Using computer bulletin board systems

A Bulletin Board System (BBS) is a personal computer running sophisticated but inexpensive software, to which people with their own computers can connect over a phone line. Generally available 24 hours a day, a BBS allows callers to read, reply to, and originate e-mail, read text files (bulletins), and exchange other kinds of files such as computer programs and graphics. Virtually anyone, including high school students, can set up and operate a BBS. International e-mail networks linking BBS's worldwide have developed, through which local callers can exchange messages with others of similar interests around the globe.

A BBS generally has a specific theme, such as ham radio, fishing, religion, or computer games. Numerous BBS's have political themes. Anyone can write a manifesto or other political material and place it online using a BBS, making it available to a wide audience.

There are roughly fifty thousand BBS's in the U.S., and the number is increasing rapidly. In the Washington area, there is a BBS run for the NRA providing anti-gun control information, a BBS for the "Christian Right," a BBS providing conservative critiques of alleged liberal bias in the news media ("AIM Net," for Accuracy in Media), BBS's supporting gay rights and women's rights, and various others.