Utah Considers Forcing ISPs to Filter Content

tipsymonkey writes "Cnet is running an article on how the Utah governor is considering signing a law that forces ISPs to filter content deemed harmful to minors. This would apply to large scale ISPs like AOL as well. They have until March 22 to decide whether or not to sign this into law."

Matter of choice by consumer

[timgoh0]

The proposal , "S.B.260, says: "Upon request by a consumer, a service provider may not transmit material from a content provider site listed on the adult content registry.""

Content filtering in this case is not forced, but a choice by the consumer

This is similar to the content filter that my local ISPs in .sg offer.

Re:FCC ?

[slAckEr Of dOOm]

The states are allowed to impose stricter regulations than the federal ones. They can censor even more than the government does, but not less.

Re:If this gets passed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Late Wednesday night, the Utah Senate approved controversial legislation that would create an official list[ of Web sites with publicly available material found to be "harmful to minors." Internet providers in Utah must offer their customers a way to disable access to sites on the list or face felony charges.

RTFA

Oh puhleeze

[tensai]

If you read the article you'll see that the proposed law only requires ISPs to provide a way for customers to opt-in to a filtering scheme. It does not require them to filter every packet. I don't think the bill is worth the time, but let's at least evaluate it for its real faults and merits, not some sensationalized bunch of baloney.

In the end, I doubt this law would do much. ISPs are being asked by their customers to provide content filtering. $$$ is a much more effective motivator than laws. And those who don't want to spend the money to implement it, don't have to but also will lose customers to those who do. Sounds fair to me.

C'mon, folks.

[Sheetrock]

From the article: Internet providers in Utah must offer their customers a way to disable access to sites on the list or face felony charges.

This is a far cry from censorship. It's more like the V-Chip we all have to pay for in new televisions. It gives parents the ability to better control the content their children consume and we would all be better off to have such a thing implemented in our ISPs.

Better yet to separate .porn as a domain so that those who want it can find it yet those who don't can block it simply.

Re:Let's do it the other way around...

[jonaric]

Yes ... Ebay, Overstock.com, and many others would quietly disappear into the ether...

Re:FCC ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The states are allowed to impose stricter regulations than the federal ones.

Yes, but not when those regulations violate the Constitution.

The states are allowed to impose stricter regulations than the federal ones.

Federal regulations seeking to censor the Internet have been previously ruled unconstitutional. Unless Utah has come up with something completely different, their censorship law will fail similarly. States' rights don't trump the Bill of Rights.

Re:FCC ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship is not permissable under the 1st Amendment. The only reason why the FCC can "censor" anything is beucase the courts have argued that the airwaves are a limted resource (its true, there aren't enough "channels" for every American to say his peice, but anyone can create a website or hand out fliers) and as such, cannot be held to the same standards of freedom (Not nessecarily a fair argument, it is like saying I can't say something offensive out in public just becuase someone may hear it who don't like it).

With that being said, the internet is not something the FCC can censor (at this time, anyway). The states cannot become their own FCC either, they can't decide to supplement the FCC's regulations of the airwaves unless the FCC or Congress gives them authority to do so.

Re:Crazy Utah

[Bri3D]

That was the US and the Children's Internet Protection Act, which still exists in a watered-down form. The act originally required offensive and or porn sites to post a warning and require you to agree you were over 18 before you could enter. I think it was actually made law before the Supreme Court struck down the idiodic part. BTW this passed during the Clinton administration so it's not always the conservatives(this time it is though, there are about 6 liberals in Utah).

Re:...'harmful'....

[Anonymous Coward]

Proof? Oh right, there is none. Mormons found to be practicing polygamy are excommunicated quickly. If that's how they "support" it, I'd like to see how they would discourage it.

Re:Utah....

[swiftstream]

Mormons have not practiced polygamy since at least 1896. You are a hundred years behind the times.

There are a few breakoff groups that do, but they have no affiliation with the LDS church, which practicing polygamy is sufficient to get one excommunicated from.

Re:I've always though this was backwards

[prichardson]

Apple did this a while back. It was called 'KidSafe.' People could submit sites for approval and, as far as I know, it had a huge whitelist. I think that all you did was change your DNS servers to some that Apple had and it would check the domain against its list.

It was a huge flop.

Re:Morons....err....Mormons...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you don't even know what you are talking about. Mormons (like myself) don't practice plural marrage ... Please quit sinking into the past and remember that the United States was founded largely on religous freedoms and freedoms from pursacution.

Mormons like your self may not practice plural marriage. but there are many who live outside the city who do who have yet to be excommunicated from the church. These are not the words of a Mormon basher, much of my family is Mormon.

Utah it self is noted for odd laws like you don't need parental consent to get married at 14 if you were previously married. When you think about it a married minor is an emancipated minor, so in many ways they are adults from a legal standpoint. But you have to stop and wonder why make it clear in the law unless it has been a problem before. Other states emancipated minors require a court order and or parental consent.

Please quit sinking into the past and remember that the United States was founded largely on religous freedoms and freedoms from pursacution

The United States was founded by religious zealots who were just too weird for Europe. See Salem Witch Trials. We do have freedom of religion but we practice religious tolerance. See Salem Witch Trials. We are not required to like any religion. See Puritans. I'm not required to like polygamy which is Mormon dogma regardless of what anyone from the LDS church says, we are not required to like the fact that women are encouraged to be subservient get married and have lots of babies at age 18, and I don't have to like the fact that even at BYU you can see a huge hostile attitude toward Darwin's theory of evolution.

Mormonism in all fairness is a new religion founded by some guy who went in the woods day and with Gods guidance found some ancient biblical texts. Through the use of three magic stones translated them flawlessly into English to discover that one of the lost Hebrew tribes made their way to the Americas as documented in the Bible Part II, "The Continuing Adventures of Jesus Christ in Ancient America". And Joesph Smith claimed Missouri was the Garden of Eden and Christ will return there one day. There is also the pesky issue of some of the texts which were coppied by memory because the founder was a dumb ass and lent out the only copies never to be seen again, but it's O.K. because the copy by memory was inspired by God!

Anyone is perfectly free to believe this. Feel free.

Re:Add to the list...

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break dude, but everything you just said is false.

1) Mormon's believe you are resurrected just as you are now, whether good or bad. You're not going to turn black, white, or brown.

2) Mormon brides aren't bathed nude by clergy before marriage.

3) There are lots of ways to go to hell, and they're listed in the bible.

Sorry pal, but your "former mormon" source is clueless.

Re:One possible solution

[MightyMartian]

BTW, what *did* Jefferson believe? I don't recall anything about that from my gleefully-dirt-digging high school US-history teacher (if she'd known, she would have told us!)

Jefferson was a Deist, and as such, didn't believe in a personal god, but rather Nature's god. Here's some revealing quotes which would, I suspect, disqualify Jefferson in the eye of many a red state voter:

"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."

""Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity."

Re:Crazy Utah

[MightyMartian]

Plainly put, abortion IS MURDER. What else do you call killing another living being?

I don't accept that a fetus is a living being, any more than I would categorize a tumor as another living being. I mean, do you think that HeLa cells are human beings?

http://bioresearch.ac.uk/browse/mesh/D006367.html [bioresearch.ac.uk]

I mean, what is your definition of a human being? Does it need a brain? How many chromosones does it need? Is a sperm cell a human being?