That is why I found the tactics of the theocratic social conservatives deeply offensive. They were afraid that their convictions about pornography we… - Mike Godwin

[The online users reaction to the cyberporn panic] may have been far more effective than a planned event would have been, however. It had vigor, spontaneity, and popular sentiment behind it and was driven by passion and not by calculated maneuvering. And it proved the power of online communities to take on the traditional media establishment, once the playing field has been leveled. The WELL and the World Wide Web and Usenet had leveled the field.

The more you impose such liability, the greater the incentives you create for providers to become content police, and you undermine what for many and perhaps most users is the chief value of the Net: direct communication with the rest of the world.

It's easy for a senator or a government official to blur the line between speech that's offensive and speech that lacks social value, yet in practice it's often the offensive speech that's the most valuable.