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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.
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
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
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
If you'd actually read the article, you'd see that it is the parents who use the site that submit sites for approval. THEY are the ones with a "conservative bias". If you want it to be fair, go submit some leftist sites (that don't include gratuitous nudity).
It's not necessarily hypocrisy. Imagine a parent investigating a hate site like stoormfrunt.org; it is clearly inappropriate for a child to be viewing that site by themselves. Nonethless, it is appropriate for a parent to view it.
I still think that most parents underestimate the intelligence of their children anyway. For every parent who uses filters that the child doesn't know how to avoid, I bet there are 10 that either don't use filters or who have children who can get around them.
Walt
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?
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
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.
I don't want my kids (when I have them) exposed to anything persuasive either. I don't care if it's a religion, a political party, a sexual orientation or anything where other people tell them what to believe.
That will be my job. I don't plan on letting my kids go to church, surf the 'net, attend political rallies or whatever until they are old enough to be able to formulate their own opinions. In short: until they are cynical, like me.
I certainly don't intend to ever get any internet service where blocking software is part of the package. When my kids want to access the 'net, I'll be right there, sitting next to them. I'm not one of the millions of lazy people that think that schools or software should raise their kids for them.
Your kids are the only thing you leave behind in the world, it is your responsibility to raise them. If you don't want the responsibility, then don't have kids.
If you're a minor who thinks it's disgusting to have to surf the net sitting next to your father, well, all I can say is once my kids prove to me that they are responsible, I won't have to sit there anymore. My goal is to raise responsible, mature citizens. Other people may have different goals, but I can't imagine what they might be.
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,
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.
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."
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
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...
> 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...
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
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.
If it takes you 20 seconds to assemble your weapon in a life or death situation, you'll spend the last 18 seconds of that time dead. In a crisis situation, seconds matter.
That being said, simply owning a weapon (be it a firearm, stun-gun, knife, or baseball bat) is in itself insufficient for self-defense. You also must have training, and marksmanship is only one small part of what you have to learn.
If you keep firearms in your home, every person in the house must be trained in gun safety. This especially includes children. There are many things in every home that are dangerous or inappropriate for children. If you can teach your children not to play with matches, drink bleach, touch a hot stove, play with power tools, or stick their fingers in an electric socket then you can teach them not to play with guns.
Half-assed legislation is no replacement for good parenting. Raising your children is not the Government's job - it is your responsibility. If you can't handle this responsibility, do the species a favor and have yourself sterilized.
Millenium is science fiction . A system like you describe is not feasable with existing technology. Even if the technology did exist, it would be impractical to use. In order to be suitable for use in a firearm, a system like this would have to be as reliable and simple to operate as existing safeties. It would have to be small & light enough so that it did not add noticable weight or bulk to the weapon and be rugged enough to still function flawlessly under severe adverse conditions. (driving rain, sub-freezing, baking hot, after being dropped repeatedly, etc). Politicians who endorse so-called "smart guns" should be required to have their bodygaurds carry only those weapons. I think their attitude would change when it's their ass that's on the line.
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
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
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...
http://www.gneeves.org
Can your IM do this?