Exon

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The Jargon File Parts of this article are based on the Jargon File, v. 4.4.7, a public domain document of hacker jargon.

Exon

/eks´on/ Usage: excl.

Exon: /eks´on/ excl.

A generic obscenity that quickly entered wide use on the Internet and Usenet after the passage of the Communications Decency Act. From the last name of Senator James Exon (Democrat-Nebraska), primary author of the CDA. This usage outlasted the CDA itself, which was quashed a little over a year later by one of the most acerbic pro-free-speech opinions ever uttered by the Supreme Court. The campaign against it was led by an alliance of hackers and civil libertarians, and was the first effective political mobilization of the hacker culture. Use of Exon's name as an expletive outlived the CDA controversy itself.

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