my
inclusion (or ommission) of, and my selected quotations from, their messages
is not to their liking.

At a cost of more than half the total length of this posting, (and some
repetitive quotation), my "summary" ends with the full text of Harold
Thimbleby's letter of response (which he states he regards as a public
message) to my messages to him, together with the full text of my reply.

Again my apologies to you all for the length of this posting. My present
intention is that it will be my last on the subject.

Yours sincerely

Brian Randell


====================================================

To BR

I became aware of this via an article in the Independent,
doubtless from the same source as it has the same
sound-bite style. This too was a one-sided report of
what he said, with no balancing comment.

I was concerned that, followed to a logical conclusion,
it could put a very heavy hand of control on the internet.
I very much agree with you that the one-sided style does
no favours to any except the alarmists. I find it especially
worrying that no parallels are drawn with existing media
distribution systems, which are not so very different in
terms of available content yet do not spark the headlines.

====================================================

To BR

...
mmm, interesting, about a year ago I wrote to the BA complaing that
they did not cover CS seriously, now this! Would you like a copy of my
letter. Marting Rees (President) knows my view, I think we should
tackle this from the top, that is, insist that BA consults/uses
respected and seriuos computer scientists.

====================================================

To BR (message 1):

Thank you for taking Harold to task.  It was a necessary, though I suspect
a somewhat unpleasant task.  I appreciate your efforts, though I cannot
imagine that they will get equal media coverage.

He seems to have, for some time, been determined to substitute
sensationalism for thought.  It was already a trend when he was at
Stirling....

---------------------

To BR (message 2):

.....
I think there is plenty of useful info on the WWW, such as indexes,
bibliographies, papers, geographic info, pictures, etc.  I have sought bird
and mountain info. as well as technical info ...
In general I have found a great deal of what I went to look for
and quite a lot else besides.  I have not chosen to seek pornography, etc.
Similarly, I do not go into shops, buy magazines, join networks that supply
me with pornography.  If I did, I do not think It would be reasonable to
blame the shop, the mail services, etc.  It is those who produce and
consume.  I rather suspect we should carefully discriminate the carrier
mechanisms from the consumers and providers.  I suspect that if you take
*any* communication mechanism, you will find some people who will use it
for things others will disapprove of.  Those that wish to disaprove can
then find a case.

I hope that any statistically sound survey would find that the usage of the
WWW for pornography, etc. would find it a very small proportion.  I doubt
whether anyone can claim to have done any statistically sound
*measurements*.  It is, of course, difficult to perform such measurements.
Perhaps it would be good to try to identify how such an experiment could be
performed.  If you tag servers and pages you have already made choices
unless these are tagged randomly.  If you monitor traffic, you infringe
civil liberties and have enormous difficulty interpreting the data.

I believe we are in the usual context of those that believe in censorship
howling for it, and those that believe in education and culture being
rather quiet until they notice the facists who believe they know enough to
regulate everyone else (but actually know how to whip up a crowd into a
rabble by exciting simplistic emotions -- the cost of which can be seen
clearly in former Yugoslavia) become intolerable.

I have to get on with other things, but I am willing to help.

---------------------

To BR (message 3):

I think the CPHC debates tend to get out of hand and diffuse.  I think it
is better if you assimilate the material and perform an editorial role,
presenting a *final* supported view.

I can tell you why I appreciate your efforts.  I think it was Edmund Burke
who said "For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do
nothing"

In this case I'm glad that a "good man" did something.  The kind of
scaremongering that you are drawing attention to is pernicious.

I know of families where the kids are learning a lot from the web.  I have
a former PhD student, Pedro Hepp, in Chile, who is using a cheap version of
the web, to try to improve the education standards in rural areas of Chile.
He has found that supporting teachers over networks, providing teaching
material and daily exchanges of mail, has had a phenominal effect.  It has
led to the pupils becoming interested in literacy, so than communicate with
pupils in other schools and to an enormous boost to the moral of the
previously isolated teachers.  The work is funded by the World Bank, and
has survived about four changes of minister of education in Chile.

Such scaremongering can easily be misinterpreted by the ignorant or those
who fear education in rural areas or who want money spent elsewhere.  It is
dangerous amunition for the ambitious, misguided or luddite politician.
Progress towards a better educated world is delicate and fragile, but it is
utterly important.  Better education isn't a sufficient condition for more
peace, less polution, etc. but it is certainly a necessary one.

People in the priviledged western academic world are so safe in their well
resourced and well connected context that they scarcely comprehend how thin
the digital life-lines are in much of Asia, former USSR, RSA and even more
so in the rest of Africa, South and Central America and even in the
under-privaledged areas of their own land.   I believe that the networks we
are building are even more important than printing for spreading
understanding.  We have fortunately stopped smashing printing presses (in
our part of the world) because they might be used to print pictures and
words we don't like.

I wouldn't want my grandson reading horrendous porn over the net.  But I do
want him to use it.  I believe he would not find serious pornography
without help from an older person.  I also believe that by the time he
might be capable of finding it he would have developed social values that
would mean that he would choose not to do so to any significant extent.  I
think it is the job of those around him, including me, to inculcate those
values.

There may be a case for providing mechanisms which enable a parent to set
up a WWW browser so that the search space is constrained not to include
parts of the information space.  There may be a need to do this just to
re-assure parents if scaremongering takes hold.  It would need a model of
classifying material, and even measures to deal with people who failed to
classify their material correctly.  Unclassified material could be excluded
automatically, for those who have set these controls on their WWW browser
installation.

However, I suspect that that is a solution looking for a problem.  I know
quite a few families whose children use the web a lot.  I am not aware of
any of them worrying about what their children find.  I suspect that the
kind of problem alluded to by Harold is the access of these pages once to
say they've done it, to find out what its like or repeated use by a
miniscule minority who have odd behaviour that they would support through
other communication channels were the web not available.

I have hastily written these few extra paragraphs because I think it is
important to stop sensationalism, particularly when it can so easily
generate irrational over-response.

====================================================

To BR:

....
Firstly, I should state that I am a father of two and in principle I am
in agreement with the notion that I do not particularly want my children (who
are as yet still too young to benefit significantly from computer networking!)
to have everyday access to `unsuitable material' on the Internet.

I am in wholehearted agreement with your sentiments on Harold's lecture; `more
in sadness than in anger' sums it up perfectly.  Harold has been well-known
for his often outspoken approach and is not unused to being reported in the
national press (his lecture made the Scotsman newspaper as well).  Possibly
the worst upshot of his lecture has already reached the media: on Tuesday
Harold said it, on Wednesday it was reported in the national press, and on
Thursday (on this morning's Radio 4 `Today' programme) the `fact' that `almost
half of accesses to the Internet are searching for pornography' was available
apparently as a fundamental assumption to a reporter covering, initially,
pornography on satellite television (the `Fantasy' channel was launched this
week).

The statements once made can't be retracted, and the fact that they were made
at the BAAS meeting, which usually attracts a half page every day in the
Guardian at least while the meeting is on, makes it worse.  I have only read
the WWW version, and from what you say in your message the lecture was worse.
It seems that there isn't very much we can do about it to balance the view.
I for one would gladly support any efforts to counteract such sensationalism.

====================================================

To BR: (From Malcolm Harrison, copied to CPHC already)

Unfortunately I did not hear the talk, nor have I read the paper, as will
be the case of most recipients of Brian Randell's message on this channel.
I recently discussed these concerns with Harold. They seemed to be: (1)
that pornography is in all its shades is accessible without restriction on
the WWW; (2) that this information is widely and frequently accessed, and
is a major reason for "non technical" accesses; (3) that there is too
little information that is widely accessible, "non technical" and
essentially wholesome. I think these claims can be substantiated, sound
reasonable and should be endorsed.

---------------------

My reply (also copied to CPHC already)

I agree. But what is needed is a well-reasoned, well-balanced,
non-sensational exposition of these points.

====================================================


Message copied to BR:

Most of what you say applies to paper literature too.

There is nevertheless a vast amount of very useful though
generally factual and rather boring non-technical information on
the Internet.  It surely dwarfs any undesirable rubbish.

The danger with people like Thimbleby is that they may stimulate
politicians in search of cheap popularity to hasty and
ill-considered legislation which gets under the feet of the
honest citizen.  The Computer Misuse Act is a classic example.

====================================================

To BR:

Your email saddened me greatly, for much the same reasons as it saddened
you. Has Harold turned into a right-wing zealot in his middle age (a common
enough phenomenon)?

More likely though that this is just the normal reaction of a nice
middle-class over-protected academic on first being exposed to the seamy
side of life, which can admittedly be very unpleasant to our sensibilities.
I remember well the powerful culture shock (with real physical symptoms) I
experienced when I first saw the unbelievable poverty that exists in India.
Perhaps he'll get over it, most other people do.

But this doesn't excuse his ignorance of the exposure of Rimm, which has
been widely enough broadcast on the net. FYI, I'll send you by separate
message what is the most complete version I came across; you can forward it
to Harold if you think it appropriate.

---------------------

>From BR to Harold Thimbleby [as cover note to above-mentioned message, which
was in fact Brock N. Meeks's <brock@well.com> CyberWire Dispatch entitled:
"Time magazine's credibility is hemorrhaging"]:

...
In fact a much larger and more uptodate account can be found at
http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu /cyberporn.debate.cgi

This provides ample evidence of how Rimm's "statistics" have been
misunderstood/misused by the press. I'm afraid yours have already been
similarly misunderstood/misused by the UK media, following up the Guardian
story, exactly as I expected/feared, and it is clear that there will be more
coverage in the days to come.

I leave it to you to decide how whether and how to try to correct these false
impressions and exaggerations. You of course may choose to do nothing. But I'm
afraid that, in the eyes of many of your colleagues, that will cause you to be
viewed as taking on the mantle of Rimm.

Cheers

Brian

PS Writing a message like this is not a pleasant task, and makes me feel
rather elderly. However I truly believe that you owe it to yourself, leave
alone anyone else, to try to remedy the present situation, and help get things
back to a point where well-informed rational debate can take place, since
there is indeed a problem of how best to exert what sort of control over the
use of the Internet, particularly by minors.
...


====================================================

To BR:

You are quite right.  This kind of sensational crap is the last
thing we need.  There is a vast amount of useful if boring
information on the internet.  Thimbleby reminds me of the
American saying that a reformer is a man who navigates a sewer
in a glass-bottomed boat.

====================================================

To BR:

... Since
I wasn't at the talk, I can't comment on what he said. I have just read
his paper, prompted by your note, and offer a few comments.

The paper seeks to make a number of points: about viruses (which are a
pain and waste huge amounts of otherwise-productive-people's time, and
about which few casual computer users seem to know anything); about
the easy availability of horrendous vicious and anti-social material
on the Internet (I don't go looking for it myself; I rely on
assertions of reliable others about such stuff, but I don't know
anyone who disagrees that methods must be found to deal with this
somehow: for example, to restrict access by children); about clever
but unsuccessful ways to address this problem; about some statistics;
about the unreliability of statistics; and about the necessity of
`clear thinking', in which he makes a number of the very points you
also seem to wish to make concerning his talk.

Line by line (and provided I look at later lines of his paper as
comments on earlier ones), I can't see much that would be objectionable or
false in what he said. Maybe I read it too quickly?
...
I agree with Harold's statement ["The Internet has very little interesting
>material; it needs more."}. Maybe I have different reasons than
Harold, but I do agree.
...
I can't comment on his talk, but I almost read you as suggesting that
it's inappropriate to refer to a study, flawed or otherwise, without
providing an analysis of that study. He's not asserting its
infallibility by citing it, is he? For example, if I cite a paper by
you, I'm not vouching that everything in it is true.  *You*'re doing
that. He doesn't say "47% .... are", he says "of an analysis of
searches made via a Web search engine, 47% .... ". I take that to be a
suitably qualified citation. It seems like a fine judgement call.

He also says "very few people are aware of the proper statistics", and
"statistics from the Internet may underestimate potential problems
[..]".  Do you disagree with either of these statements?  I read both
of these statements as indicating the potential unreliability of
statistics, and therefore relevant to and qualifying his citation of
the Rimm study.

Although I am no fan of the exaggeration style of journalism, I don't
find the Guardian article objectionable. More or less everything it
asserts, or suggests that Harold asserts, seems to me to be true!
Am I misguided? Which are the statements that you disagree with?

Harold seems to me to be disgusted and saddened by some of what's
happening on the Internet, and he wants to warn people of real present
dangers and unpleasantnesses, and to lament a paucity of material for
people like him, you, me and our children. I find myself broadly in
sympathy with such a view, although I don't necessarily feel strongly
enough to devote time to it...

To summarise: I appreciate you may not like Harold's style of
rhetoric, but I'm not at all sure with which of his assertions you
disagree, and I don't yet see why you find his presentation so
unforgiveable. Could you maybe amplify this for me?

---------------------

My reply:

1. I disagreed with the whole picture Harold gave of the balance of the
Internet content and usage, which I - and everyone else I have since talked to
who was at the lecture - regarded as an awful example of crude sensationalism.
...
2. Though I have no source of published counter-examples to Harold's
statistics, the way he presented them makes me most unwilling to accept them
at face value as accurate or representative....

3. You asked what I object to in the Guardian article. What I object to most
is the headline, which I must point out has not been created out of whole
cloth by a sub-editor, but rather is taken from the second of the pair of
sentences: "The Internet has been called a global electronic village. If so
most of it is a heavily used red-light district". This sentence is exactly the
sort Harold was using in his talk, and is to my mind a total exaggeration, of
the very worst "sound-bite" type ....

...  I of course agree that there is a serious problem (albeit by no means
unique to the Internet), particularly regarding the dangers of corrupting
minors. But this is a problem that many people are working hard to find
effective solutions to ...

====================================================

To BR (message 1):

I am a reporter for [a] recently started a new on-line service ...in which we
highlight notable resources on the Internet for educators.

I noticed your post to a listserve regarding a talk at The Annual
Festival of Science this week, and I wanted to ask you a few questions
about it.

I am interested in reporting on the controversy over the talk by Prof.
Harold Thimbleby, and pointing our readers to his paper on the Web.

I actually saw your post on a private list, but I wanted to know where
else, if anywhere, you posted the message. Is this issue being
discussed somewhere on the Net?

Could you briefly outline your concerns about Prof. Thimbleby's
work/talk?

---------------------

My reply:

I have not posted the message to any public lists, and I do not know (yet) of
any public discussion on the Net of Thimbleby's paper.

I do not wish to engage in a public debate - the present temperature is such
that this is likely to be counterproductive.

For *your* information let me indicate the following:

1. I do not dispute that pornography is a problem, that there is more reading
of it over the Internet than I would wish, that changing this situation (for
example, by preventing such information from being accessed by schoolchildren)
is difficult, etc.

2. However this problem, if it is to be solved effectively, needs reasoned
objective analyses, based on solid evidence. Thimbleby's talk was in my view
and that of numerous other listeners, an extremely unprofessional, unbalanced
piece of sensationalism.

3. The fact that he uncritically cited in support of his own (as far as I know
hitherto unpublished) statistics just the thoroughly-discredited Rimm (or CMU)
study raises considerable doubts as to the quality of his judgement, and as to
whether the situation is remotely as bad as he claims.

Discussion (or perhaps I should say demolition) of the Rimm CMU study is to be
found at:

http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/cyberporn.debate.cgi

If you are going to point your readers to Thimbleby's paper, you should
certainly point them to this as well.

I hope the above, which I am giving to you as background, is of some help.

---------------------

To BR (message 2):

Thanks for responding.

When I sent this message to you, I had not yet read the Thimbleby
paper, and I thought that it might be a more significant work (or be
connected with new research).

I decided after a closer look, however, not to run anything on this
talk or point anyone to the Web site.

====================================================

Message copied to BR:

Thanks for sending on the e-mail from Brian Randell. I share the many
concerns expressed, and would suggest that, if some kind of rebutal is
appropriate, perhaps this should come from the academic Computer Science
community (e.g. the CPHC). Much better than coming from the JISC/UKERNA
side. Alternatively the CPHC might consider some form of campaign to
improve the public image in these matters - again better coming from a
source close to the rogue remarks.

[This] event
suggests that it might be timely for us to consider issuing, from the
highest level in the Funding Councils, advice to Vice Chancellors to get
and keep their houses in order, with advice on good practice. At least we
should be seen, at the highest levels, to be keeping our houses in
reasonable good order. In particular, it would be good to be able to show
that the academic community in general, and JANET in particular, is a well
regulated and ordered community by comparison with the rest.

====================================================