Appeals Court Rejects Child Online Protection Act, Again 319
mabesty writes "From The Washington Post: A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that COPA restricts free speech by barring Web page operators from posting information inappropriate for minors unless they limit the site to adults. The ruling upholds an injunction blocking the government from enforcing the law." We last covered COPA when the Supreme Court handled it last year.
What a relief. (Score:5, Funny)
Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2, Insightful)
Nobody denies the right to have adult-oriented content out on the web, but it shouldn't be shoved in your face quite so easily. When I signed up for cable-modem access, for example, and the guy came out to set things up, the first time I accessed the email account it already had about a dozen spams, some for porn sites. While COPA may not be a good idea, something needs to be done, period.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents are so quick to scream for laws to protect their children, regardless of the restrictions it places on rest of the public. and yet if we were to legislate parenting licenses to ensure parents were watching their children properly, you'd see the biggest hell-storm to ever sweep across the nation. Where's the fairness in that?
If we can't tell you how to raise your children, then don't tell us how to raise our Internet. Watch your kids, for god's sake.
I completely agree (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I completely agree (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I completely agree (Score:3, Insightful)
And you happen to be in what country?
A. in the US, there is not 'draft'. Selective Service registration, yes, but no actual "Come down and take a physical" draft.
B. The Sel Service registration age is 18. Which also happens to be the age at which you can vote.
C. Running for public office is also generally allowed at age 18. OK...for President, you have to be 35. I don't think we're ready for a teenage pres yet.
D. Now...should the drinking age be lowered to 18? hmm...tough one. On one side, we have semiresponsible people. On the other side, we have drunken riots at many colleges across the country, and many late teens killed (or other victims) driving while drunk.
Tough call.
Re:I completely agree (Score:2)
Re:I completely agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Now - the allure of the forbidden is a major reason for underage drinking. That's just a basic fact, it's not really disputable. Here's some of the reasons legalization makes sense, while it doesn't make sense to legalize murder, just in case you really are too damn stupid to see the differences.
A) Drinking is a victimless crime. Yes, I know about drunk driving and all that. Doesn't matter - getting drunk does not involve causing harm to anyone.
B) There is a very small social stigma associated with drinking. The major force of law is NOT it's very existence, but rather the social pressure to obey a law. When a law isn't respected by society (drinking, underage smoking, mild drug use, jaywalking, certain types of white collar crime), it's much easier break it because of other pressures, like experimenting or greed or peer pressure. People absolutely drink and do drugs because it's illegal. They do it for the same reason they get tattoos and piercings and funky haircuts. It's an easy, mostly harmless way of rebelling when you're at an age when it's very important to do so.
Re:I completely agree (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I completely agree (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll bet it is not your age nearly as much as other factors.
Do you dress professionally for meetings? Do you treat your clients with respect? Do you have a reasonable haircut of a reasonable color, no obvious tatoos or piercings? Do you arrive sober, and speak educated English. Are you copping an attitude because you once did well in a DotCom and once made more money then the people you new deal with? Or do you consider all this just selling out, and that you should be accepted for who you are regardless of how you dress and/or act?
There's a lot you can to to cultivate a professional provided you care enough about your business to do so.
After reading your rant, you don't strike me as a reliable person that I'd want to do business with.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Insightful)
How is "Don't remove this placard if under 18" any different from "Don't click here if under 18" ?? They're both the honor system. They can both be enforced by the watchful eye of a responsible adult, and they can both be defeated by the absence of such supervision.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
This is easy. (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3, Interesting)
That's an excellent example. Let's look at it:
The porn mag is in a public place. There is some amount of public pressure for youths NOT to look at porn (in public). If you don't think so, consider how much more porn is viewed in the private of the internet vs. the public of the magazine shop.
The owner of the store with the porn mag is financially responsible. If they let youths view the mags, they can be found guilty of (insert your decency law here) and fined/jailed. [so, no, the placard is not "just the honor system" - it is a legal barrier the proprieter needs to keep from getting fined/jailed]
In most areas, porn mags are limited in what they can show. Some places more than others. Not so, the internet - one browser gets you whatever you want.
Porn mags do not arrive, uninvited, in your mail. If they did, the senders would be fined/jailed.
They can both be enforced by the watchful eye of a responsible adult, and they can both be defeated by the absence of such supervision.
If, by that, you mean that neither can be enforced except by an adult that never leaves their children's side, then I guess you're right. If you mean anything else, I guess you're wrong.
Anonymity (Score:2, Insightful)
<em>The court also said screening methods suggested by the government, including requiring Web-page viewers to give a credit card number, would unfairly require adults to identify themselves before viewing constitutionally protected material such as medical sites offering sex advice. </em>
That last issue seems like it will be the downfall of any access-control system. How do you both prove age while maintaining anonymity? They're mutually exclusive things.
Re:Anonymity (Score:3, Insightful)
Another option would be something like the
Both solutions would probably be pretty easy to hack, but those are 2 possible ways surfing with as much anonymity as you have today.
Of course, option 1 would require cooperation from the porno vendors... which would never happen. And it still doesn't address the spam issue.
In my opinion, the very best option is to have the PC out in a family room or something. Don't let your kids have their own PC until they can buy one on their own. Don't allow them to surf when you aren't home, and lock down the PC to make sure they comply. And, when they are online, check on them every once in a while. It's good to see what your kids are up to, and there are sites much more dangerous then porno sites out there.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2, Interesting)
It should be interesting to see just what kind of timetable it takes my son to get into such things. I'm surely going to be running filters and blockers of some sort while he's really young. Haven't really looked into yet (got a few years and hope to keep him OUTSIDE instead of stuck inside in front of a screen going blind like his father)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you differentiate what is good for children to see or not? Huh? Would brittanyspears.com be banned? MTV with picts of her in skimpy clothes? Oh thats differnt thats pop culture.
Further more I let my teenage children use the Internet at the computer located smack dab in the middle of the family room. They want to go to the fringes of the net they can but I'll see it. At some point teenagers are going to be exposed to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll (sorry, couldn't resist); despite the medium changes from the 50s, 60s and 70s the same old concerns live.
The point isn't that Click here if over 18 is a joke isn't ment to be a prevention, its a legal samantic. The point is the parents need to parent and it just doesn't happen these days. I see it in the parents of my childrens friends, good people that "just don't have the time". Bullshit, you want to procreate? You take all the responsibilty that comes with it.
The real crime in all of this is PISS POOR parenting. It is people with comments and thoughts like yours that let parents off the hook of responsibility.
Oh and news flash, i don't care if your kids are 2 or 20, they have seen more "unacceptable" shit in the world of everyday life than you can imagine. The Internet is hardly the highest on my concern list.
Bullshit, CENSORSHIP DOESN'T WORK!!! Period! End of discussion. It never has and never will.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
That is presupposing that if spams were to advocate those things, the pro-internet-free speechers (myself included) would stop fighting for free speech. That is ridiculous. We'd train our spam filters to move those spams to the spam folder. (Don't have a spam filter? You might try using POPfile.)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? If you're a parent, then it's your responsibility to do whatever you feel is appropriate in terms of looking after your kids. It's not the rest of societies problem. Parents are doing far too much insisting on protection 'for the children' which ends up restricting what adults can do. Do your job, don't expect me to do it for you.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3, Troll)
It's not the rest of societies problem. Parents are doing far too much insisting on protection 'for the children' which ends up restricting what adults can do.
I agree with your second sentence, but I have reservations about feeling so absolutely correct about the first.
Yes, it is quite correct that the majority of parents are underqualified and have unrealistic expectations that society will assume some responsibility for raising their children. Talk to any public school teacher and you can find out pretty quick just how bady most parents are neglecting their jobs.
And so I believe that heavy-handed Internet porn filters at libraries are bad policy. That parents should be monitoring their children's activity and not complain so much. Automating the monitoring to save money doesn't wash as valid excuse to me, no more than using a VCR and TV as a convenient babysitter does.
But, unless you can afford to home school your own children, there is a necessity for you to go a job and to send your kids to some public school somewhere where you are physically unable to monitor what your children are doing.
In that case, I think parents have a reasonable expectation that society will fulfull some responsibility for monitoring their children and preventing them from exposure to things that they would rather their kids not see at a young age.
Zoning restrictions that prohibit the establishment of adult movie theatres near schools are another example of where society has collectively decided it is their problem and made some policy decision.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk to any public school student and find out pretty quick how badly most teachers are neglecting their jobs.
You're correct.
Some of teachers do neglect to perform their duties with dedication we, the taxpaying public, expect of them.
<sarcasm>Given just how exorbitant the salaries are for teachers these days, I'm surprised that we have as many problems attracting competent teachers as we do.</saracasm>
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2, Insightful)
Once he's old enough to surf, he will be allowed to do so only when one parent is present, and we will limit the amount and types of websites he can view. Right now, he is allowed to use a laptop which is not connected to the internet (or to our own network), but which has many preschool educational games installed on it. I doubt he's feeling the lack.
If we are responsible for raising our children, then we're responsible for what they read, what they watch, what they surf. We can't expect the government to babysit our kids for us (hell, we can't even expect the government to babysit incarcerated criminals for us sometimes!) - we gave birth to them, essentially, we created new life. That carries a pretty hefty responsibility with it. Suck it up and stop asking Uncle Sam (or Uncle Jean in my case) to raise your kids for you. jmho
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3)
Whereas what's regarded as ordinary, explained by thinking adults, and is the kid's choice to leave alone -- as a rule, they're not even interested in.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:5, Insightful)
My inbox, however, gets flooded with tons of offers from 'Women who want to meet me' and 'office secret admirer's' every day. The penis growth stuff is mostly filtered, now, though.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2, Insightful)
You gotta be kidding.
Try doing a google on Britney Spears, and see how many celebrity porn sites show on the list.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if you lock everything down in your house, you know damn well, there's gonna be some other kid on the block whose parents are less watchful. If you impose all these restrictions, I predict your child will begin asking to spend an inordinate amount of time over a friends house to "study." Forget the laws. This is the Internet. No one is going to be able to regulate all the offensive material coming from all over the world all the time. Once kids find something that gets through the filter, the URL will spread like wildfire.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
2) Monitor their history (ctrl-h)
3) Let them know that you are monitoring the history and that you do not want them to clear it.
This is what I recommended to a friend of mine who is the parent of a 9 year old. Part 3 is optional, I guess, if the kid doesn't even know what the history is. They will figure it out, and learn how to clear it, but maybe it gives the parent a few weeks to monitor what their child does. After that, the parent would probably have to do part 3, and punish the kid if they find an empty history. Soon they will figure out how to edit the history, though. Does anyone know how to lock down the history? Read and write, but no deletion?
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
If you objection is with content being pushed to you that a reasonable person (legal term) would find offensive, then this is already illegal in law in many countries, pursue it as if you had received it through your mail through the front door.
On the other hand having content that some one has to go out and look for that you wish to prevent kids from seeing, this is a parental monitoring issue. Parents do not lobby for train stations to be closed because kids may go and play their, and even if they did lobby they should not be allowed to have their will enforced.
If a parent wants to prevent their child from doing or seeing certain things on the internet they have at least three options, there is no restriction on not applying several of these at the same time.
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguide.htm [fbi.gov] For more information and debate on this see. http://www.teekosoccertips.com/safelinks.htm [teekosoccertips.com]
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Rule #1: in order to be a good parent, you must get to know the world where your kids live. Kids are more adept at using the computer, for sure, but probably they would be also more adept at finding a drug dealer in the street. As a parent, you cannot evade your responsibility by claiming ignorance in either case.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
A parent can't protect their children, all they can hope to do is teach them how to make decisions. That's why I feel those kids with little to no common sense are in such danger...their parents won't be around to help make decisions all their life.
--trb
So, what's the big deal really ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well call me naive, or maybe European (which I am), but I'm still wondering what is so wrong with kids occasionaly seeing naked people.
Really. Is there any proof that children that have seen sexual scens turn out to be dangerous criminals, perverts, or worse Polticians ?
In my contry we still have adult magazins right next to the "standard" magazins in shops. Children are exposed to these as well as on TV, even in the lamest Ad for shampoo you have naked women and such. And any kid that that is looking for some "exposure" only has to wait for some weekends late night (23h-1am) movies.
I'm still pretty sure that all the fuss about p0rn comes from the lack of knowledge of it. It's like most things in life. If it's forbiden then you will damn well try to get it. How hard is it for parents to simply explain to their kid what sex is, why their are porno magazins, and hence why their are porno Sites on the net.
I mean, my parents did it, and although they are in my mind Uber parents, I'm sure a lot of others have done it too.
Murphy(c)
Oh and by the way I haven't turned out to be a child rapist or pervert.... yet.
Not for long. (Score:3, Insightful)
In as few as 30 years, the ruling class will be made up largely by people who grew up with computers - and there has never been an oppressed community (the net-savvy) whose distinguishing charachteristic (the internet) acted directly as such a powerful organizing tool.
Mark my words - within our lifetimes, it will become impossible for this kind of fascist bullshit to get pushed through government, and computer law will make sense. Maybe this is already happening.
In the meantime, parents who want "a fighting chance" should take note: drop the "I am not a computer person" attitude and learn what your kids already know about the internet. It actually takes less effort to do this than it takes to whine about your problems to the government. And your kids will be overjoyed at the chance to teach you something!
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, watching your kid is better, but this works if you want to know what they've done on it.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
He was given instructions to not delete the history or else face some sort of punishment. He hasn't done it since. Or at least not to my knowledge.
He cannot go online without permission from someone in the house. LOL I'm his worst enemy tho, because I told him, I can always check what he does online and I can see everything he does on the computer without his knowing, so he better.
Controlling the home network and having VNC on each comp works well to combat these problems.
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:3, Insightful)
The kid is curious, and it doesn't harm anyone. What kind of message are you trying to send him?
Presidential campaign (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Y'know, someone asked me the other day, "How did Conservatives ever manage to so effectively turn 'Liberal' into a dirty word?"
"Easy," replies I. "The same way Liberals accomplished it for 'Soccer Mom.' "
Seriously, my world was once wonderfully black and white before I had kids too. Y'all should make a point of bottling your vitriol in a time capsule to be opened and re-examined around about your child's sixth birthday. I'm not saying you'll arrive at an opinion different then the one you express today, just that the mental path you take will be a little more curvy, a tad more bumpy and twisty, than the well-paved express lane of 20-something conviction on which you're driving today.
Get back to us then, won't you?
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
jeez...
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
Day'Ammm!
(You cite your own regional prejudice and then have the chutzpah to lecture *me* on what I need to do to sound "professional?" Fuggedabouttit!!)
Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents! (Score:2)
And you?
WOW (Score:5, Insightful)
I think everybody would benefit if the gov took a more laizze faire stance on the internet, even if the result is a little anarchy. I know things like spam and such really suck and make the net somewhat gay but, There is so much good stuff tht would be threatened if the moral majority really got a strong foot hold in and turned the internet into disneyland online.
Re:WOW (Score:2)
Seriouslly, where is it?
Specifically, where is the good stuff that suddenly won't be there if the Govt (the US Govt that is) decides to tighten the noose a little more.
And once you point this "good stuff" - tell us why it won't be there and what the great loss will be.
You're soaking in it! (Score:5, Informative)
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=c
http://www.gutenberg.org/ [gutenberg.org] - Many texts not suitable for children.
http://sexuality.about.com/mbody.htm [about.com] - The first place many people find when looking for non-porn sex information
and
http://www.slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] - You're soaking in it!
Re:You're soaking in it! - MOD PARENT UP. (Score:3, Interesting)
[*Govt defines porn as images of intercourse or gratuitous focus on the genitals]
Re:WOW (Score:2)
That's an interesting notion, since the (relatively) new rating system allows shows like South Park, NYPD Blue, and CSI to exist on non-pay-per-view television.
Think the language/content in those shows today was allowed 15 years ago?
Re:WOW (Score:3, Interesting)
>out and make this a reality. Especially
>considering how they tightened the noose
>around tv and radio.
Moral Majority
Who?
Did I just time warp back a decade?
Did you?
The "noose" around TV and Radio has never been more loose! Broadcast TV is showing more as they endeavor to match the critical success of HBO's "Sopranos" and "Sex in the City," and cable TV is more over the top than it has ever been. Stern and Savage are the most extreme voices on radio, and the groups going after them, well, I wouldn't exactly say they fit your definition of the "Moral Majority."
Ashcroft's a loon, no doubt, but he's been so busy trying to figure out what I am watching and reading that he has not had time to chase after the creators of that content.
Unless you have an Arabic surname, there has never been a more relaxed climate in which to create and distribute entertainment (in the US, at least).
Now, whether anybody at the end of the day has any money left to pay for that content, or support it's advertisers, well... that's a different topic.
disneyland
Remember that, as the power and influence of various media congloms grows in government, the less likely it is you will see any kind of media "sanitization." When everybody is forced to be like Disneyland, the *real* Disneyland has to work harder, and Big Mickey, he don't like dat...
Re:WOW (Score:2)
Ok, this is the reason why the current Estrada hearings are tearing up the airwaves. Federal judges are appointed for life. Once they are on the bench, it is almost impossiable to get them off (there are judges in jail, still getting paid!)
How a certain court swings depends on who appointed them to the bench. Thats why you'll see one of the conservative judges on US Supreame Court step down before Bush leaves office.
BWP
law not refined enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
In both cases you have a few bastards who screw everyone over, and a few bad apples spoils the bunch [ouch sorry for that.] But, in a "free" society we need freedom of speech.
I was always taught as a youngster that you had a set of rights, such as free speech, right to vote, etc; however these rights only extended so far until you were infringing on someone else's rights.
So sure, I have the right not to get kicked in the nuts, and so does Bob over there. I also have the right to kick wildly. But I do not have the right to kick Bob in the nuts; because it is infringing on his right to not get kicked in the nuts.
Thats where it gets complicated; especially considering where you begin infringing on people's rights. Do young people have a right not to be exposed to some pr0n on the internet? Do I have the right to put naked pix on the internet without any warnings? Who really controls the Internet anyways, and does some guy have a right to put pr0n on his website in [insert country here] that my kid gets exposed to in [insert other country here]?
Not an easy problem to define, therefor no easy solutions to come across. All i know is that the american gov't cannot dictate Internet laws, although they may be able to enforce a few in their own country (if they have the time/effort/etc)
I dunno this is a "dont hate the playah hate the game" sorta situation, because there wouldnt be so much pr0n on the internet if people werent paying for it!
Re:Free speech (Score:2)
They'll just try again.... (Score:4, Interesting)
What?? shouldn't that read:
I think a lot of legislators realize that they can pass some really crazy laws regaurding children because minors have almost no rights to begin with.
Re:They'll just try again.... (Score:2)
Sometimes the system works... (Score:5, Informative)
If you find yourself feeling relieved at this decision, I strongly suggest that you consider making a donation to the EFF [eff.org], EPIC [guidestar.org] or ACLU [aclu.org]. For without the efforts of these fine organizations, this law might have been enacted, and the whole of the Internet legislated to the morality of the most conservative town in America.
Let's not just say thank you for the win, let's SHOW our thanks, by breaking out the Benjamins.
Re:Sometimes the system works... (Score:2)
I fought the law and... (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, I love basking in the irony of unforced laws.
Meta tag (Score:5, Insightful)
Khalid
Re:Meta tag (Score:5, Interesting)
In some cases, it's obvious: porn site operators and the proprietors of sites like rotten.com would be idiots if they didn't use the tags. But there's a huge gray area. Is my personal home page "adult" because it contains a few four-letter words? I don't think so -- but some prosecutor, somewhere, might, and then I've got big problems. What about medical sites which, by their nature, include detailed discussions of human anatomy?
I wouldn't object at all to the creation of a standard (I'd rather have it done by the W3C or some other private entity than the government, but whatever) for "opt-in" kid-safe sites: a clearly published set of rules that says, "If your site does not contain any of the following [naked people / dirty words / etc.] then you are authorized to use this tag." Then the more extreme censorware could look for this tag.
I would still object to public libraries and the like being required to block stuff that doesn't contain the tag, for all kinds of reasons, but it would be a start.
Re:Meta tag (Score:2)
Re:Meta tag (Score:2)
Complexities inherent in this issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Complexities inherent in this issue (Score:2)
I propose a new law (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever congress (or state legislatures) pass a law that is later found to be unconstitutional, public funds must be used to reimburse all legal costs that were incurred in bringing the suit and having the unconstitutional law found to be unconstitutional.
Why should private or industry money have to be used to combat ridiculous laws that legislators can freely pass at a whim? Let's make them at least have to budget the cost of overturning their unconstitutional laws.
Example. Some hypothetical attorney general, let's call him "Asscruft", proposes to congress, and congress later passes, and the president signs a bill making it illegal to think bad thoughts under penalty of 5 years of $500,000.
Everyone would be screaming to have this overturned. Lots of private money would have to be used to get this nonsense overturned. Why should the citizenry be forced to overturn bad laws that they didn't want but that their "representatives" thought would be good for them, or that corporate interests bought and paid for?
Re:I propose a new law (Score:2, Interesting)
For every 'just' cause citizens take in court, there are three hundred frivolous ones.
The ACLU is hell-bent on making sure noone ever says the word 'God', or celebrates Christmas in public. I don't want to fund that bullshit with my tax dollars.
And if the RIAA gets the "Freedom to listen to whatever the hell you want Act" overturned in Supreme Court, do you want your tax dollars reimbursing them?
Re:I propose a new law (Score:2)
If you want to double your income tax, fine by me, but I'd rather not.
Re:I propose a new law (Score:2)
Re:I propose a new law (Score:2, Insightful)
Second: The founders didn't want to do it, but I think it might help: Any bill introduced should be reviewed by a court at the level of the appeals court before it can be enforced. Only checking on constitutional grounds, like it is now. That might help...
Third: No amendments to bills that are unrelated to the stated main purpose of the bill. Not directly related, but that would help too.
Great news.. (Score:3, Funny)
It's bad enough I buy booze for underage kids, I wouldn't want to be buying them pr0n too!
Good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Online porn (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm completely against censorship to those of us who have arrived at adulthood, but saying that kids should be allowed to view adult material because of 'free speech' is wrong.
T.
Re:Online porn (Score:2, Interesting)
What's all this bullshit about shielding the children anyways? The children don't need, nor want your shielding.
I'm not saying we should starting selling pr0n in all elementary schools world wide, but kids are going to have sex. They're going to look at other, naked, kids or adults or whatever. They're going to be curious; this is what kids do.
So instead of shielding your [proverbial] kids from the "horrors" of porn, how about educating them instead?
There is such a thing as tasteful porn (that doesn't involve anal sex followed by the guy blowing his load all over the girl's face
STOP LYING TO YOUR KIDS.
Don't make them grow up in an imaginary world you've built for them.. They will be totally unprepared for the real horrors, or the real world. Your job as a parent is to educate your kids as to what is [relatively] right and [relatively] wrong. Don't be afraid of sex, it's not wrong, and it doesn't have to be dirty (I still remember the first pr0n pic I downloaded from a local BBS, it was a girl who had a sweater on, the kind with lots of holes in it, and you could ALMOST SEE A NIPPLE! me and my friends were amazed. This was more then enough for us.)
Kids get curious around the age of 12
Re:Online porn (Score:2, Insightful)
And until that age they should be allowed to be children.
Making kids grow up too soon, and expecting them to be miniature adults when they're 5 or 6 is probably the most damaging thing you can do to them.
Re:Online porn (Score:2)
So, how about letting them seek whatever interests them? Let to themselves they will pass over pr0n sites, just like they pass over sites involving tax laws or whatever is the most boring subject in the internet. You can rest assured, no one is trying to sell pr0n to your kids. After all, you didn't give them your credit card number, did you?
However, by setting artificial restrictions and prohibitions on certain sites, the perceived value in looking at those sites increases accordingly. Possibly, the reason why there's so much sex on the net is because it's regulated at other media like movies, TV, or magazines.
Re:Online porn (Score:3, Interesting)
I built a PC for each of my children, for their rooms to do whatever they want with. I dont want to have to sit over their shoulders and watch them constantly, because I want them to be able to learn the computer the way I did, by just screwing around on it. I want them to be independent and learn from doing, like I did.
So I set up a proxy for them, with PICS filtering and other 'standards' (squid and dansguardian, OT: anyone know how to transparently proxy with dansguardian?. The idea was it would make a good enough whitelist.
Now, I'm more worried about the kids finding a pokemon chat room and being stalked by some pedophile than I am about them accidentally seeing a boob.
cartoonnetwork.com has a really cool (kid speaking) c-toon trading game my one kid loves. You watch TV on fridays and they give out codes, which you punch in to the website, to get c-toon cards, and then can play a card game (pokemon like) online with other kids. Whats great about it is that there's absolutely no way for personal information to get across. You dont pick a username, it presents a list of made-up silly names that you choose. You cant chat, you can pick from lists of prewritten phrases. (So no trolls posting ascii goatse)
Anyways, back on topic. I've noticed that some pricks out there put fake PICS and other codes into their porn websites. IMO it's a pretty contemptable way to make another nickel or two off of their banners. Its also IMO criminal, since they're basically marking the content as a childrens site, which is like sticking copies of Hustler into kids hallowe'en bags.
Meh anyways. I dont know what my point is. Some people are just pricks. We wouldnt need laws if they werent. Personally I'm in favor of the kids.us domain, I think it's the best compromise. It gives parents a very simple way to whitelist for younger children. It would be nice if it didnt have to be mandated by government, but if you left the registrars to regulate it, well, they wouldnt.
Re:Online porn (Score:2, Insightful)
T.
Protecting the kids? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure we're going to hear again from the gang that just wants to "protect the children." And we're going to hear from the people who want parents to surf the Net with their children, thus combatting the problem from another approach.
Might I suggest a different approach?
Children are going to be exposed to bad things. They always have. At home I have a book titled "Pioneer Women." It's about the roles of women in settling the western United States. One photograph is particularly memorable. It's of a small child looking at the body of man who's just been killed in a gun fight. I suspect that's more traumatic than seeing a bit of pr0n on the Internet.
When I was a child, I was exposed to information about the Holocaust and World War II. As a teenager I lived through the Cuban missile crisis and the Kennedy assassination. Children today have been exposed to the horrors of 9/11. All these things are far more troubling for children than a bit of pr0n on the Internet.
So, short of shutting up children in some sort of tightly controlled, heavily censored environment (hmm, sounds like a jail), they will be exposed to bad stuff. Perhaps, instead of trying to shield our little darlings, we should instead be teaching them that the world is not always a nice place. We should be giving them the tools to deal with nastiness and worse. I think this is a far healthier approach to take -- as well as more practical.
Re:Protecting the kids? (Score:2, Insightful)
We should answer questions that they have, but we definately shouldnt be forcing or expecting them to grow up by the age of 5 or 6.
There's the saying "you're right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose". I submit that peoples right to act like assholes stops when my kids are around.
Re:Protecting the kids? (Score:2)
Not that I go out of my way to act like an asshole when kids are around, but I find that statment pretty offensive.
What you imply is that whatever your standards of "acting like an asshole" are not acceptable when your kids are present. And who exactly made you the moral judge of human behaviour?
There have been quite a few times in my life that I have seen people act, in what *I* consider, in a fashon that I would qualify them as assholes but does that qualify me to say that they can't? I don't think so. If I find their behaviour offensive, but they arn't doing anything directly to me, then I can always leave.
Re:Protecting the kids? (Score:2)
I agree that we need to teach kids the world is a nasty place - but I for one want to control the rate at which I tell my kid that. Getting hard core pr0n spam in my inbox makes it harder for me to raise my child how I want to.
Re:Protecting the kids? (Score:2)
So don't let your kid use unfiltered email. Check through your kids email and make sure there isn't anything bad in it. You can do this, and with filtering you'll just have one or two spams the filter missed and maybe an occasional dirty old man in there to go through, so its not like a major drain on your time.
While I would personally love it to not get spam anymore, this isn't the way to go about it. Filtering software is available for you to evaluate and purchase and use if you choose to, not for the government to impose on everyone.
Re:Protecting the kids? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the parent goes OMIGHOD and snatches away the mouse, the kid gets the notion that here's something worth investigating, just because forbidding something induces automatic curiosity as to WHY it's forbidden.
Whereas if the parent says, "Oh yeah, some adults like to look at naked people" like it's no big deal, the kid is likely to shrug and look for something more interesting (to a kid).
Libraries Get Temporary Relief (Score:5, Insightful)
The filtering software also blocks educational/informational sites on things like: breast cancer, testicular cancer, tourism in Essex and Sussex, and sex education. Not to mention blocking adult content from adults.
The core of the law has good intentions (another brick to the road to Hell), but the legaleze is vague and inappropriate.
I've seen news stories locally (Baltimore) that claim this "requires libraries to allow pr0n surfing." Not so. Long before this law, most libraries have rules against such things, and still do. They also had a child internet area in view of a librarian's desk, and the adult area computers were off limits to ages 12 and under.
I think the children were being protected just fine by the libraries already. Maybe we should let them take care of their own business.
Parents - Here's An Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents, if you don't want your kids to be exposed to materials on the internet you find objectionable, don't let them use the internet. Up until middle school, at the earliest, I don't see any reason why a child would NEED to use the internet. And by then they've probably seen/heard everything at their local public school.
And of course, parents who don't care what their children see are free to let them run wild.
I personally don't need this law... (Score:2, Informative)
It would have been nice for this to pass for the loser parents that don't know or care what their kids are getting into.
Censorship? I don't think so. For crying out loud you need a license to own a dog but any idiot can have a child.
Re:I personally don't need this law... (Score:2)
Re:I personally don't need this law... (Score:2)
For example, I do not change my own oil in my car because I find my time and clothes more valuable than the $30 or so I pay for the oil change. I could figure it out with 20 minutes of reading the manual, a few tools and a place to lift the car. The fact that I don't do it myself is a simple choice.
Along a simliar vein, anybody that finds it important can set up a network in their home.
If I complained that it was unfair that I had to take my car to get the oil changed and that they charged for it, yes, then I'd be a loser.
So, yes, they are losers. They are losers because they refuse to RTFM. If they use their loser-dom as an excuse to pass a bunch of restrictive laws, then they're a menace.
Stupid americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they raising them or not? (Score:3, Informative)
censorship doesn't work (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
I do think that everybody should label their site fx. using icra [icra.org], if many sites did this, you could block all sites that had the "wrong" content and sites that didn't have the tag at all. It's no big deal to add it, you can add a meta tag to all your pages or tell your webserver to add it as a header line if you have thousands of pages you don't feel like updating manually.
There has been a lot of talk about this safe-for-children top-level domain which I also think is good, but why not use a tagging of the pages like the one I mentioned above? It takes less than 30 min. to "tag" your site.
NO (Score:4, Insightful)
Define a 'porn' site.
Is it one with a dorm webcam? Maybe, depending on level of undress.
Is it one that may contain links to various other sites depicting nudity or other depravity?
Is it one with photos of nude and semi nude females? A slideshow of a recent beach trip might fall in here.
Is a picture of the female sex organs porn or non porn? Maybe both. Medical sites would fall where, exactly?
And then there's always the problem of who is defining the 'wrong content'. Bikinis are taboo in some countries. Do we fall to that level? Or is the break point the knee? Or thigh...who determines? Local standards? Podunk, Iowa, or San Francisco's? Ogden, Utah, or Greenwich Village?
Who is responsible for the content on their website? A blogger, who happens to have some user link a porn site or post a nude pic would then have to become a 'not safe' site.
In theory, a kid-safe TLD is a good idea. Try to put it into practice, though. The obvious porn sites are easy. That huge grey area in the middle is the problem.
Is adult content really bad for kids? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why should one need to give out CC#??? (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article:
This is much more of a problem than just "violating" your privacy by identifying yourself. There is a real risk of credit card fraud here. Anyone remember the stories about the so called "free" pr0n sites asking for a CC# (under this law) so they could verify age, then charging the person's card because they put a clause somewhere in the fine print?
Would you really want to give out your CC# to every site which has "PG" "PG-13", or "R" rated content? That's probably half the sites on the internet. This is a stupid law. IIRC this is the law where the same standard also applies to any site which you can post messages or give out personal information. (Right now they just require playing with cookies) There goes the other half.
Many Different Laws - COPA, COPPA, CIPA (Score:3, Informative)
I can't believe you can't keep these laws straight!
Short & sweet VERY GOOD article explaining which law is which, and their current status (if, like COPA and CIPA, currently being challenged in the courts): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39
Liza
Freedom of speech is a bitch. (Score:3, Insightful)
There have always been and shall always be those who abuse the system, who push the limits too far. But does that mean we have to give up our rights and freedoms because of these assholes? You woiuld surrender your freedoms that easily?