Re: Censorship - Retractions - Hypocrisy - Archive Deletions

Grant Sparks (grant@sparks.to)
Tue, 18 Aug 1998 13:22:04 +1000

From: Damien Broderick <damien@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
>Unless Erik asked for his messages to be deleted, I'm appalled by this
>news. (On the other hand, I admit to a double standard here. I would be
>quite pleased to learn that certain racist posts had been expunged.)

I'd like to add my disappointment to Damien's but without any reservation at all.
I can't seem to find the post to which he reffered so perhaps Damien's comments about selective deletion were in a proper context, but I'd have deep reservations about even that.

I thought we had this all out on 'The Well' years ago ? As I recall, it was established that the proper ethics in these situations are that "You own your own words".
Certainly a person has the right to delete all of their own contributions (if that is an available option) but for someone else to do it is simply vandalism.

Grant Sparks
grant@sparks.to