[ih] Porn on the net

[Dave Crocker]

On 9/19/2022 12:12 PM, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> and told him he was going to put
> PORNOGRAPHY on the Internet!

Around 1980, when I added a mailing list agent to MMDF, I wanted to add 
a jokes list.  From Los Angeles, I'd mostly been exposed to pretty 
benign stuff, but Delaware was a lot more intense.  One friend had 
particularly vicious jokes and I said they were racist.  He disagreed, 
noting that his jokes covered the gamut of ethnicities and races.  Nasty 
to all.  He insisted that to be racist required focusing on just one. 
The concept of statistical racism had not occurred to me...

Anyhow, MMDF funding was from NSF, for CSNet.  The Chair of the 
department made me take the list down, noting the a newspaper headline 
announcing that the NSF was funding dirty jokes would not be such a good 
thing.

A bit later, for MCI Mail, we included group distribution and I 
re-started the jokes service.  Commercial service, so fewer restrictions.

The VP of Operations had a pretty wicked sense of humor, but he wouldn't 
join the list, so as to avoid possible blowback.

He had his secretary join, instead.  (She, too, like the humor.)

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net