Newsgroups: soc.motss
From: rwockner@netcom.com (Rex Wockner)
Subject: WOCKNER STORY--COMPUSERVE BANS GAY MESSAGE BOARDS
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 1995 00:33:30 GMT

        COMPUSERVE DELETES GAY NEWSGROUPS, BLAMES GERMANY
                         by Rex Wockner

       [Editors: Includes full list of banned newsgroups.]

   --------------------------------------------------------------
   Copyright (c) 1995 Rex Wockner and subscribed
   publications/broadcasts. Do not reprint in your publication,
   repost online or broadcast on your program without permission. 
   --------------------------------------------------------------

	The CompuServe on-line service deleted more than 200 Internet
Usenet newsgroups from its worldwide system Dec. 27, saying it was
responding to a "direct mandate from the prosecutor's office in Germany." 

	Gay newsgroups were hit hard in the sweep. Non-sexually
oriented groups that were banned include
soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi, clari.news.gays,
alt.homosexual, alt.motss.bisexua-l, gay-net.coming-out,
gay-net.international and shamash.gayjews.

	Usenet newsgroups are message boards where one Internet user
posts a comment and others respond minutes, hours or days later.
There is no live interaction. There are over 16,000 Usenet
newsgroups, a few of which carry erotic stories (such as
alt.sex.stories.gay) or erotic photos.

	In a press release, CompuServe said the censored newsgroups
were "specifically identified to CompuServe by the German
authorities as illegal under German criminal law."

	"CompuServe did not select any groups or determine the
nature of the newsgroups that have been impacted by this action,"
the company said. "German government officials, as part of an
investigation of illegal material on the Internet, ordered
CompuServe to do what was necessary with respect to specified
newsgroups in order to comply with German law."

	Other zapped groups include dozens beginning with "alt.sex"
or "alt.binaries.pictures.erotica" as well as the specific groups
alt.recovery.addiction.sexual, alt.religion.sexuality,
alt.support.disabled.sexuality, clari.news.crime.sex,
clari.news.sex, and rec.arts.erotica.

	Newsgroups beginning with "clari" are commercial groups that
carry nothing but Associated Press and Reuters wire-service news
reports.

	"German authorities are investigating newsgroups and other
Internet content that may contain child pornography, other
pornographic material illegal for adults, as well as content that
although not illegal for adults is of such an explicit nature
that it is illegal for minors," CompuServe said.

	The company pointed out that, "CompuServe, as an access
provider, is not responsible for the origination or nature of
content on the Internet over which it has no creative or
editorial control."

	CompuServe "is investigating ways in which we can restrict
user access to selected newsgroups by geographical location," the
company said.

	In fact, CompuServe users who know their way around the
Internet can use any number of Internet tools to traverse
cyberspace from within CompuServe and view the banned newsgroups
elsewhere. Ultimately, anything generally available on the Net
anywhere in the world can, one way or another, be accessed by any
computer connected to the Net. The Internet was designed -- by
none other than the United States Department of Defense -- to be
sabotage-proof. You can't even kill it with bombs; it would re-
route around the devastation.

	The simplest way to circumvent CompuServe's censorship is
merely to cross-post messages between banned and non-banned
groups -- so that traffic for alt.homosexual is carbon-copied to,
for example, soc.motss. soc.motss is one of the busiest gay
newsgroups ("motss" stands for "members of the same sex"); it
probably survived the German attack because it contains neither
the word "sex" nor the word "gay" and because the cybercops did
not know what "motss" means.

	CompuServe has 4 million subscribers in more than 140
countries. Here is the complete list of censored newsgroups:

alt.binaires.pictures.erotica.teen
alt.binaries.erotic.senior-citizens
alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica
alt.binaries.pictures.black.erotic.females
alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.anime
alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.centerfolds
alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.senior-citizens
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.d
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.female
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.male
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.animals
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.art.pin-up
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.balls
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bears
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.black.females
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.black.male
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.blondes
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bondage
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.breasts
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.butts
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.cartoons
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.cheerleaders
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.disney
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female.anal
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.feet
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.hair
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.latex
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.leather
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.furry
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.gaymen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.latina
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male.anal
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.midgets
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.oral
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.orientals
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.plushies
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pornstar
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pornstars
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pregnant
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.redheads
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.spanking
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.tasteless
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.d
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.fuckTeens
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.maleTeens
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.terry.agar
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.transvestites
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.uncut
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.urine
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.voyeurism
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.young
alt.binaries.pictures.groupsex
alt.binaries.pictures.lesbians
alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities
alt.binaries.sounds.erotica
alt.homosexual
alt.magick.sex
alt.magick.sex.angst
alt.motss.bisexua-l
alt.politics.sex
alt.recovery.addiction.sexual
alt.recovery.sexual-addiction
alt.religion.sexuality
alt.sex
alt.sex.aliens
alt.sex.anal
alt.sex.animals
alt.sex.asphyx
alt.sex.balls
alt.sex.bears
alt.sex.bestiality
alt.sex.bestiality.barney
alt.sex.bestiality.hamster.duct-tape
alt.sex.bondage
alt.sex.bondage.furtoonia
alt.sex.bondage.sco.unix
alt.sex.boredom
alt.sex.boys
alt.sex.breast
alt.sex.brothels
alt.sex.carasso
alt.sex.children
alt.sex.cthulhu
alt.sex.disney
alt.sex.doom.with-sound
alt.sex.dylan
alt.sex.enemas
alt.sex.erotica.market.place
alt.sex.erotica.marketplace
alt.sex.escorts.ads
alt.sex.escorts.ads.d
alt.sex.exhibitionism
alt.sex.extropians
alt.sex.fat
alt.sex.femdom
alt.sex.fencing
alt.sex.fetish.amputee
alt.sex.fetish.diapers
alt.sex.fetish.drew-barrymore
alt.sex.fetish.fa
alt.sex.fetish.fashion
alt.sex.fetish.feet
alt.sex.fetish.hair
alt.sex.fetish.jello
alt.sex.fetish.motorcycles
alt.sex.fetish.orientals
alt.sex.fetish.peterds.momma
alt.sex.fetish.power-rangers.kimberly.tight-spandex
alt.sex.fetish.robots
alt.sex.fetish.scat
alt.sex.fetish.size
alt.sex.fetish.smoking
alt.sex.fetish.sportswear
alt.sex.fetish.startrek
alt.sex.fetish.the-bob
alt.sex.fetish.tickling
alt.sex.fetish.tinygirls
alt.sex.fetish.trent-reznor
alt.sex.fetish.waifs
alt.sex.fetish.watersports
alt.sex.fetish.wet-and-messy
alt.sex.fetish.white-mommas
alt.sex.fetish.wrestling
alt.sex.first-time
alt.sex.fish
alt.sex.furry
alt.sex.gangbang
alt.sex.girl.watchers
alt.sex.girls
alt.sex.guns
alt.sex.hello-kitty
alt.sex.historical
alt.sex.homosexual
alt.sex.incest
alt.sex.intergen
alt.sex.jesus
alt.sex.jp
alt.sex.magazines
alt.sex.marsha-clark
alt.sex.masturbation
alt.sex.midgets
alt.sex.modem-kamikaze
alt.sex.motss
alt.sex.movies
alt.sex.necrophilia
alt.sex.nudels.me.too
alt.sex.oral
alt.sex.orgy
alt.sex.pedophilia
alt.sex.pedophilia.boys
alt.sex.pedophilia.girls
alt.sex.pedophilia.pictures
alt.sex.pedophilia.swaps
alt.sex.pictures
alt.sex.pictures.d
alt.sex.pictures.female
alt.sex.pictures.male
alt.sex.plushies
alt.sex.pre-teens
alt.sex.prostitution
alt.sex.reptiles
alt.sex.safe
alt.sex.services
alt.sex.sgml
alt.sex.sm.fig
alt.sex.snakes
alt.sex.sounds
alt.sex.spanking
alt.sex.stories
alt.sex.stories.d
alt.sex.stories.gay
alt.sex.stories.hetero
alt.sex.stories.moderated
alt.sex.stories.tg
alt.sex.strip-clubs
alt.sex.super-size
alt.sex.swingers
alt.sex.tasteless
alt.sex.telephone
alt.sex.toons
alt.sex.trans
alt.sex.ugly
alt.sex.uncut
alt.sex.video-swap
alt.sex.voxmeet
alt.sex.voyeurism
alt.sex.wanted
alt.sex.wanted.escorts.ads
alt.sex.watersports
alt.sex.weight-gain
alt.sex.wizards
alt.sex.young
alt.sex.zoophile
alt.sexy.bald.captains
alt.stories.erotic
alt.support.disabled.sexuality
alt.tv.tiny-toon.sex
clari.news.crime.sex
clari.news.gays
clari.news.sex
aus.sex
de.talk.sex
es.alt.sexo
fido.ger.sex
fido.sex-ger
fido7.ru-sex
fido7.ru-sex.adv
fido7.russian-sex
finet.sex
fiod7.other.russian.sex
fiod7.ru.sex
gay-net.behinderte
gay-net.btx-ecke
gay-net.coming-out
gay-net.dfue
gay-net.erotic-stories
gay-net.gruppen.general
gay-net.guide.bundesweit
gay-net.guide.weltweit
gay-net.haushalt
gay-net.international
gay-net.kontakte
gay-net.labern
gay-net.lederecke
gay-net.spiele
gay-net.test
rec.arts.erotica
shamash.gayjews
slo.sex
soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi
t-netz.sex
t-netz.sex-stories
tw.bbs.sci.sex
ucb.erotica.sensual
uw.alt.sex.beastiality
uw.alt.sex.bestiality
uw.alt.sex.bondage
uw.alt.sex.stories
uw.alt.sex.stories.d
zer.t-netz.sex

                          - fin -



-- 
\/\/\/\/\/\
Rex Wockner
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