
(From INFOWORLD, April 12, 1982; pg. 20)
Editorial: Deviates Deluge Bulletin Boards
 
Before it's all over, that's all there will be: love for hire and kinky sex
for sale.  As H.L. Mencken once said: "Nobody ever went broke underestimat-
ing the taste of the American Public."
  The scenario is that everyone will have a terminal in their home and be
able to dial up all the information in the world.  And guess what?  It'll
all be free.  Sounds wonderful.
  This is the promise of an increasing number of futurists, pundits and 
idealists.  They cite the growing underground of Community Bulletin Boards
(CBBS) and so-called networks.  While most of these so-called community
bullitedn boards and networks are really nothing more than information
exchanges for computer hobbyists, some professionally developed systems are
beginning to emerge.
  Reminiscent of the beginning of underground newspapers that began as simpl
e flyers in the early 1960s, these community bulletin boards are starting to
appear all over the country.  There are bulletin boards for specific users;
there are secret bulletin boards; there are bulletin boards that keep track
of bulletin boards; and...there are sexy bulletin boards.
  While the sex-oriented bulletin boards are in the minority, the parallels
between community bulletin boards and the early days of underground news-
papers in the 60s is apparent.  These old papers (the Berkely Barb is a 
classic example) were started to fill a need, an information gap.  As they
grew larger and had to make money to pay a staff, they began to see their
income increase from revenues generated from classified personals.  Most of
these ads were of the "let's shack up" variety so popular in the mid 60s.
  Since these publications had no restrictions or policy about advertisers,
they degenerated into a conduit for sexually explicit material and, eventu-
ally, open ads from prostitutes, massage parlors, and deviates.  Soon the
underground papers turned into mere rags, shadows of their idealistic
beginnings.
  It's obvious that free access to community bulletin boards that have no
way to restrict content will cause these bulletin boards to degenerate in
much the same way.  They'll turn into message centers for what society
considers to be illicit, namely, sex for sale.  Even if prostitution were
legalized and could advertise in the Wall Street Journal, some more dubious
activity would use the channels of the CBBS.
  The point is that because information about lewd activity is limited to
a few sources, the need to transmit these messages (and the carnal curiosity
to access this information) is greater than the sources.  The information
therefore flows into a channel that is open and eventually destroys the 
original purpose of the channel (in this case the CBBS concept).
  Already the sexually oriented CBBS is gaining popularity.  The concept was
begun in San Francisco by gays with micros.  The content would offend a 
merchant mariner.  To make matters worse, adolescents have begun to access
more and more of these systems with their inexpensive micros.  They manage
to stir up the users of these bulletin boards with a deluge of filth.

  This is reminiscent of the citizens-band radio craze when kids would buy a
29 dollar CB rig and drive around town cussing into it.  It's obvious that 
anonymity contributes to the juvinile material logged into these systems.
  The end result of this kind of abuse will be more and more costly systems
to "keep out the riffraff."  Bulletin boards are no different that anything
else: The more you pay, the better and more exclusive the result.
  So much for the telecommunications revolution - idealism shoved aside in
favor of pornography.
  This cruel myth of information for all is being propagated by a group of
idealists who hope for some kind of revolutionary social change to come 
about through the use of computers and networks.  Instead, the great
technological revolution has false prophets.--J.C.D.
 
[J.C.D. is fairly obviously John C. Dvorak, Infoworld's editor.]
   {INFOWORLD, 530 Lytton Avenue #303, Palo Alto, CA. 94301}
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