Internet Content Coalition -- Press Release

Mark Graham (mgraham@well.com)
Tue, 4 Jun 1996 13:47:41 -0700

Released 6/4/96
For more information, contact:
Maria Wilhelm, president, The WELL, maria@well.com, 415-332-9200
Ed Long, marketing director, ecl@well.com

The Internet Content Coalition: The First Major Effort at a Consolidated
Approach to "Rating" Web Content

Seventy of the major providers of content for the World Wide Web gathered
June 3 in Sausalito, California to a launch a national debate on "offensive"
content on the Web. The Internet Content Coalition, sponsored by MIT and The
WELL, represents an industry-wide effort to address concerns arising from
the Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress this spring.

Operating largely without rules or guiding standards, the Web has provoked
numerous attempts to regulate or censor content. The Act has, in turn,
spurred litigation - by opponents to stop such government intervention, and
by supporters to prosecute content providers who allegedly violate the law's
prohibition against "indecent" material transmitted across phone lines.

This conflict "prompted us to try to develop a consensus among content
providers, but with an emphasis on those creators' First Amendment freedoms,"
said James Kinsella, who co-founded the Internet Content Coalition with Maria
Wilhelm, president of The WELL. Added Wilhelm, "The CDA is only the
first in a series of challenges content producers and distributors will
face in a developing industry. Identifying our shared goals and aims, as
well as our points of divergence, couldn't be more critical now."

The 70 attendees included representatives from Warner Brothers, CompuServe,
NBC, Sony, Microsoft, Netscape, c/net, Hotwired, Playboy, US News, America
Online and even Doonesbury.com.

Future meetings of the Internet Content Coalition will be held in New York,
London and in Asia, under the auspices of MIT, which created the World Wide
Web Consortium, and The WELL, an 11-year-old online community known for
intelligent debate.

Mark Graham
Chief Technical Officer
The WELL
(415) 332-9200 (voice)
(415) 332-9355 (fax)

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