Examining Religious Bias In Filtering Software 149
the_rev_matt writes: "eSchool News has a great piece about the religious influence present in filtering software. Not that this will be a surprise to most /. regulars, but the research behind it is interesting. Now if only eSchool News could change their name to something less horrible..."
Re:Why it's so much dogmatic crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:5, Insightful)
Becuase the school is run by the state. And incientally, state applys to any government in this country - federal, state, local. And government operated school has to abide by the constitution. Not to get ad hominem (sp?) here - but this is really basic American civics.
Secondly, isn't there already a seperation between "church" and state? I figured that with so many religions involved that there was no official "church".
It's not about an official church, its about any religion have any more or less influence on goernment than any other religion. So if we let Religion A have a certain right, we need to let every other religion (even the one's that A doesn't like, or thinks is occult, etc) have the same right. What is often forgotten is that the same applies in reverse - all religion's have protection and free from the government. So the government can't decide to, say, tax your local Baptist church out of existence, and let your local synagogue or mosque get a free ride. Incidentally, the famous "Wall of Separation" quote was in response to a Baptist group writing the president thanking him for supporting the Seperation of Church and State - as they were facing oppression at the hands of thier Congregationalist controled local government.
Also, where is the exact passage that contains "seperation between church and state"?
Well, it all stems from the "Congress shall make no law..." clause in the Constitution about relgions. The actualy phrase was coined in the aforementioned letter by (I am almost sure, but I am tired) Thomas Jefferson. More details about all this can be found at a place like the ACLU [aclu.org] or AU [au.org].
Time for OpenBlock? (Score:3, Insightful)
The software side is pretty simple. A perl script tied to MySQL will do the job. All that is needed is for the people who say they want children protected from this stuff to list the sites that they need to be protected from.
Personally I'm more on the side of logging and dealing with infractions rather than trying to create a padded cell. But even that approach would benefit from a list of sites to watch for.
Paul.
Re:Too long (Score:3, Insightful)
www.ExtremeIslamSite.Com : blocked
www.ExtremeChristSite.Com : allowed.
If you are a parent that would prefer your child not to be exposed to all extreme religious views then you are out of luck.
Re:Abstain or Protection? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because with a national standard, there are less people involved. With less people involved there is a greater chance that the standards won't meet everybody's needs.
However, if each group can decide for themselves what to filter, then there is a better chance of everybody having their needs met.
This whole filtering philosophy can be about religion, but it doesn't *have* to be *only* about religon. What if the kids in one school are such Internet addicts that the school recognizes the value of filtering *everything* *except* for a particular site that is relavent and unbiased to the study at hand? A National Board wouldn't have enough time to deal with each school on a case by case basis.
That's a good arguement. And I respond by saying that they should decide on a case by case basis. Why should a community in Florida have to explain to a community in Washington State? It doesn't make sense. Why should Columbine High School have to justify their views to you? What if everybody in that community literally adopted the *exact* same beliefs? I know it's impossible, but for the sake arguement, let's examine the senario.
With today's laws would they be able to filter out according to their own beliefs? Remember, there is no disagreement, because they all of a sudden became followers in the same religion! I think that most people would cry foul and start submitting stories to
Disclaimer [in case someone wasn't following what I said]: I don't believe that everybody in that community has the same religion. It's just something for discussion.
Kids can get Internet access outside of school. We can't please everybody. With each school deciding for themselves, more communities will be happy. With each community deciding for themselves, it will be *harder* [not impossible] for mistakes to be spread to other communities.
planetout... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh heaven forbid that people learn that sodem and gamoreh(sp) has nothing to do with sodemy.
What would people think if they found out about the gay penguins in the aquarium. Oh my!
Some of these people are the same ones that think that prayer should be allowed in public schools. However they don't want to just allow it they want to require it! P>Your going to hell if you moderate this down!!!
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I did find the letter I was refering to: here [usconstitution.net]
To do this, school funds would have to be collected in another way, but let's say that each community managed to have their own school taxes directed to their own school.
Well, for one, at least in NY communities do provide the taxes for thier own schools. There are school lunch programs, etc from state/federal governments, but the majority of the funds are local.
The problem with have each community set its own standard is that the constitution is still the law of the land. This would be akin to a community deciding that it was legal to stop women from voting. The Constitution has the last word, so every government body at any level in the US has to abide by the minimum freedoms and laws set forth by the Constitution. From an ethical point of view, you have the problem that if a community did vote to have a government funded parochial school, even if 95% of that community was X religion, you are still violating the rights of 5% that are Y or Z religion. Not to mention the number of that 95% that feel that the schools should not be teaching thier children religion, but the parents should. Or the guy from another community who happens to move there and doesn't buy into what's being done (see the movie Footloose for what I mean).
OK, those are the facts. Now I am going to throw in some opinionated stuff. First, the Separation of Church and State is a good thing to just about anyone who isn't look to force thier religion on other people. It garuntees that everyone will have complete freedom to practice thier religion however they want, and that no one will have to worry about having to support someone else's religion, or face descrimination by the government for their religious choices. This is a very important thing. Second, if you look at religion as a private and community entity, the majority of times it is a worthwhile force. But when you look at religion mixed with government (or sudo-government) entities, you get things like the Crusades, nations that don't respect women, pilgrims crossing huge oceans just to practice thier religion, etc. Europeans first came to what is now the US becuase of the problems caused by State-sponsered religion. People seem to forget this.
I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that you are Christian, and therefore you are conveniently in the majority in the US. Imagine for a moment if the push for religion in schools/government was coming from the Jews, or the Hindus, or the Pagans, or the practitioners of Voodoo - and you were in the minority. I hope that it will help put things in perspective, and personalize the things at stake. And keep in mind the Danbury Baptists, and the Pilgrims - who relied on the Freedom of Religion to be able to practice thiers.
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not about the schools' freedoms. It's about the students' freedoms. More to the point, it's about taking the power over what people can and cannot view and turning that power over to a corporation that won't release its list of blocked sites.
Re:Article has significant religious bias of its o (Score:3, Insightful)
You, sir, are confusing your own opinion with the Real Truth, and further confusing any opinions that contrdict yours with bigotry. I could make a better case for bigotry on your own part, since you failed to notice that I did not advocate anything being preached by the website being cited, not even Christianity itself, and instead imputed an opinion to me which I did not express but which you thought you could generalize from the context.
You obviously did not read my reply to Stary, but just to clear things up: It's incorrect to assume that I share the point of view of the website the article's author found so disturbing. I have not seen the actual website, just the quotation from it. To judge from the name of site, I probably do not agree with most of it. The point, which you would have seen me put more explicitly had you read my earlier reply, is simply that two contradictory statements cannot both be true, which is a foundational assumption for any logically consistent system.
You make another common error when you connect the assertion of the truth of one religion with a denial of the rights of others to exist. This is false. You err further when you associate faith with hatred. That's nothing more than flamebait, which is the tactic of someone who knows very well he's on shaky ground so I'll take point as conceded -- although I will mention that it's quite possible to believe that another person is mistaken on a subject without hating him. Your last claim I have already dealt with for the most part. Your website betrays your actual religious point of view, which is what you're preaching here and attempting to pass off as objective reality. Why you thought you could pull this off when you provide the link yourself I don't quite understand.
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
Anti != Non.
Let the schools decide.
How would a school decide? By vote? So if there were 30 Catholics, 20 Baptists, and 20 Jews, then the school should teach Catholic dogma? It's much better if the parents and religious leaders teach religion during services/sunday school/home sessions/etc.
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:2, Insightful)
There *IS* a difference.
An anti-religious position would hold that religion is actually "bad", and would require teachers to teach anti-religious lessons.
A non-religious position is one that simply does not involve religion at all. The school simply takes no position at all about whether religion is good or bad, and makes no effort to promote any religious beliefs.
No. Just to take the worse case scenario, if *all* of us are taught Judaism, we would still become better people because all of these religions are based on the Old Testament.
How does being taugh from the Old Testament make us better people? And how is teaching Judaism the "worst case" scenario anyway? The vote is 30% Catholic, 20% Baptist, and 20% Judaism... Why isn't 'Baptist' the worst case scenario?
Remember, when local schools have control over ciriculum, then the local citizens also have control over the schools. When there is tax money from a wide variety of people, there will be compromises.
The best compromise is to leave it in the hands of parents and the church to teach their religious beliefs to children. Schools teach reading, writing and arithmetic. I'm against schools teaching religious beliefs for the same reason I'm against churches teaching arithmetic.
It's always better to have larger groups being served by a few. Please don't take that to extremes. What I'm trying to say is that when one person can specialize in teaching then we all profit, because other people can specialize at what they are good at. Are all people good teachers? No. They shouldn't be forced to become good teachers in order for them to pass on their beliefs and/or the truth.
I agree it's more *EFFICIENT* to teach larger groups, and to allow people to specialize. But to expect your school's teacher to teach religious views to your children? Even if they don't agree with *your* views? Would you be OK with teachers also teaching sexual education?
Honestly, even if you can't teach your religious beliefs to your children, they should still manage to pick them up as a result of your regular church attendance, and by emulating the way in which you live your life.
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore, you have no right whatsoever to force your religion on my children. *I* decide what religious influences will be in their lives *not you*. Your 'community' doesn't have any business ramming its religious beliefs down my kids throats.
You have a choice. You and like-minded folks can start a private religious school and leave the rest of us the hell alone. It's not a hard concept to grasp. People have been doing it for quite some time now.
And, if for some reason you can't tolerate the fact that I don't want my children indoctrinated with your particular brand of religion, you always have the option of repealing the First Amendment. Go ahead. Give it a shot.
Max
Re:Seperation of Church and State (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh please, spare me this particular crock of shit. You sound like a Scientologist or Branch Davidian, insisting that if everyone followed your religion we'd all be 'better people'. Yeah, sure, take another hit from that crack pipe of yours.
when local schools have control over ciriculum, then the local citizens also have control over the schools.
And the Constitution is designed so that the majority, no matter what kind of fuckwits they represent, can't impose their wackiness on the minority. If you don't like it then change the Constitution. If you can.
None of them, even if true, would justify the rest of us being trampled by you, the minority.
Cry me a river! Because your brand of cultism isn't taught in public schools you're being oppressed! Try teaching your religious beliefs at home or in church, where my tax dollars aren't at work. Or send your kid to a religious school.
You don't have any right to dictate that my kid be indoctrinated with your religion. None. But I gather from your posts that's what really gets your goat - that you can't force your religious beliefs on the children of others. A damned good thing that is, given your complete disregard for the Constitution or the rights of others.
This is complex. Let the communities and courts decide on a case by case basis.
It's already been decided. The Constitution reigns supreme. If you don't like it, change it. But we already know it'll be a cold day in hell when you gather the support for that move, eh? Which is no doubt why you're so eager to disregard the Constitution and remand the law to local majorities of religious freaks.
Max