Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 18:03:10 -0500 (EST)
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To: webgrrls-toronto@webgrrls.com
From: Lynna Landstreet <lynna@yorku.ca>
Subject: TWG: Re: Net Censorship
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Reply-To: Lynna Landstreet <lynna@yorku.ca>
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Brandi Jasmine <nitefall@idirect.com> writes:

>Just as we have a right to see what we WANT to see, so also do we have a
>right not to be exposed to that which we do not want to see.  Censorship
>is not a black-white either or proposition: what frightens ME is the idea
>some folks have that they have the right to bombard people with ANY
>images, ideas, they may wish in the name of "free speech".  People should
>have the right to set their own "off" buttons.  Right now, I'm getting
>bombarded by spam from a bestiality and rape-sex site called feral.com in
>my e-mail, and I can assure you that despite my generally strong stomach,
>I sure DO want a way to put an end to it.  It's harassment, IMHO, yet
>folks like this INSIST they have a RIGHT to bombard me with e-mail (at my
>expense!).

I never said that people shouldn't have the right to decide what they see.
Every browser has a "Back" button. Unwanted e-mail, of whatever sort, is
offensive - as in unwanted regular mail, for that matter. And a site
devoted to bestiality and rape is probably in contravention of the
obscenity laws we already have. No one has the right to harrass others.

>It's irresponsible to suggest that people ought not have the right
>to screen for themselves.  It's also politically stupid: without
>screening tools as an available option, right-wing-nuts and their ilk will
>become increasingly hystrionic until real censorship is achieved.

It's not people screening for *themselves* that bothers me - it's people
screening for other people. In the first place, the people who buy these
programs have NO say over what is being blocked - the lists of blocked sites
are highly confidential. In the second, programs such as these are
increasingly beign installed in high schools, libraries, and other
publically funded institutions. So what you have there is not a case of
people deciding what to see for themselves, or even for their children, but
bureaucrats deciding on behalf of parents and kids to allow some software
company in California to decide what values kids are and aren't allowed to
be exposed to. I'd hardly call that an exercise of individual freedom.

>Then they will not succeed in the long-run - without TRUE end-user control
>over the list, how can these programs be customized?

They can't be. That's the whole idea. They're designed for people who would
rather shell out $49 for a bandaid solution than have to spend some time
supervising their own children, discussing values and social problems with
them, and general acting like a real parent. They allow parents to use the
Net as an electronic babysitter with a clear conscience because somebody
else has promised to do all the work for them by making sure their kids
aren't exposed to anything "bad" - however "bad" may be defined by that
company.

>I'm not afraid, because these idiots will put
>themselves out of business as soon as someone with sense comes along with
>an open-standard open-list filter.

I'm not sure how that could be done, actually. If you wanted to screen out
Jerry Falwell, how would you do it? Just enter his name? Then you'd also
screen out any site that criticized him or referred to him in any context
whatesoever. Right now, some of the filtering programs block any site that
contains the words "fascism" or "racism", presumably on grounds that they
don't want kids to view white supremacist stuff, but what if a student is
trying to research a paper on World War II, or the civil rights movement in
the 60s?

The problem with programs like these is that even if they don't have the
kind of political agenda that CyberSitter does (it's connected to the
right-wing group Focus On The Family), they inevitably end up blocking much
more than they need to, simply because no software program, no matter how
sophisticated, can look at a web site with the level of discernment that a
human being can. Parents who are worried about their kids being exposed to
bad ideas would be a lot better off spending more time talking with their
kids about why they think those ideas are bad and less money on
technological quick-fixes.

>That choice is legally with the parents of any minor child, the definition
>of a minor being set by the state of province.  When the child achieves
>majority, they have the right to make certain decisions for themselves.
>Parents make stupid, counter-productive decisions for their children every
>day.  Some parents refuse to permit their children to have blood
>transfusions and medical care - and in all but the most extreme cases,
>parental wishes are respected.  Are ideas more sacred than medicine?

As it happens, I *don't* agree with allowing parents to let children die
when a transfusion could have saved their lives. Parental property rights
over children are not, and should not be, IMHO, absolute. As a society, we
don't generally let parents batter their children, sexually abuse them,
starve them, or otherwise deprive them of the necessities of life. At a
certain point, we draw a line. Parents do not, currently, have the right of
life or death over the children that they did in times past. Children's
right to life, health and safety can, in some cases, supercede parents'
right to control. As with censorship, parental rights are not a
black-and-white matter. The question, as always, is where you draw the line.

To me, cutting kids off from information that could save their lives or
their sanity crosses the line. And it disturbs me how many of the
blue-ribbon folks have happily supported filtering software as a means of
getting the moralists off their backs - and onto the backs of someone even
more vulnerable. It seems to me as if a lot of people don't care if kids
are denied access to information they might really need, just as long as
nobody interferes with *their* right to look at naughty pictures. Adults'
pleasure seems to take a higher priority than kids' safety. (I'm not
suggesting *you* think that way, Brandi; I know you don't. But it's an
attitude I've seen a lot of around...)

>Well, the truth of the matter is that there is an unstoppable wave of
>"something must be done" mentality sweeping the nation.  The Internet is a
>scapegoat for any number of political interests.  Extremists on both sides
>are lining up into inflexible positions.  You may set yourself up to be an
>immovable object - brace yourself for an unstoppable force.

I don't think I am an extremist, in fact. On a scale where 0 is Jerry
Falwell and 10 is Larry Flynt, I'm probably no higher than, say, a 7.5 or
thereabouts. There are some things *I* don't want to see, and if I had
kids, then yes, there would be some things I didn't want them to see
either. But I wouldn't count on a cheesy little piece of software made by a
company whose motivations and values I know next to nothing about to make
my parenting choices for me.

I wouldn't let a small child surf the net unsupervised any more than I
would let her go and walk down Yonge Street unsupervised. It's a scary
world. But putting blinders on kids doesn't make it any less scary, it just
makes them less prepared to deal with it. I would do my best to raise my
kids with a solid set of values, and I would *talk* to them about the
problems that there are in the world. When they were old enough to
understand and handle it well, I would go with them to some of the sites I
find objectionable, and explain to them what was wrong with those sites. I
would raise them to be able to think critically and be responsible.

>You will never be able to talk sense into a mother who's 10 year old daughter
>has just downloaded pictures from feral.com.

I would think that a 10-year-old who would *want* to look at pictures like
that - or a 13-year-old who wants to build a pipe bomb, to use one of
NetNanny's favourite examples - has problems that no software package is
going to solve. Again, filtering software is not a substitute for
repsonsible parenting.

Lynna

__________________________________________________________________________
Every thing that                                          Lynna Landstreet
lives is Holy.                                       Environmental Studies
                                                           York University
     - William Blake                              Toronto, Ontario, Canada
                                  http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/2709