community, consistent with
our mission-based approach
to managing the ACM operations. But, our lack of
dependence on advertising
income should not result in
our allowing personal bias
to guide our day-to-day business decisions.
I believe strongly it would
be inappropriate for ACM to
become judge and jury, or to
legislate morality through
what would effectively be
discriminatory business
practices. There are several
reasons I believe this, but
the strongest is the slippery
slope that would result from
such decision making.
If ACM were to refuse to
post ads from the NSA on
the basis of negative opinions expressed by some
members of our community,
we would be setting a strong
and dangerous precedent—
that the opinions of some
are more important than
the opinions of others, and
it is appropriate for ACM to
take sides. Once we set this
precedent it would be very
difficult to break free of and
would create a potentially
slippery slope for ACM, one
that would undoubtedly put
our entire mission and position within the global computing community at risk.
For example, if we look
at the kinds of information
gathering the NSA appears
to have engaged in and then
consider that other organizations (some government
and some for-profit corporations) have from time
to time been accused of
It should be up
to members of
our community
to decide for
themselves
whether the
NSA would be
a desirable
employer or
an organization
to boycott.
similar information gathering (albeit on a far smaller
scale), would ACM then have
a moral obligation to refuse
advertising from those employers? Or, if an organization such as Planned Parenthood or Prolife.com wants
to advertise for an in-house
software developer position, would it be appropriate
for ACM to decide to refuse
such a paid ad because the
activities of these organizations may be personally offensive to some in the community? Similarly, if the
National Rifle Association
or the BradyCampaign.org
came to ACM to place an ad
for a programmer position,
would it be appropriate for
us to refuse them?
If we choose to take on
that role of judge and jury,
where do we draw the line at
what organizations we can
refuse to work with on the
basis of personal opinion?
And by going down this
path, where does it end and
doesn’t this inevitably lead
ACM to become an organization that excludes some
in the community based on
their beliefs and personal
opinions rather than including everyone equally regardless of their beliefs and
opinions?
As the decision maker
for ACM’s advertising program at the present time, I
can honestly tell you I do not
want that kind of authority
or ability to set in motion
such a slippery slope. This
is why we stay out of the
politics, provide forums for
opinion, discussion and debate—such as the one taking place in this issue—and
leave it for members of the
community to decide what
content they choose to consume or not consume.
There is no question this
will lead some in the community to be offended by
certain ads placed on our
websites or in our magazines, not because of what
is actually contained within
those ads, but rather because of personal opinions
about the advertisers them-
selves. And, no doubt some
will be equally offended by
columns or opinion articles
published in some of ACM’s
publications, but we believe
this is normal and part of
any legitimate and constructive editorial and journalistic process.
As a result, the only criteria we apply to decisions to
refuse or reject advertising
is whether the advertisements themselves are inappropriate or offensive in the
content submitted to ACM
for publication.
Some will disagree with
this policy, but we believe it
is the right approach for an
organization such as ours
and helps us to avoid what
could be a very slipper y slope
in relation to determining
which organizations ACM
will work with, be they advertisers, subscribers to our
various publications, exhibitors at ACM conferences, or
sponsors of ACM Awards.
For those who are occasionally offended by what
appears on the pages of our
publications—be that editorial content, artwork, or advertisements—we do apologize for this and welcome
your thoughts and opinions.
If you share those with us, as
Schmidt and Enghardt have
done in this issue, we commit to giving you a forum to
express your opinions, provided the manner in which
you do so is professional and
consistent with our highest
editorial standards.
Sincerely,
Scott Delman