Interesting People mailing list archives
Re: DO READ -- Australia to Require Mandatory ISP Filtering of "Inappropriate" Content
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 10:02:20 -0800
________________________________________ From: Brock N Meeks [bmeeks () cox net] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 12:50 PM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] Re: Australia to Require Mandatory ISP Filtering of "Inappropriate" Content David {not djf} asks, "what wrong with offering 'opt out' instead of 'opt in' filtering... this will help keep kids safe." Well, thanks for the hanging curve balls, David, I suppose you're being generous because of the holiday season. The first thing wrong with "opt out" is that a consumer must take proactive steps to rid him or herself from a mandate that was never asked for. Opt out is a really twisted way of saying that the consumer is given a choice; if you force a mandate on me and then tell me, "Oh, if you don't like it, just jump through XYZ hoops" I don't consider that a "choice." And then there is that niggling little phrase "help keep kids safe." Yes, yes, and it helps keep kids safe if they never use a public restroom where they're exposed to all manner of sexually-oriented graffiti, some of it very explicit, and anatomically correct. (how someone manages to do that with a big tip Sharpie, well... that's another discussion...) And yes, yes, it helps keep kids safe if we never let them socialize with little Johnny Dude, whose father, Spike, leaves his porn laying around and doesn't care if Johnny takes the accelerated, self-directed, sex education short course and decides to mentor your kid when he goes there after school to play. And trust me, as a father of four boys, it's astounding how much information they pick up and how early they pick it up... and they hardly needed to go poking around porn sites to glean that information. Oh yes, I know that modifier "help" provides the big political cover for such nefarious ideas, for as we both know, nothing can be guaranteed to keep kids 100 percent safe. I just think you have to look at the payoff of using blunt instrument tactics under the guise of "helping" kids. Mandating that ISPs filter "inappropriate" content suddenly makes them de facto government agents; they now become gatekeepers of content as mandated by government. But darker angels lurk here. Once the infrastructure for such monitoring is in place and they've kicked all the bugs out of it, then the pipes can be used for more nefarious actions. Does the government suddenly want to start monitoring the Internet activities of a certain group of people?? Well, just head on over to the local ISP and switch on the covert monitoring, because, damn, the ISPs are already serving as government agents by proxy in performing their filtering mandate, surely they won't object to little extra-curricular snooping. And on and on. You know, this crap just never stops does it? It used to be the fight song included the theme of "keep the government out of my bedroom," now I'm into the second chorus and it's "keep the government out of 'helping' me raise my kids." Bah. You want to keep your kids safe? Pull the f**king plug on the computer, give them a hug, and read them a book. Brock Meeks Director of Communications Center for Democracy&Technology On Jan 8, 2008, at 11:21 AM, David Farber wrote:
________________________________________ From: David Burt [david_burt () filteringfacts org] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 10:50 AM To: David Farber Subject: Re: [IP] Australia to Require Mandatory ISP Filtering of "Inappropriate" Content But what's wrong with offering "opt out" instead of "opt in" filtering, as long as it's relatively easy and private to opt out? This will help keep kids safe. Heck, even the ACLU agrees software is the better solution, per this Oct 23, 2007 entry on their website: "Keep Kids Safe with Software, Not Censorship" http://blog.aclu.org/index.php?/archives/318-Keep-Kids-Safe-with- Software,-Not-Censorship.html Mandatory "Opt Out" filtering of pornographic sites by ISPs I think is the next wave in democratic countries. Japan is also planning it (see story below). I think this is a trend that will accelerate in democratic countries as societies look for new ways to protect children from the inundation of pornography on the Internet. Would this work in the U.S.? I think the ISPs would fight it like hell, and the civil liberties groups would too. But if "opting out" were easy enough and reasonably anonymous, I think the current Supreme Court might uphold it. Eweek story on Japan's opt-out filtering proposal : In response to complaints from parents, the Japanese government in December ordered mobile carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI, Softbank and Willcom to begin implementing mobile phone filtering for minors. Mobile phone online filtering already is available by the Japanese carriers, but according to Gyaku.jp<http://Gyaku.jp>, few use the option. The proposed regulations would strengthen existing policy by requiring online filtering to be the default setting for phones intended for minors. The filtering could be turned off with the explicit request of the minor's patent or guardian. http:// www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2242756,00.asp More stuff on my blog at www.filteringfacts.org<http:// www.filteringfacts.org/> ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Re: DO READ -- Australia to Require Mandatory ISP Filtering of "Inappropriate" Content David Farber (Jan 08)