The panel, Government regulation of the internet: US/Cyberian
Relations, which had such notables as Richard Stallman, 
Michael Elliot (from Newsweek) and author Andy Ihnatko, was
rather disappointing.  The panel members did not stay on subject
well and though individual discourses were interesting, the questions
asked by the audience were rarely answered.  

Here are some summaries of example discourses:

***

When discussing why Newsweek did not currently have an Internet presence,
Michael Elliot described the Internet as the most efficient way to lose
money yet devised.  Up until now, Newsweek has only sponsored occasional
transitory events, such as conferences, and has had a presence on AOL,
where presumably they can actually get paid.  Nonetheless, they expect to
open a whizz-bang site this summer, where they will start losing money with
everyone else.

He does see information overload as an ever-growing problem and gave
his prediction that WebTV would not work, being "infinitely smaller
than the imagination of the technologists."  As a result, he sees
a growing role for "gatekeepers", people to sift through information
and present a subset of it in a cohesive, understandable way.

Richard Stallman interrupted at this point to interject his opinion that
while people of his generation and Michael's had a problem with information
overload and disliked it, his observation was that many younger people did
*not* have this problem.  Indeed, he felt that information overload has
become a new kind of drug for such people, a drug, by the way, which he has
no desire to indulge in.  This provoked much laughter, but a lot of head
nodding as well.

***

The topic came up of whether laws in other countries could end up
censoring the content of the Internet in the United States.  Two
examples were given, the first being the case where a law in Bavaria
was used to shut down content on a site in the Netherlands and the
second being the French libel laws, under which libel is much easier
to prove.  The consensus of the panel was that, yes, if
content-providers "take a chicken attitude" then laws in other
countries could result in censorship of the Internet in the United
States.  

However, such laws are notoriously difficult to enforce.  Michael
Elliot pointed out the example of China, which passed a law banning
access to Internet content in the country.  When this was published by
Newsweek and others, many people inside the country called, wrote and
otherwise contacted them to say they had no problem getting access to
any Internet content!  A few months later, China repealed the law.

***

Unfortunately, I missed the first part of the panel discussion.  However,
talking to Leonard Sitongia, who was able to attend, it didn't appear that
I had missed much.

A couple of questions that were asked of the panelists but never
answered:  

Comparing the Internet to other technologies such as
telephones and airlines, what do you think the government's role
should be in promoting affordable access for all?

--personal opinion: The panelists missed the opportunity to discuss
whether lack of access to the Internet would be as harmful to
people as the lack of a telephone or the lack of access to an
airport.  They also failed to discuss efforts in existence to
promote affordable access: from individuals providing free email
services to libraries working hard to acquire computers and provide
Internet access to everyone.

What about the cost of the information on the Internet compared
to television?

--personal opinion:  The panelists got side-tracked talking about the
cost of a TV set vs a computer and whether or not WebTV would bring
down costs.  The real strength of the Internet is that the *creation*
of content is tremendously less expensive than the creation of a
television program, radio show or newspaper.  That gives a real
opportunity for multiple voice to be heard in a way they will never
be heard on TV.

Many thanks to the audience, who came up with some good questions.
That was thought-provoking.  Meanwhile, the personality sparks
between the panel members did provide amusement!

Liz Coolbaugh
Co-editor, Linux Weekly News
cool@eklektix.com