Stardate 20010623.0806 (On Screen): A US web host permits hate groups to put up web sites. A French anti-racism groups wants them to be suppressed. The French group is wrong.
Free expression must protect unpopular, even despicable, expression or it is a mirage. If you are only free to say or write things which your neighbors — or people half-way around the world — approve of, then you are not free at all. The web has no borders, and we are faced with two and only two choices: either all content on the web will be governed by the most restrictive rules anywhere, or by the least restrictive rules anywhere. I unhesitatingly express my preference for the latter. The limited damage done by permitting one particularly abhorrent example of expression is far less than the broader damage which would be done by permitting anyone, anywhere, to suppress anything anyone else has written. Fortunately, I believe that the Yahoo case will settle this unequivocally, when (I believe) a US Federal Court will rule that a French Court has no jurisdiction to issue court orders applicable within the US. (discuss)
