See

rotica-Animals, Erotica-Children, Erotica-Female, Erotica-Male, Erotica-Gay and Erotica-Bisexual ~ are yours at the push of a button. Press a few keys in the Internet computer network, and you are invited to look through this file area, Erotica. For some, it’s a garden of delights. For others it's a field ripe for the censor’s blade. Internet’s ostensible function is to exchange academicand scientific information around the world. But it also includes files on almost anything imaginable, including the stuff that drives puritans mad.

“It’s sex education of the worst kind for our kids,” says Dolina Smith, president of Canadians for Decency, who demand the removal of erotic material from the Internet.

“| think we have a responsibility to the society.”

With the growth of Internet, the ability to access such files has sparked a debate over the propriety of computer files. One question is whether the elimination of these files is a breech of freedom of speech and information, protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“| think this freedom of speech thing has been carried far too far,” argues Smith. “Our families are going down, all in the name of freedom of speech.”

Internet proponents and civil libertarians would like to allow users to access all files without restriction

A six-member University of British Columbia task force on the Appropriate Use of Information Technology last September looked into the pornographic

Sex On

Internet

WOUCUODLRUA (CULP)

contents of Internet.

“| don’t think that it’s a particular problem,” says task force member Shirley Marcus. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to look at it.”

“If you went to turn on your computer it wouldn’t be sitting there,” she adds, noting that users must actively search out such information.

And people are tapping in.

Boardwatch magazine ran a readers’ poll of the best computer boards. Three of the top ten were “Explicit Adult” systems -- including Pleasure Dome, based in Tidewater, Virginia.

Pleasure Dome offers electronic access

to networks like ThrobNet, SwingNet, StudNetand KinkNet, according to arecent article in Time.

Internet is designed for the free flow of information, but another B.C. university has decided to restrict some content.

“It is intended to be open to encourage people to do different things,” says Worth Johnson, manager of network operations at Simon Fraser University. “The nature of Internet is to allow anything to go on.”

SFU decided to exclude anything from their system that was not “scholarly,” said Johnson.

Sam Scully, a University of Victoria vice- president, said Internet should be wide- open for the general transmission of information.

UVic supports the “general right of access of any kind for academic research

versus the collective right to protect people |

from offensive and repugnant things,” he says.

There is no test to prove the academic merit of material on the system. If there was, it would likely entail much time to keep up with the rapid input -- and much controversy over its interpretations.

In Canada, there is a six per cent growth in the Internet system every month.

“There is no controlling what's getting trafficked,” said Johnson. “Over the upcoming years will be a period of creating new processes and rules.”

Internet is the “only working anarchy in the world,” said Richard Pitt, system administrator for Wimsey, an electronic bulletin board based in Vancouver.

7

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Eliot

awarded Order of

Canada

UPEI President honoured

BY REBECCA MOORE

ISEING APPOINTED TO THE ORDER of Canada is one of the greatest honours that can be given to a Canadian. U.P.E.I.’s president, Dr. C.W,J. Eliot, was given that honour on Thursday, January 6, for his contribution and dedication to the field of education.

Basically, the Order of Canada recognizes the achievements of citizens across Canada who have made a difference in their community, country, or even internationally. Students are not always aware of what their president does or has accomplished, so this appointment may have come as a surprise to some. Dr. Eliot has been committed to post-secondary education in the maritimes for over nine years, and has served with his colleagues on numerous committees to help strengthen regional post-secondary education.

Eliot has also been dedicated to “showing the world that U.P.E.I. has a contribution to make ... judge us not by our size but by our experiences.” He strongly believes that U.P.E.|. has a lot to offer, and that other universities across Canada recognise this, even though U.P.E.I. is a small university.

Dr. Eliot has been teaching at the university level since 1957. He received his B.A., M.A. and his PhD from the University of Toronto. He did his doctoral studies in Greece, bringing back with him valuable information to teach with for a long and successful career. Eliot will be retiring in 1995.

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