Internet Outlook with Richard Wiggins | 67

What Are AOL's Rules?

America Online and Free Speech: An Oxymoron?

AOL's official stance on regulation of content is given in its "Terms of Service" document, and a companion document called "Rules of The Road."

If you read these documents, you first realize that AOL and its attorneys haven't understood the basic distinction between online communiucations – email, chat, and the like – and Internet publishing. The TOS document warns about harassing users in chat rooms, or using offensive language that might offend someone else online. AOL made its business on real time chat, and much of the heat it has had to contend with involves, for instance, the occasional sexual predator who enters an AOL chat room and preys upon minors. It's hard to argue with rules that proscribe this sort of behavior.

But publishing on a web site is a very different thing than interacting in real time with another person. AOL has offered personal Web publishing to all members for well over a year. In the print world, publishing can range from photocopied flyers all the way to Kitty Kelley's new book on the royal family, and a given web site could land anywhere along that spectrum. Under American law at least, Kitty Kelley can say pretty much whatever she wants about a public figure, unless she exhibits malice or reckless disregard for the truth. If Kelley were to stalk a public figure, or repeatedly make harassing phone calls to that public figure, laws against stalking or abuse of telephone networks could come into play.

Similarly, while AOL has a legitimate interest in making sure that no member of the service abuses another member, its role in regulating Web content ought to be much more narrowly drawn. Since AOL's TOS documents don't embrace a distinction between interpersonal communications and publishing, AOL by default doesn't recognize that publishing a document with potentially offensive material is a different matter than perisisting in an abusive conversation. AOL's TOS focuses on behavior towards "members" as if the world consists of AOL members and no one else. Web pages posted on AOL are not directed toward "members" but towards the global Internet audience.

Moreover, no Web page is forced upon anyone, whether they're an AOL member or a user of a real Internet Service Provider (ISP). A given Internet user need not read a given Web page, but must find it through a search engine, a hyperlink, or a public posting of its URL. A "member" of AOL or the general public can avoid contact with offensive content on AOL by simply not going to that URL.

In contrast to public pronouncements that AOL cannot police content, AOL's Terms of Service espouse a breathtakingly broad claim of regulation:

AOL's Rules of the Road document proclaims:

It's especially amusing to contemplate the full implications of that last provision. In championing the Communications Decency Act, Senator Exon held up for the Senate to see a book he claimed contained a collection of pornographic images found on the Net. If a politician or anti-pornography crusader were to post a page on AOL listing with hyperlinks "The Top 100 Most Offensive Pornography Sites on the Internet" that page would violate AOL's terms! We've reached a stage where not only is offensive content to be proscribed, but a bibliography of offensive content is also verboten.