Re: Netnews: The Origin Story

D <nospam@example.net> wrote:

On Thu, 7 Nov 2024, Rich wrote:

>
Which also meant if you posted something that someone took great
offense to, from your @mit.edu account, that the "offended" would
contact the mit.edu sysadmins, and the "offending" user would be
"taken behind the woodshed" as it may be.
>
Granted, "offended" individuals still can contact whatever usenet
host someone uses to access usenet and bitch up a storm (the
necessary headers are in every article).  But that same host, being
in the 'business' of usenet access, is much less likely to care
about "From: Q@nowhere"'s offensive post than the @mit.edu folks
would have been back in the day.
>
And, of course, joe random stalker has a much harder time tracking
down "Q@nowhere"'s real life identity and location than he does in
tracking down the same for john.smith.iii@mit.edu.

 
Makes a lot of sense.  I also think that a lot of (well some) amateur
usenet providers have a strong sense of freedom of speech, so it
would take a lot for them to even bother.

Yes, and a lot of that goes with "usenet" being their primary
provision.

@mit.edu provided Usenet as but a small extra benefit by being a
mit.edu student/alum/employee.  Making mit.edu look bad meant they
could cut you off usenet, and not even notice the change for the rest
of mit.edu.

But a "usenet" provider, the only thing they provide is "usenet", and
esp. if it is a paid provider, it is against their business interest to
cut off user X (meaning less revenue) just because random fool on
usenet was triggered.

Most of them have very simple rules: no SPAMming, no SWATting, and then
that's about it.  So unless the offense is directly against their
simple rules, or just clearly well beyond anything anyone should
expect, most of the "usenet only" providers will simply tell the
'sensitive' to go pound sand (and, preferably, to "grow a thicker
skin").