206 LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET
There are other linguistic consequences of Web innocence, when
we consider that people are producing content for a potentially
worldwide readership. How does one learn to write for potential
millions, with clarity and (bearing in mind the international au-
dience) cultural sensitivity? The point is routinely recognized in
chatgroups (chapter 5). Usenet help manners, for example, has
this to say:^18
Keep Usenet’s worldwide nature in mind when you post articles.
Even those who can read your language may have a culture wildly
different from yours. When your words are read, they might not
mean what you think they mean.Thepointisevenmorepowerfulwhenweconsiderthevastlygreater
range of subject-matter communicated via the Web. But the Web
presents us with a rather different problem. Its language is under
no central control. On the Web there are no powerful moderators
(p. 133). Individual servers may attempt to ban certain types of
site, but huge amounts of uncensored language slip through. There
are several sites where the aim is, indeed, contrary to conventional
standards of politeness and decency, or where the intention is to
give people the opportunity to rant about anything which has up-
set them.^19 Conventional language may be subverted in order to
evade the stratagems servers use to exclude pornographic material:
a Web address may use a juxtaposition of interesting and innocu-
ous words, and only upon arrival at the site does one realize that
the content is not what was conveyed by their dictionary mean-
ing. The debate continues over the many social and legal issues
raised by these situations – laws of obscenity and libel, matters of
security and policing, questions of freedom of speech – all made
more difficult by the many variations in practice which exist be-
tween countries. The Internet, as has often been pointed out, is no
respecter of national boundaries.
Issues associated with textual copyright have particular linguistic
consequences. Although we are unable to alter someone else’s Web
(^18) ‘What is Usenet?’http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1.
(^19) An example is<www.angry.net>.