Fun_People Archive
16 Feb
AOL users show prowess in an unfair comparison

Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 13:31:55 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: AOL users show prowess in an unfair comparison

    Amidst the hoopla over the sweeping new communications law passed nearly  
unanimously by Congress and signed by President Clinton a week ago, America  
Online members (traditionally the butt of jokes for lack of technical and  
socio-technical savvy) have shown themselves better informed than both the  
Congress and the White House.

    When America Online asked their members whether they thought the provision  
that banned communication of "indecent" materials was a violation of free  
speech and privacy rights under the Constitution, they got 23,889 responses.   
More than 70 percent of the respondents thought the provision violated free  
speech and privacy rights while only 25 percent of the respondents supported  
the law.

    So here are the comparitive results:

				Congress	White House	America Online
Recognized an
obvious violation of
Constitutional guarantees....	  4% (21)	  0% (0)	 70% (~16,700)

Oblivious to an
obvious violation of
Constitutional guarantees....	 95% (506)	100% (2)	 25% (~6,000)

Don't know, don't care,
don't ask, or can't tell.....	  1% (8)	  0% (0)	  5% (~1200)


    Admittedly, this is a more complex and subtle issue than the comparison  
I'm making suggests, but there's nothing subtle about the difference between  
being, to a first approximation, 95% or 100% in favor of sacrificing the  
constitution to the financial interests of the big boys on one hand and 70%  
against it on the other.  In any case, I'll think twice before I make fun of  
"AOLers" when I could instead make fun of the Congress or the White House...
				- Peter Langston <psl@acm.org>

© 1996 Peter Langston