Slashdot Mirror
AOL Protects Kids From Liberals
bitty writes: "This article over at CNET is yet more proof that filtering content to 'protect your children' just isn't the answer." This is interesting - it's talking about Cyber Patrol's "white list," which is a deliberately-selected set of appropriate sites. If there is this kind of bias in their white list, what's lurking in their black list? We may never know, because it's (apparently)
illegal
to look at it.
Hey I'm an AOL kid and I take offense to this
oops.. I'm not alowed to be here...
Children who share an AOL account with their parents could rattle off their parents' favorite sites at the dinner table. This would surely lead to a heart-warming discussion of family values.
Not to mention hypocrisy.
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
Pablo Nevares, "the freshmaker".
We have a regular process of reviewing sites that are submitted, and if they meet our criteria they are added," she said.
They think gun sites are appropiate for kids? I swear on my children's lives to never use a product endorsed, sold or advocated by AOL or any of its subsidiaries.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
It seems that whoever determines the sites that children are allowed to visit is quite obviously a conservative. This, however, brings the thought to mind, how many of us, when we were wee little children, were interested in learning about the political parties. I know for a fact that I wasn't until around the age of 16, when my parents would have turned the filters off, or at least down a notch. Sure there are exceptions, such as school work, but I doubt that many children, if any, visit any political site.
---- Yay! I have a sig!
Sites promoting gun use are available, including Colt,Browning and the National Rifle Association. But prominent gun safety organizations are blocked, including the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Safer Guns Now and the Million Mom March.
I'm glad to see that someone is looking after our children.. Just keep em away from information about sex, chess and PopeAliens..
(this is why I LOVE closed source filter software.. Why wouldnt a large corporation have your best interest at heart.)
air and light and time and space
Instead I now use squidGuard , a plug-in for squid which blocks or allows URLs based on domain names, domain names with paths, or a small number of regular expressions. Email me if you want a copy of my PLAIN TEXT site lists.
-- Criggie
I noticed recently in my site's logs that we get hits from people searching "child porn" on our site. I checked out AOL and found we're listed first when you perform that search. We don't have anything to do with it. What's up?
tcd004
LostBrain
Did anybody notice Mr. Bean wrote the article? Go back and check.
This is absurd... We have had HOW MANY Cyber Patrol stories? This is a discussion site, right? Nobody in the Slashdot community is going to come out in support of them. Even if some did, they get marked down as trolls.
As a result, this is another story to karma whore by walking the party line.
I love slashdot, but this is ABSURD.
When there is a real technical topic, I love this forum as it is the only place that I know of with REAL discussions on very meaty subjects.
When there is a Linux topic, sometimes there is interested subjects, although the Linux is G-d's OS crowd as moderators try to kill it by only allowing one view to show.
But this is rediculous. I mean, if there was a bill banning technical debates online, it would warrant a story, as it would effect us. But if you ran it constantly, it is dumb, because there is NO room for discussion.
We ALL know everybody's view of censorware, can we stop reporting EVERYTHING that can result in 300 censorware sucks posts?
Alex
Thousands of kids get fed up with their access being blocked...
so thousands of kids start hacking to beat the system.
There is NOTHING as appealing to a teenager as something stamped "forbidden".
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
Since Time Warner's media properties are predominantly liberal-biased, AOL's just doing their part to make the post-merger corporate average bias more centrist.
Is blindly allowing some (usually) highly conservative software company to supervise your children considered protecting them? I know this issue has come up before on /., but if you really want to "protect" your kids, maybe you should *gasp* actually watch what they are doing and become involved with them.
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
You think a kid, at least kids this software is designed to protect, will want to look up sites for the political parties? I'm sure they're being deprived by not being able to access these sites. The author also mentions gun sites, as if children will get ideas of shooting other kids by being able to access these sites - you think the NRA would advocate something like that? Think before you start flaming.
This is nothing new.
I doubt that there really IS a conservative bias -- I think it's just one more symptom of the incompleteness and idiocy of filtering lists. In fact, to support its point, CNET brings up such examples as AOL filtering out that great bastion of liberalism, Ross Perot's Reform Party.
Any list which attempts to include every site on the Internet that's safe for children will necessarily miss huge numbers of sites. In this case, CNET (The Home Of Accurate, Unbiased Reporting TM) has taken some selective examples of blocked sites and attempted to have those indicate some kind of political agenda.
They've also tried to find some other examples of problems with AOL's system, like the browser keeping a cache of visited sites. (They do admit that it can be turned off by "sophisticated, advanced" users.) Wow! A cache! What a concept! Admittedly, clicking Back then Forward to allow access to sites in the cache is a bit stupid, but still, IE (which AOL uses) allows you to view cached sites very easily. And then they bring in the gaping hole of a history file stored in PLAIN TEXT. Obviously, this is something that every modern browser does. And by the way, CNET considers viewing the contents of a text file stuck in a program directory "child's play", but turning off or viewing a disk cache is "advanced" and "sophisticated".
Don't you love clear, objective, unbiased reporting? What's worse is that AOL's filters are inherently stupid -- a blacklist will always allow access to tons of sites it shouldn't, and a whitelist will always block access to tons of sites it shouldn't. Focus on the basic problems with the concept, not some made-up and easily-fixed surface mistakes: that's the only way to actually fight these things.
It doesn't really matter that Cyber Patrol doesn't work, because the people implementing it are, by and large, morons. They don't read slashdot. They don't know it's crap. They just see the glossy brochures and listen to the smooth talking salesman who tells them that their problems will be over....
CyberPatrol is a joke. It's crap. But unless people keep making (increasingly public) rumblings about it, nobody is going to know that.
(As I recall, that's how Microsoft came to power....oh well...)
Got Rhinos?
Well, I'll admit there's a possibility that this is a coincidence, or the reporter was overly enthusiastic, or it the fault of someone other than AOL.
However, damn, this is inscidious.
There is a bright side though: perhaps now some big names will be pissed off at filterware. If the democratic national party is outraged enough, lots of congressfolk will oppose government-mandated filtering.
See, pissing off informed citizens is no big deal. Pissing off a political party...
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
So who do we blame really? Cybersitter for distributing a faulty product? (It can't - the net is not censorable!) Parents who are ignorant and refuse to guide their children? (But they do want to do it - just that they have misplaced trust in censorware). Or the children who are so curious about the world around them?
They use a whitelist scheme, and rely on parents to recommend sites for evaluation. Demographically, in America, if you have children you are considerably more likely to describe yourself as "conservative". But even further, I'd suppose than a "conservative" parent would be much more likely to use filtering software than a "leftist" parent. That equals more user submissions from conservatives. If more leftist parents were interested in filtering internet access for AOL kids, then there would be more submissions of leftist sites.
I just fired up AOL and checked this. The stuff about the political party sites checks out. Unbelievable! However, it won't let me to any of those gun web sites. This is on the highest web restriction.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Whitelist filtering requires that the filter provider (e.g. AOL) add the site to a list of approved sites. i.e. rather than specifically 'banning' sites that kids can visit, the whitelist method approves sites. Obviously, in order for a site to make it onto this list, a site has to be reviewed. The fact that there aren't as many liberal sites on the whitelist may only go to show a much larger weakness with whitelists, namely, that you can't give the user every acceptable site on the Internet. I could probably test the filtering software and turn up some assinine conclusion like 'there is a clear bias towards Coke over Pepse b/c my favorite Pepsi sites weren't on the whitelist.' There is simply too many sites for any 'human' means of review. If there are complaints about not enough liberal sites being on the whitelist, try submitting them to AOL and see if they get reviewed and added (and maybe this article will be the impetus for that). Until AOL blantantly rejects liberal sites from being added, it's hard to accuse them of any conspiracy to 'republicanize' our youth.
All arguments about the appropriateness of filters, whitelist filtering is the only filtering option that really has any promise for establishing the goal of a safe sandbox for kids to surf the Internet in. Blacklist filtering techniques will often either (a) miss inappropriate sites or (b) ban appropriate sites because their spider turned up the word 'sex'. Whitelist filtering does not have either of these weaknesses. But if Yahoo's indexers can't keep up with the growth of the Internet, I doubt any whitelist filtering company could either.
I deleted the email I refer to below, so watch for inaccuracies.
Long ago, I asked Cyber Patrol what justification they have for blocking Peacefire.org in all of their categories.
They said it was because Peacefire describes how to get around certain filters.
They did not respond to my follow up...
Since this article describes a way around AOL blocking (wish I'd thought of that...), will the CNet article be blocked too?
---
Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
ANDREESSEN, MARC
LOS GATOS, CA 95032 AOL 08/30/1999 $1,000 Kerrey, Bob
___
For the past few months, I've been keeping up with Slashdot's reports on Internet filtering, especially in public libraries. This C|Net article shows what many of us may have seen all along... censorware (AOL's in particular) has a conservative bias.
Even though C|Net only published this article yesterday, many of us had known it for quite a while. In fact, some of the groups that had promoted censorware included conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family, as well as the Christian Coalition. However, this is not to say that all conservatives support censorship. Look at the Libertarians, for example. They don't want government in ANY part of their lives. I used to be a conservative, and I didn't support censorship (as a progressive, I am still adamantly against it). I don't think my father, a Republican, would promote it. So don't go blaming every conservative for advocating censorship, because some of them are fighting it zealously.
As well, we must worry about liberal bias in filterware. Some of the same people who rail against right-wing censorship also want to silence Dr. Laura Schlesinger and get rid of Web sites they find to be non-PC (politically correct). There may be some liberal companies developing censorware and putting on their blacklists sites that promote views that conflict with theirs. People using those programs may be unable to access the RNC and NRA Web sites, like those who use AOL may not be able to access the DNC and the ACLU sites.
My point: Censorship is bad, no matter who does it. It's not all coming from one particular group. Liberals are just as guilty as conservatives. Information should be free and open to all people.
awkwardone
www.tealeaves.org "All you need is love." -
There's so much available on the Web, just restricting it to whatever sites are currently white-listed seems foolish. There are many good ways to protect what your children see when browsing that don't involve filters - the best method it to be with them and watch what they're looking for. Few children would look for pr0n while Mommy | Daddy where in the room, watching what they were doing. I know that's how my parents look at letting my little brother surf on the web - they watch him, and he has to tell them what he's looking for online.
So does it block Slashdot?
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
This is a good idea of AOL. It will protect kids from viewing dangerous things such as gun control sites and zucchini. I mean, for every kid who gets goes to one of these rebellious sites there is one more a trigger lock and one less kid who can defend him or herself at the house. Just read this article about the latest Pre-Natel shooting. Now, if only AOL could protect us young 'uns from things such as communists and linux and DeCSS... http://mathjmendl.n3.net
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Perhaps this story on CNET may do some good raising awareness about how bad some of this filtering S/W is. I also noticed this quote;
/.ers who are trying to prevent filtering S/W from being placed in libraries, it would be a good thing to bring up this quote...especially if your elected reps are Democrats I suppose.
:)
"It's not just indecency that AOL is trying to keep away from children," says Susan Wishnetsky, a Chicago librarian.
For the
Of course CNET had better watch out, as they describe a method of overcoming the filtering S/W, and also exposing some of the sites that are on the Cyberpatrol Blacklist.
"Children who share an AOL account with their parents could rattle off their parents' favorite sites at the dinner table. This would surely lead to a heart-warming discussion of family values."
That part just made me smile
Oh, wait.
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
I can hear the voice already: Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the antislashdot party?
Got Rhinos?
rant
IMHO, Microsoft was not a dangerous monopoly. I know I am going to get flamed for this, but M$ could not position themselves as the thought police. AOL is the internet service provider for something like 20 million people. (That's a good 6% of the population of the US, computer owning or not.) AOL, with their purchase of Time Warner, can be the thought police. I would hypothesize that they reach into the homes of at least 35% of the US population on a daily basis.
Any entity with that kind of power is an active danger to freedom in this country. Political parties and lobbyist groups and other political bodies are just things that are talked about in the news. To a great many people in this country, AOL / Time Warner are the news, and are implicitly trusted.
Letting them get away with this act of thought control would be a travesty.
the inquisitor has spoken.
Slashdot sometimes have rique comments in it. Letter arrange to look like porn, dirty words and the like. Does this mean that slashdot itself will be black listed?
Then again, what about sites using slashcode or ZOPE where users can add posts in discussions. They can easily have inappropraite mateiral for childern to read. Should all sites with such posting abilities be black listed?
I think the Internet shouldn't be filtered at all. The net is a tool, a library that everyone can get into. If you don't want to view porn then porn won't show up. (OK, Spam doesn't count.)
The most "censored" the net is the more dangerous it will be for kids. Parents now see the net as a breeding pen for sick pedophiles. They know that guy may uses the net to try to meet their 15 year old daughter in an ally so she can give him head. If they think the net is safe and "censored" then they won't be alert to the pedophiles who get threw some software.
Sorry for the rant, I just feel parents need to guard their kids themselves and not trust some buggy software.
Do not wright in this space.
I don't mind my kids learning about guns on the net. Or yours. Any kids who may be reading, please keep the following in mind:
... and, of course, Col. Cooper's Rules:
Hope this helps.
-- Jeff Paulsen
I would have to say that I view Slashdot not just as a discussion group but also as a new service.
It just happens that I am generally interested in a large fraction of most of the news articles pointed at by the /. community, a much larger fraction than lets say the news on either Rootprompt or Salon. It is in a happy medium between the technical and the real world where I like to be.
For this reason I view the comments to be more of a source of supplementary information. People who are in the know, or at least think they are chime in with extra info and links, and of course, opposing viewpoints on even the slightly objectionable points. Moderation generally takes care of the rest. In general I could care less about someone's opinion or a rant; I just want more infor and perhaps another viewpoint on the topic to facilitate making my own decisions on the issue.
Oh cr*p, I just made a huge rant about my opinion, and contributed no new information. Um... check out all these neat papers on security your Linux system. Whew, I think I saved myself from commiting a SIN.
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
Aside from the usual arguments against the principles of censoring, the group that decides what to censor is going to end up taking sides, even if they don't do it intentionally. I wouldn't be surprised if Cyber Patrol had similar biases on religion, abortion and philosophy.
Its entirely possible that Cyber Patrol took sides in the Elian controversy, the Kosovo/Serbia conflict or the fallout of the Columbine killings. I think this would make another good argument for the anti-censorware people, in addition to the issue of sites that are fairly/unfairly blocked.
Everybody see the episode of South Park when the school tries to put on a play, but parents kept demanding that parts get removed (and the school kept caving in) until there was nothing left? As the biggest isp in the US, AOL has a large and diverse customer base. It would be ironic if those customers complained that the censor software blocks sites that cater to their beliefs, and AOL kept giving in until nothing was blocked.
I'm sure there may be many parents that don't want their kids exposed to a liberal agenda untill they're old enough to make their own decisions. A political affiliation is a decision to be made by an educated and informed adult, not by little skulls full of mush.
OK, there, I said it. Now bring on the bleeding wallet liberal whining.
___
You have got to be kidding me. It looks as if 1984(orwellian refrence) isn't far away. I am a firm beliver that it isn't a corproations right to determine what my children can or cannot view online. It sit squarely in the parents lap. I make sure to monitor my child's time online (not too closely but enough to make sure that the sites he visits aren't too graphic. (I'm lucky he's only eight).
That said I need to address a serious concern of mine. "AOL IS EVIL!!!"
It took me sevral minutes and no scientific study to determine this fact. I woory that with the merger that they have even more resources at their disposal to try to lure the younger generations into their twisted cult. (Those people in aol commercials look a little too happy).
ok, ok I'll stop talking.
flatrabbit,
peripheral visionary
"Never wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it."
What is most disturbing about the article was the cavelier attitude shown by CyberPatrol's spokeswoman. Instead of vigorously asserting that this was an oversight that would be corrected, she stated, "We have a regular process of reviewing sites that are submitted, and if they meet our criteria they are added. If some sites are included, it's probably because someone submitted them." Parents utilizing this service need be warned that the decisions regarding the appropriateness of a website are not based on whether a site contains "indecent" or illicit material, but are based on the particular political philosophy of the makers of the software and the people who submit links to add to their database. Censure ware turns the world wide web from a place that allows free discussion of both sides of an issue to a place where only the views that coincide with a select group of editors are presented.
Sig goes here
American political parties blocked: Democratic, Green, Reform.
American political parties not blocked: Republican, Libertarian, American Socialist.
So apparently moderate leftists aren't acceptable, but socialists are.... Now that's interesting.
no
I see the need for blocking access to certian types of websites for very young children, but by the time they reach junior high (around 12-13 or so) they should be given access to compleatly unfiltered internet connections. Appropriate use polices and the like are fine, because unlike filters, they give the child some measure of freedom and give him/her responisibility to stay out of trouble themselves rather than throwing a big steel door in front of their faces.
The Democratic, Green, and Reform party? Gun Safety groups? If this kind of thing can be shown to continue, I suspect that some powerful groups will be looking to bring a class action suit against AOL.
I don't use AOL, and this is just one more reason not to. The one time Cyber Patrol got loaded on my home computer (as part of another program's install), I couldn't get it off soon enough. I don't let my kids (9 & 2) look at certain things on the net, but _I_ decide what is appropriate!
Gonzo
The real solution simply is.. Moms, dads: For once, watch your damn kids once in a while and bitchslap them if they do anything on the Net that you don't want them to do!! Stop blaming the Net for everything! Who bought the damn computer in the first place? If you don't want your kids looking at porno or Bill Gates pics from newsgroups or websites, introduce their asses to some genuine leather waistbelts dammit! Stop giving your spoiled brats a free ride through life and become responsible parents!
After all, if you buy them the computer and provide them the Internet, you basically have given your kids the keys to the Real World(TM). If they aren't ready to handle the crap that's out there, well they shouldn't be looking for it, right?
-----
Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
I disagree. This article told me a new argument against censorware that I had suspected, but didn't have hard evidence of.
You seem to accept that censorship is a serious danger facing us today. If so, we need to do more than just sit around Slashdot and tell each other what we already know. We need to go out and change other people's minds, people who still think censorware is an imperfect but acceptable way to "protect children". We need to (diplomatically!) open the discussion with our family, friends, and coworkers. It helps to present outrageous examples to support our argument. Maybe then our family and friends will understand where we're coming from.
This article presents one really good example, which would offend most moderate-leaning people who still believe in a free exchange of ideas. It clearly and undeniably shows how the censorware "solution" goes way beyond "protecting children". Restricting political speech strikes much closer to the heart of the (US) first amendment than restricting porn, and is a much more serious threat. I'm glad this article was posted.
Right at the end of the article I see this:
The average child in the United States sees 200,000 killings, stabbings and beatings on television by the age of 18, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The academy cites numerous scientific studies demonstrating that many children learn violent behavior from shows they watch.
After a few years of exposure to television, it's hard to imagine that anything on the Internet would be worth filtering out--even if the filters worked.
I don't get it. This has nothing to do with the rest of the article. Is there some perl script at CNET that automatically includes this line in any story about children and censorware? Is this part of some conspiracy by CNET to get people away from the TV and onto the net? It just doesn't make sense. Looks like they were desperate for some kind of closing paragraph and just pulled one out of their asses.
Two can play at this game.
The average american consumes 15 gallons of salsa a year. Can moronic CNET articles detract from the spiciness of life after that? Of course not!
--Shoeboy
Why not just have a huge, distributed, open-source database of sites that specially chosen "moderators" get to give input on. Rate them according to certain adjectives. Then, let parents (or anyone else) choose what "Threshold" to browse the web at. This tech would easily integrate into modern web browsers (just stick it with Netscape's "What's Related").
Tell me somebody is already working on this, right?
Can your IM do this?
I'm sure there may be many parents that don't want their kids exposed to a liberal agenda untill they're old enough to make their own decisions. A political affiliation is a decision to be made by an educated and informed adult, not by little skulls full of mush.
Of course, we have to take that mush and turn all these kids into good little clones of Jesse Helms and Rush Limbagh(sp). Can't have them see liberal sites because children shouldn't be allowed to form opinions of their own until they reach the age of 18. If they try, they'll be beaten into comas so they'll know better next time.
OK, there, I said it. Now bring on the bleeding wallet liberal whining.
Actually, I"m hoping there will be on unrush of moderators and they mark you post down to -1, flamebait.
No argument about the need to be educated and informed. But by that logic, kids should be blocked from ALL political sites.
On the other hand, the kids have got to learn sometime. I think it would be better to let 'em look, and then discuss it with them so they can become educated and informed and learn to make their own decisions.
Gonzo
I'm sure there may be many parents that don't want their kids exposed to a liberal agenda untill they're old enough to make their own decisions.
And I'm sure that a lot of us liberals who earned our money the good old fashioned ways (hard work, inheritance, IPOs, and the stock market) would like to block any site you like.
The problem is that they're requiring my kid, with my tax dollars, to sit in a library where they block him from seeing good clean sites like that of the Democratic Party or the Green Party and instead let him look at sites of whiners like the GOP. I thought we killed all those people off with the black helicopters already, for gosh darn sakes!
Now if they'd just arm bears the way nature intended and set them loose in Miami and Texas, the world would be a lot saner, although the blood stains would take a while to clean up.
Where's the Gnu World Order when you need it!
Will in Seattle
What does CyberPatrol do if an approved site links to a banned site? I don't see how they could stop this. You can get to some interesting sites without searching or typing in the URL.
Disclaimer: Pinball Wizard is not advocating porn or disobeying your parents. Have a clue and don't bite the hand that feeds you.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Last year (after Columbine) they deleted (without warning) every gun related web site that they had been hosting for their customers. After they deleted their user's gun related sites they sent the owners of these sites form mail saying their site had been deleted for pornographic content and that putting any more porn on AOLs server would result in the revocation of their membership.
The Libertarian Party is not a "conservative" organization. Elimination of most of the government and its laws is hardly conservative.
The NRA has done more for gun safety than any of the so-called gun safety organizations listed. The NRA has extensive gun safety training programs for children and adults. The "gun safety" organizations are really gun prohibition and confiscation advocacy groups. That is not the same thing.
Almost anyone with the power to control what people can and cannot see will block anything that they don't like or they fear will open the people's eyes to their mistakes, views (if they aren't staus quo), etc.
I forget who said this but it is very fitting: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Censorship is evil, and it should be against the law for any censorware manufacturer to keep their lists secret.
EvilBeaver, God of IRC
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
As a shareholder in AOL (like you're surprised), I take great umbrage at this attempt to pry my Liberal Agenda from my child. As everyone knows, it's liberals who built this great country, liberals who fought in the wars, and conservative and libertarians who went to college instead. Which is why we're miffed.
That's why I think it's time to announce a bounty on CEOs. Five scalps for a dollar. Toupees don't count, unless you get them on TV.
Just jump in your black helicopters, send those secret messages to the TV anchors, and get those subliminal messages pumping out those websites, cause the Pogrom's been annouced!
Will in Seattle
IMHO, the real issue should be that even after all of our backlash, censorware still exsits. The problem is not with CyberPatrol (per say), but with a culture that beleves in "protecting kids" from the evils of the world. I urge everyone to read a great article wired had about this is issue 4.07, "The Rights of Kids in the Digital Age"
What we need is a shift in how media mougles, politicians, parents, teachers, everyone -- see's the internet and it's impact upon youth. If there is no market for censorware, then we won't have to debate it anymore.
That's just my $0.02
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
Anyone know if slashdot made it onto the whitelist?
Seriously, I think their explanation may be true. Some right-wing yahoo (pardon the expression) submitted those sites, which were approved. There was just no left-wing zealot who did the same for the other side.
--- Speaking only for myself,
Then I took a closer look at how google worked. It is also moderated, but in the sense that your click-through counts as a vote for the site you searched. My idea would have done that, but with extra "manual" moderation(i.e. if you think that site "Y" belongs higher than position 27 for search "X" you could vote for it) I also would give higher points based on how much a person used and participated.
I'm not so sure I want to do that anymore since google is such a great search engine. If you think this is an idiotic idea, let me know why. If you think its a good idea even considering that we already have google I'd like to know as well.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
You try to access AOL.com and its blocked, "Slander protection" :)
-- We should kill all the intolerant people in the world.
Maybe you're right. In my estimation, parents like these are willfully foisting ignorance on their children. Which may be okay when they're toddlers, but when they're teenagers, it's child abuse.
Consider the following: random kid is brought up unexposed to undesireable political, religious and social agendas; some good, some bad, all somehow controversial for reasons that may or may not be complete bullshit. Kid goes into college, where, for the first time in his or her life, there is free and unfettered access to information. (NB, I'm not refering to technical information here, such as patents and trade secrets. I'm refering to philosophies, religions, and politics that random kid's parents find objectionable).
So, the kid runs into the Army of Satanic Order, a group which s/he has never heard of before. Furthermore: s/he discovers that there is a conspiracy (through AOL/Time-Warner and other companies) to deny him/her information about this group, because this information is threatening to the powers that be. Which is now true!
Said kid, whose real world experiences have thus far been filtered, probably hasn't had to develop bullshit detectors, either. Moreover, s/he's likely to make the mistake a lot of conspiracy theorists make -- believing that if information is being suppressed, that it must be true.
In no time flat, the Army of Satanic Order has a new, naive, paranoid recruit.
Note that you can substitute any other organization, legitimate or illegitimate, objectionable or merely controversial, good or bad, for the Army of Satanic Order. The end result is the same: recruits who have been deliberately brought up not to think for themselves.
I'm not saying that AOL shouldn't be censoring content. Far from it. If parents want to raise their kids this way, fine by me. I'll raise my kids with exposure to more of the world, so they can learn about real life at an earlier age. Let's see whose kids are working for whose 30 years later.
Finding God in a Dog
The Priesthood never gives up its editorial control without a fight.
Seastead this.
I think people underestimate children with any information.
In general people must think kids are the stupidest people in the universe. I mean saying that thinking that one cannot distinguish a logical argument from a foolish one is silly.
Tell me what is defined as "inappropriate" and what is not. How is this destinction reached? Didn't the natzi's get so many children because the children weren't that well educated? Why don't we just let people look at any content they want and make their own opinions themselves. Gaining information is essential to survival and enlightenment.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I think that taking gun security seriously is critical, and if you do that, you are fine by me. However, "gun security" means different things to different people. I think ideally you want to store most of your guns in a big heavy safe with a serious lock on it. You should keep any gun you feel you need fast access to either on your person or (when sleeping, for instance) in one of those little one-gun safes that can be bolted to the floor, probably with a Simplex-type push button lock. This is not going to stop anyone who has time to run through the limited keyset for a Simplex lock, but because it is bolted down, it is very difficult to force it without a crowbar or similar industrial tool.
Trigger locks look useful, but they are no substitute for locking your guns out of the reach of theives and infants, and they can be difficult to remove in a hurry. When you need a gun, you need it now , and trigger locks just don't meet that requirement. Likewise the process of partially disassembling a gun for storage: it stops you from getting your weapon into action quickly, and doesn't really stop theives or bright kids.
-- Jeff Paulsen
Parents get up off your lazy ass and take responsibility for the little life you have created. Parenting isn't supposed to be easy. The only group/person who should be telling your kid what is right or wrong is you.
If you don't want your kids having access to porno, guns, bombs, politics or whatever, take away their net access. Punish them with whatever method you see fit. Don't let your kids tell you what to do... I am reminded of the latest South Park with the doctor telling kids to shut up and study. (with a backhand to the head)
Our country would be a whole lot better off if parents would stop bitching about things like this and actually take the time to get to know what their kids are all about.
The more I saw of it, the more I realized my parents decisions were good ones. My parent's decisions helped to keep me from rushing headlong into really stupid decisions (mostly) and as I get older, my respect for my parents grows. It's really weird.
Now, I'm much more liberal than my parents. They don't drink (I do on occasion, but rarely do I keep alcohol) they don't go to bars (heh) and they attend church regularly. (I manage the major Catholic holy days)
Despite this, I tend to see things through a filter of my own now. (I got no cpHack for my brain :) ) This is where maturity begins. Good lord help me, what am I saying :)
My parents, of course would never listen to Insane Clown Posse. I never heard of them until I left the Navy. I think the lyrics are pretty ironic, and twisted to the point of the ridiculous, but you need to have a mature perspective to really see it. It's like SouthPark. And you can't really get that perspective until you've seen both sides of the coin, the conservative, and the liberal.
So AOL offers a filtering/censorship service. Don't you think people have the right to choose it if they wish? And don't you think that the public who requests the service has the right to demand the content of a service?
Now don't get me wrong. This sort of thing has no business being placed where the public doesn't request it. Do you hear me, public libraries? Library of Congress? Washington Post? (oh wait, they filter for liberal content there. :) But while you live under your parent's roof, they have the right to demand how you live there. Don't like it? Turn 18, get out of the house, join the military, and I guarantee you'll see more than you ever bargained, or even wished for.
Uncle Sam won't hold your hand.
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
See netscape used to be a soverign company for a while and there's always lynx, and emacs's browser, and KDE's and the like.
There's always choice. Also given the choice I would choose Netscape over anything microsoft simply because I like netscape better, it's more cross platform, I can look at the code, the company dosn't control the world, dosn't make my operating system (crappily), etc.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Hey! I want that article. Phrase of the day: Control the media, control the mind. -some intelligent d00d said it. -m
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne)
When I first read this quote in the article, it startled me. (the full quote) "We have a regular process of reviewing sites that are submitted, and if they meet our criteria they are added," she said. "If some sites are included, it's probably because someone submitted them."
It seems as if the "criteria" is very simple, as in, they probably block all sites, or many sites that are requested. Think how many sites must be submitted for this, I mean, there are millions upon millions of AOL users. I mean, the last sentence of the quote, it sounds like she is trying to blame the sites that were unjustified in being added, since they were added purely due to the fact that someone added them, and they went through no review. The reason they probably block these sites are bad site review proccesses, or an inability to review them.
Let's submit AOL as an inappropriate site. I mean, have you ever used the search engine on there, it's so full of porn sites.... i mean, as in almost every site on any search results.
But some Feds have recently been getting sneaky - they're going to the people who made these arguments, and asking them things like "So this censorware stuff you said was less restrictive isn't working, and isn't usable in public libraries? Would you be interested in testifying in court as an expert witness?". It looks like they may be trying to overthrow the least-restrictive-means argument, by contending that filters aren't that much less restrictive, and trying to Catch-22 us into letting them censor the net like they tried to before.
Peacefire is the group that was sued for revealing Cyberpatrol's blacklist, but also for publishing the password-cracker that lets you get around Cyberpatrol's restrictions. The EFF archives on filtering are at this link on eff.org, but they're a bit out of date (unless you believe the year is "19100" :-).
The Censorware Project is more recent.
A reasonable fraction of the many blatant errors in Cyberpatrol's agenda need to be "explained by incompetence rather than attributed to malice"; classifying everything on the net is an impossibly large job, much of the gruntwork gets done by bots with only minimal accuracy, and there's certainly not enough time for real human attention to most of it. That doesn't excuse their lack of fixing problems they've been notified about, or the biases that do appear to be in that product and in many others. "Hackers" - oh, nooo! keep your kids away from them!
The referenced article has its mistakes as well - the Libertarian Party may occasionally be accused of being Republicans who smoke dope, and some of its members are, but that's pretty much a mischaracterization :-) It'd be much more accurate to classify most of the members as computer geeks who don't do real politics because that involves talking to non-geeky people in a way that's interesting to them and doing a lot of plain boring time-consuming hard work like precinct-walking.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
just an extra http://
Duh...
-m
"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries." (A. A. Milne)
But this is rediculous. I mean, if there was a bill banning technical debates online, it would warrant a story, as it would effect us. But if you ran it constantly, it is dumb, because there is NO room for discussion.
But censorware DOES affect us. As soon as even one voice is silenced, all others are jeopardized. Besides which, I wonder how many censorware products block us because of our discussions...
We ALL know everybody's view of censorware
No, you don't, or you'd realize just how important this is. We on Slashdot are not in the majority by being against censorware. This sort of thing is hugely popular not just with the Reactionary Religious Right and the Lunatic Liberal Left, but with all of The Unthinking Masses. The people who would rather than do their jobs as parents, entrust their kids' (and their own) minds to a piece of mindless, heartless software. This is something wqe have to fight, and none of us can do it alone. There is strength in numbers, and all we can do is discuss these matters. The spread of knowledge -the very thing censorware seeks to curb- is our only weapon. And that is why these are important.
I'm not sure any corporation is 'pro' or 'anti' anything that doesn't relate directly to their business. If this happened right after Columbine, don't you think its possible they were not 'for' or 'against' guns, but more likely spooked by negative publicity? IIRC- the media made a big deal that the psychokids had websites and spent a lot of time online..
-
air and light and time and space
This latest article brings to light a new aspect of the censorship that is not aimed at protecting children from pornography, but seems to block political viewpoints that differ from some unknown entity. Hell, I disagree with the political views of several of the sites apparently blocked, but even I can see that this is wrong.
Don't want to hear about it? Don't click the link. The real shocker is how your post got moderated up to a five.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
Guns are not that bad. Again only a person with a weak mind is going to actually go on a shooting rampage with a gun. Also it's far easier to defend yourself with a gun than without. All other forms of self defense are put to shame with the gun.
All the martial arts in the world cannot compare to the usefulness of a gun against a foe.
I am wondering has any person made a functioning letahl weapon capable of firing projectiles that are lethal with plastic? Is it portable and use say perhaps ice bullets or maybe something poison based? That would rock as a weapon.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Campaign finance laws prevent a single donor from giving that much money. I'm not sure what the cap is, i think it's $1,000, but it is definatley under $250,000. Even if it was made out as a donation from AOL that's still too much for an individual corporation to give.
I know of at least several people who can assemble handguns in under 20s flat.
That's pretty good for a human being.
What about having a voice activated unlocking mechanism for a gun? Take a voice activation chip and implant it into a trigger jamming device. Then you say something in your own voice it checks it and unlocks the gun (ala Millenium).
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
To kill the most ammount of people without possible proof use chemical/biological agents.
Metal detectors don't work against any of these attacks. Relatively harmless when anyone tries to take a casual look.
For example a remotely operated can of sarin or another nerve gas could be the perfect crime perhaps hidden in a ventiliation duct.
Potentially thousands dead and it even works in countries where guns are banned.
Perhaps in an area where food is being distributed a nice innocent bulged can of beans or a small vial of concentrated botulism could kill at least several hundred if eating is spread nearly simultaneous.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
An individual may not donate more than $1000 to each candidate, but may donate as much as he or she damn well pleases to section 530 organizations including political parties. Interestingly (but stupidly), 530 organizations which are not politicial parties are not required even to disclose the names of their donors and may do anything except specficically use language like "Vote for xxxx." The "Republicans for Clean Air" BS we had in New York before the primary is an example of such a group. It's been predicted that they'll be the "next big thing" in the buying of elections. Vamos a ver.
Why does everyone feel the need to tell me that? The phrasing commonly (and incorrectly) attributed to Churchill was a little different. The phrasing I use came from the movie _Swimming with Sharks_ with Kevin Spacey.
The now defunct churchill.org web site had an excellent list of quotes often and commonly mis-attributed to Churchill, and the one I use was on that list. They pointed out that Churchill was conservative when he was 12 and liberal when he was 30.
Both my mother and I are fully armed and fully capable of shooting poisoned bullets at anyone.
Strongarm tactics are utterly futile against a person who has superior training with a gun.
I still don't see any point.
My point unless something (in this case a post) has logic then it's worthless.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Nice to hear from the thinking impaired side of the house.
Back to the subject: Having AOL decide what sites are good to let a child see is silly and naive. It promotes parental laziness, which is the actual cause of the school shootings.
Most people have better behaved dogs than kids, precisely because people know that they have to train their dogs. Then they entrust the welfare and education of their kids to other people who are actually justified in thinking that it isn't their responsibility. Everyone thinks about their rights and no one thinks about their duties. I personally don't like Kennedy, but 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country' is probably his finest quote.
I just wish that people still felt that way. Someone sometime is going to compile a list of what caused this society to collapse and this shirking of parental responsibility is going to be right near the top of the list. Trusting some anal retentive moron at AOL or CyberPatrol to choose what information your own children can see just goes to show that the collapse is near.
MMmmm.. Troll food...
Really simply you can kick some animal ass with a nice highly avaible weapon.
And there's always the ever popular argument that bigger guns are for taking out superanimals.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
> The fascists were left wing.
What a lot of hogwash. Whether a political party is left-wing or right-wing is best determined by finding out what they call themselves. The Nazis explicitly and persistently described themselves as "right-wing" and moreover they set themselves up in contrast to and in opposition to the communists, who were universally described as "left-wing." You go back to school and learn history as it was, not as your airy ideology would arbitrarily fantasize it to have been.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
You mean.. actually expecting parents to think for themselves and raise their children properly? Like that's gonna happen.
This is true, but it doesn't change the dangerous result. Some would argue it's even more insidious, since it's a bad effect that arose unintentionally. Sometimes things that happen as a result of large social patterns can be the most dangerous, because they're harder to change or undo.
I'm sorry if I came across that way, but you have gotten the wrong opinion. I didn't say that mine would be the only opinion they will know, but that I will be there with them when they are forming opinions. I just don't intend to lie to them and I certainly don't intend to let anyone else do so.
Children are very trusting, they will believe anything you tell them until they have enough data to decide for themselves. I'm just going to speed up the process by giving them more than one opinion. I'll answer any question that they ask, no matter what the subject, based on the best available evidence. That's what makes the information age so cool, you can find out almost anything.
That is why I don't want any net filtering software running anywhere near me. Certainly not at my ISP where I can't change anything.
I don't expect to have much of a problem controlling their web surfing at home. If they get in the habit of surfing with Dad, it will seem pretty natural. I probably won't try to stop them from going anywhere they want. I think that their concience will keep them out of trouble. How many porn sites would you visit with your Dad in the room? They won't have computers in their room, or even net appliances.
I left out the words 'without me' in the quote.
I figure that the kids will be about 7 or 8 when they get to the 'able to form their own opinions' stage. After that, I'll severely cut back on what I disapprove of.
The 'attend political rallies' was a joke, too lame...
You got it backwards or at least you have not been around here lately. Every pro MS comment has been marked up way beyond what it should have been. Take a quick look.
One time I was a participant in the fawcette publications boards and let me tell you if you even mentioned Delphi, Java or any non MS product you would get flamed 100 times worse then anything that happens here. Go hang out at comp.databases.ms-access and see what happens to anybody who mentions oracle. Lets face it you have a choice of communities to hang out in. If you want to hear cheeleading for major corporations then hang out at one the their sites. This community just happens to like linux. Deal with it or leave it's a free country (sort of). There have been lots of karma abuses here but it goes both ways. I could show you links where people were moderating each other up on two or three day old threads to give pro MS posters karma points.
War is necrophilia.
Given that people with "weak minds" going berko is inevitable in our society, you'd rather that more guns were available? Add this to the fact that most murderers know their victims well and that many murders are committed on the spur of the moment, do you really think a more heavily armed populace will reduce the number of gun killings?
Hey you're absolutely right! I have never heard of a mass killing committed using martial arts! What a great pro-guns message!
Sure, you defend yourself with your gun and the attacker (or anyone else unlucky enough to be in your line of fire) ends up dead. A gun is not a defensive weapon and cannot realisticly be defended against except by incapacitating the wielder.
I'd probably be working in the USA if not for one thing: guns (OK, OK and religious morons, infomercials, southern accents and rap music).
To paraphrase Dogbert: I wouldn't trust you goobers with anything more dangerous than string.
I agree, conservatives probably do use censorware more, and that would likely lead to more lefty sites being left out. But c'mon... the Democratic party is kinda large and hard to miss. I can't believe that among all those people, there wouldn't be one Democrat type who'd submit the URL.
I hope Hitler and Stalin are sharing a pit in hell.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Oh crap, I just realized that that wasn't the kind of URL that includes the fields from the query. Dammit. Sorry.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Actually, they called themselves "Socialist".
It was in the party name.
NAZI = National Socialist Party (in German)
Mind you, the last thing I'll call them is left-wing, but they certainly did seem to think of themselves that way.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Yeah, too bad AOL is BUYING EVERYTHING. Personally, I think they're even worse than M$. Let's get some anti-trust action over there...
IIRC, the NSDAP did have a contigent of socialists, and implemented some social reforms (for pure-bred Germans only, of course), but Hitler had most of the left-wingers "neutralized" at the same time that the Schutzabteilung (SA) was, er, "downsized" by the SS.
The Libertarian Party is not a "conservative" organization. Elimination of most of the government and its laws is hardly conservative.
What are you talking about? That is the classic "conservative" position: that the government's power should be "conserved" and used only when there is absolutely no alternative. Supposedly.
In practice, compare the Libertarian Party's positions on the following issues with, say, those of the Republican Party:
That the Libertarian Party occasionally endorses causes that are traditionally characterized as "liberal," such as a woman's right to choose or narcotics decriminalization, only emphasizes the fact that on most issues, Libertarians are closely aligned with "conservative" issues. Whether you consider this a good thing or a bad thing, there is not much room to deny it.
Here's your resident French chauvinistic speaking.
In my country, there's only ONE party advocating wider gun availability, one party which keeps waiving the "insecurity" issue to the masses, one party which uses the "self-defense" expression ...
It's the Front National, the racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, violent and neonazi party.
Thank you for your attention. Hope this helps.
Look at what the Nazi party name is an acronym for: the National Socialist party. Hitler described himself as a socialist all his politcally active life. His addidtion to socialism was to make in nationist rather than internationalist.
Mark Austin
---- For Whigs admit no force but argument
"No-one is more conservative than a liberal who's just been mugged".
I've had the pleasure of advocating the appropriate firearm and giving
shooting tips to one who had been mugged recently.
We have guns to protect ourselves from the seemingly random violence of the world.We also have been
given the right to KEEP AND BEAR ARMS in case the
need arises to redirect an opressive government.
So in a way I guess you could say we could use them to protect ourselves from liberals.
Heres another quote,"He who would exchange his liberty for safety,deserves neither" -B.Franklin
This is what I'll teach my children.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
If anything, it'll make liberal politics--and, by extension, politics in general--more interesting to kids.
Now THAT would be a feat.
The only kids interested in politics, at least when I was a kid, were the seniors taking Government class. I just don't see 8 year olds being upset because they couldn't get to Ross Perot's website. I do, however, agree with a previous poster, that this was a good story and I'm glad it's here...
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
... isn't it? You can't expect your government to protect you like little children. Sometimes you're the one in their sights, you know.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Some Canadian was rude to me once. Hence, all Canadians are rude asswipes.
Listen, the crime in the UK is bad. I guess you never stopped in England. The "bobbies" didn't use to carry guns there. Then they started enacting unneccessary legislation in violation of their own citizen's human rights. Violent crime went up. Bobbies started carrying, and now citizens can't. Some of safest states in the Union allow the carrying of handguns (Texas is one unsurprising exceptions). Now, what was the problem again?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And then if they didn't wear them, we'd have ample justification to pack them into trains and ship them off to Nebraska. Or ship them off to some evil convent school where sadistic, fucked-up nuns can teach them the love of their Holy Father by beating the shit out of them and humiliating them and impugning their self-esteem on a daily basis. That'll learn the scum to follow the One True Path.
Idiot. Face it, pal, Kids get morals from their nurture and loving parents and relatives - who, incidentally, need not to be of a particular formation of men/women to form a good home for a child - and fucking up, and upsetting people. That way they learn what they can and can't do, and learn to consider beyond their own frame of reference. Telling them about what a bunch of arbitrary guys with beards postulated as an effective means of control over the masses over two thousand years ago doesn't really even register on the same order of magnitude. Especially when it's being filtered through some jerk in a silk suit telling you to give him your money.
If you want to talk to God, and you want to affirm your belief in him, etc, go direct. Don't go to church. All they want is your money. And that's shit. I'm not a Christian, (anymore, hint hint) but I've seen so much hypocrisy and misery caused by those evangelical holes - well...and for you to suggest that non-Christians are future serial killers...if you even whispered that over here, we'd knock your fucking head off. With axes. ;~)
OK BS ALERT! And time for a history lesson. The Fascists were NOT left wing. They are right wing, as opposed to socialists, who are left wing.
There once was a philosopher named Hegel. Very powerful was he. He had many students. Some of these thought his most important idea was the idea that change is dialectical and that history is the story of how masters enslaved the masses, but the massed will work through history to liberate themselves.
Sound Familiar...WHY YES. This is where Marx got Dialectic Materialism from IE the foundation of SOCIALISM. (true socialism = liberation of the masses or proles).
Some of Hegel's students thought his most important idea was that states arose as the embodied will of the people. The state was the highest achievement of mankind (Hegel does not, of course mention women). These Statists upheld the right of the state.
Sound familiar. Why yes, Fascism has its roots here.
Now in reality, the USSR was MORE statist (or facist) than it was ever socialist. Even though it took its name from socialism, Marx would roll over in his grave if he saw what his revolution came to.
History lesson over.
Tom Dutton
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
The day you 'Merkins start painting crosses on the nosecones of your ICBMs is the day I move to the Moon.
It must be so terribly, terribly disapointing for you to realize that the only people who have actually been on the moon are... well, Americans.
Been There, Done That as they say.
Just this last week, an intelligent and mature friend & I who have shared an irc channel for the last 4 years, messaged me about my past experience with Cyber Angels. She was considering joining (as I did, 3 years ago, thinking she too could 'give back to the net' by educating and informing the unaware on how to use the net safely and effectively. She asked about my experience with this organization and it's agenda.
/. allows readers to really research the world for facts, statistics and data which provide the foundation for the thoughtful, responsible implementation of decisions gleaned from all available information, not just that approved by some community with an agenda I may or may not agree with.
/.'rs pointing me to all the available information repositories of the net, as it really exists, I too might NOT know what I do NOT know!
She was not aware, as I was not, even as a member that, THE AGENDA, was censorship. When I told her that they were developers of censorware she was astonished. Like me, increasing newbie awareness of the lurking dangers associated with the net was desirable....limiting access to information IS NOT!
It is important that I had URL's, links & examples of how inappropriate and devious censorship really is to educate her on the dangers of limiting information.
22 million people on AOL think they have access to the world! 22 million people have access to AOL/Time Warner's version of the world. Most of them do NOT know 'what' they do not know. Did you ever argue with an ignorant person who stood on the value of their limited knowledge to defend their position?
/. Articles provide new and useful information, as it is discovered, as well as many otherwise unknown links to additional data from knowledgeable readers. Unlike access providers who utilize censorware,
Keep on 'keepin' on' Slashdot! I count on you to provide a large and very diversified membership with a forum where they can share their massive wealth of knowledge with me on many diversified subjects that might otherwise leave me like 'AOL'ers', Were it not for
ah! the internet!! we may still screw up the world but NEVER again will we be able to claim IGNORANCE
Even if 200.000 was an exaggeration, it wouldn't make much of a difference if 20.000 was closer to the truth. It's enough to make killings, beatings and stabbings a common sight for children.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Actually, it's an interesting phenomenon to examine. I happen to be a staunch libertarian--call me crazy, but I like freedom--so perhaps my viewpoint may be of some use.
The great hope for democracy was that the average man would be enlightened and less likely to be tyrannical than the elite. As we all know, this hope was misplaced; the common man is just as bad as anyone else.
It really doesn't matter what sort of government one lives under. As long as that government recognises the liberties which are inherent and proper to man (speech, conscience, religion, arms-bearing &c.), who cares howit may be run? The only reason that we ever wanted a popular government was the hope that it would respect our rights. If a government of men wearing robes and silly hats is willing to respect the rights due the individual, well then bring them on!
Incidentally, censorware is not necessarily a bad thing. It has one use: by parents. A parent has a right to control his children (I believe this, anyway; there is debate, but I've yet to be swayed). Anyone who acts in loco parentis has a derived right to use censorware. No one else does--not one at all.
Actually, that's a little bit wrong. Anyone in control of those without rights can use censorware. So parents, wardens and military officers may use censorware. But the point still stands.
Censorware in libraries, OTOH, is a bad idea. Just put the 'puter carrels out in public. Worked when I was a kid...
I'm not saying that AOL shouldn't be censoring content.
Well, i am - its not their place to do so.
--
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Look at what the Nazi party name is an acronym for: the National Socialist party. Hitler described himself as a socialist all his politcally active life. His addidtion to socialism was to make in nationist rather than internationalist.
You should be more focused on the fact that he was a National Socialist. Sure he was socialist insofar as he was for the good people of Germany (defined in limited lines that they were) but the 30's and 40's were periods of intense nationalistic feelings throughout western Europe. The rhetoric of the true people tied by blood and soil to their land. (This was, of course, why Jews made such an easy target, as they weren't "true" Germans, they had their own national identity) That's what the national part is about.
So he may have had Socialist in the party name, but that was only to say that he was for the good working people of Germany, as long as they were 'real' Germans. He was never a true socialist, and his politics were very very far out on the right wing.
Finally, I found a use for my college education! Yipee!
MadDreamer