Black Leather Required

In the new millennium, the information super-highway of horror can be a very scary place to travel. It can affect you in ways you never would have imagined in your wildest nightmare. Especially when Corporate America decides to embrace thought crime technology, playing morality monitor better than Big Brother ever could. So sit back and listen to how the Virtual Horror has affected me. It might possibly keep you out of trouble, if it's not already too late.

After this year's July 4th holiday, I came into the work place of my Seattle-based corporation on Friday morning and was immediately called into a meeting with my manager. In the small conference room, he sat across from me and removed some documents from a manila folder. He said, "I have a report from Human Resources that says you've been visiting pornographic websites."

My heart skipped a beat. He placed a spreadsheet-like report on the table in front of me. He also had a printout of my entire article "NON Sense -- An Interview with Boyd Rice" taken from Gothic.Net's June issue.

He chuckled half-heartedly. "I knew when I saw the word gothic in the URL it had to be something to do with your writing. The Human Resources manager was very offended with this article. One of the answers the person you interviewed gave really got to her."

"What question was that?" I replied, the hairline crack of a smile just starting to creep up my mouth, pleased my writing had invoked a strong emotion in a reader but also to hide the nervousness threatening to consume me.

My manager flipped through the article right to the question where I'd asked Rice about the Columbine shootings in Denver, where he lives.

"This one really bothered her," he said, pointing to the printout.

"But that article is not pornography. That website does not contain images of nude people in lewd acts. The website has horror fiction, music reviews, and interviews with writers, musicians, and artists. It is not pornography. My writing is not pornography."

"I know that." [Later that afternoon, he would admit to having read the entire article and not having any problems with it at all.] He pushed the report across the tabletop so I could get a better look. URLs from Gothic.Net and Feralhouse.com covered three pages. He took the report and the Gothic.Net article and put them back into the folder.

"Your writing is on the fringe. It's in that gray zone. " He pulled out another document from the folder. "The Human Resources manager wants you to sign this."

The document simply stated I had accessed Internet sites categorized as pornography by the company's Internet monitoring system. Future violations would result in further disciplinary action up to and including termination. I gasped for air and swallowed hard.

"I'm not going to sign this."

"I told her that's what you'd probably say. You're going to have to talk with the Human Resources manager. But I have to call her first and tell her you're coming and what you've said."

A few intense, very stressful hours later, in the office of the Human Resources manager, I said, "I'm not going to sign that document. I was not looking at pornography. I'm a writer. I wrote that article. Neither that article nor the website it was posted on are pornography. My article is not pornography. Why did that particular question and answer the individual gave in my article bother you in the first place?"

"I didn't like what he said about that matter. Your article is not the point here." Dismissing my question, she stated. "Though your writing is not pornography, that website is."

In a loud angry tone, she explained that the company had purchased a vendor software package that determines which websites are "pornography." The software then produces a report with a list of the offending URLs. She had no idea how it worked. But she was going to find out. In the meantime, somebody was going to have to look at the websites in question. She asked my manager to decide if the websites I had visited were pornography; he refused. Neither the Human Resources rep nor my manager wanted to fire me or see me resign, for that matter. My manager was pleased with my performance over the last year and wasn't worried that I had been spending breaks and lunchtime surfing the Net as other employees did this as well. However, he did not have the time nor was he willing to go to bat for me over this issue. He was not about to jeopardize his position or his department with the company over the issue of whether a site was pornography or not.

At this point, my company was very confused. All the pornography cases so far simply involved individuals viewing sexually explicit imagery. I also learned that while it was not necessarily my browsing these sites that was the problem, a co-worker could look over my shoulder while I'm reading, become offended, and try to sue the company.

Though I still refused to sign the document that claimed I was guilty of looking at pornographic websites while at work, I said that I would be happy to not visit websites that the company considered pornographic if they could provide me with a list of URLs or guidelines for what is and is not considered pornography.

The Human Resources manager promptly refused and said she thought that would be impossible. I would have to wait until Monday for another meeting. Someone had to look at the offending sites and determine exactly what kind of content was contained on these web pages.

On Monday, I learned that, as far as my company was concerned, while I might not be writing porn, I wrote for porn websites. I was told that the site monitoring software was written by a company called Telemate and had determined that both Gothic.Net and Feralhouse.com were porn, end of story. Both my manager and the Human Resources manager signed the document that stated I had been surfing porn while at work, noting my refusal to sign it. Furthermore, from this day forward, I was not to visit any website that featured my fiction, non-fiction, or poetry while at work nor sites that contained similar material. Both managers reiterated that they did not want me to quit or resign. They simply did not want me to go to any of these websites while at work. Though it was perfectly fine that co-workers were visiting stock market sites, news sites, and shopping sites, it would be a very good idea if I didn't go to any non-business related sites ever again.

That night, I went to www.Telemate.com and read about this software. The Telemate website makes broad sweeping claims and wild generalizations about pornography on the Net such as: A recent survey cited that 70 percent of all Internet porn traffic occurs during the 9-to-5 workday. In addition, employees earning $75,000 to $100,000 annually are twice as likely to download pornography at work than those earning less.

Telemate offers 297 categories to track online surfing, with categories ranging from PORNOGRAPHY to OBSCENE/TASTELESS. The site even has quotes from Telemate executives that feed the corporate hysteria. A statement from Vijay Balakrishan, senior vice president of marketing, claims, "Easy access to faster network connections and the anonymous, 'safe' nature of the office is the perfect combination for online porn surfing."

However, Telemate does not bother to say a single word about the criteria it uses in determining if a site is pornographic or not. The Telemate software can also scan company email looking for certain buzzwords, flagging the email for further review should any of the words be found. The software can even perform similar functions against company voice messages left over the phone.

On Tuesday, I very politely confronted the woman responsible for running the Telemate software at my company while she sat outside at a picnic table in a designated smoking section. She already knew who I was. She said she simply ran the software that produced the reports and took them to Human Resources.

She also told me that Telemate sent the company a list of pornographic sites on a regular basis. This list of URLs was already huge. She explained to me that she thought the software worked by identifying certain words on websites, whether in the URL, in a file name, or in the text of the web page itself, in determining if a site was pornographic or not. She thought that links to other "pornography" websites could get a site flagged as pornographic. Finally, she told me that she had not read my article nor been the one to print it out.

Later that day, I also managed to obtain part of the report generated by the Telemate software. Every unique URL I went to on Gothic.Net was put in the category of pornography. These pornographic pages included David J. Schow's homepage...my short story, "Gnarly Punks," in the Gothic.Net fiction archives...and, of course, my non-fiction piece, "NON sense."

This strongly suggests that there is a very good possibility that every single web page at Gothic.Net -- every story, every article, every CD review, and every site hosted by Gothic.Net with that domain name -- is categorized as pornography by the Telemate software.

The implications of this are very frightening. It becomes possible that every piece of writing I have ever written, whether fiction, non-fiction, or poetry that is displayed on the World Wide Web is considered pornography by the Telemate software. Though there were other factors that helped me to determine my next decision, this software and my company's use of it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I saw no alternative but to resign from my position.

If you are a writer or publisher with material displayed on the Internet, I strongly suggest that you check out www.Telemate.com for yourself. Also of interest is www.Censorware.org, a site with an incredible amount of information dedicated to exposing the phenomenon of software designed to prevent a person from sending or receiving information. Even if your day job isn't in Corporate America, your work might already be branded as pornography.

(This piece originally appeared the week of 16 July 2000 in an e-mail writer's market called The Jobs in Hell Newsletter. If you'd like to find out more about Chad Hensley, or comment on his piece, visit his site.)

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