Public Filtering Comin' Like a Freight Train

MSNBC has a good story about the filtering bill which will almost certainly soon pass. "It's curious that Republicans - typically fans of decentralized government - would be interested in this bill, which puts an educational decision into the hands of the federal government, a power that typically rests in the hands of the locals. It would essentially hold schools and libraries that use subsidies to get online (25,000 to date, according to the Web site of the company that runs the program for the government) hostage to the notion that filtering weeds out all evil on the Net." Well said. Welcome to the 21st century, where all public institutions will be censored by unaccountable corporations.

Comments

Filtering only works if....

[scotpurl]

1. the language is English.
2. cacucasian porn is involved (for the "certain color range in images" filtering).
3. you use a grammar/syntax language engine to parse what's coming down the pipe to decide if it's insidious or not.

Until then, what gets filtered is what goes against someone's political agenda.

Re:Filtering only works if....

[aardvarkjoe]

I think it's been shown that filtering doesn't even work in those cases. The same words in english can be used obscenely or not, the "color range" filter can't really even determine if there's nudity, much less pornography, and despite all our efforts, computers are really no closer to actually understanding language than they were twenty years ago. Besides which, even if you could write a program that could perform these tasks, you still have to tell it what of that to filter, which is going to involve somebody's agenda.

I don't actually have a problem with schools using a filter ... it's their choice, after all. I think it's a waste of money, but if local sentiment is dead-set on using it, then I think it's reasonable. However, I think that forcing it on them as a federal mandate is a very bad idea. These types of issues should be decided on an individual or local level.

Re:Filtering only works if....

[Sloppy]

What is needed to filter is an odd number of AIs (with above-human-average intelligence) that have been run through law school in perparation for becoming judges, and who have lived in the target community for a number of years. They must then "vote" on each page to decide if it is obscene or not. Anything less is not good enough.

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Is there a problem?

[scotpurl]

Given the availability of home computers, I think most porn surfers are going to do it at home, or at the friends' house where there is a computer.

I think it's like kids playing with guns. You may not own one, but the neighbor's kid always does.

Teach your kid good values, and you won't have to worry. As much.

Re:Stupid election year politics -- might be good.

[jammz]

Of course, your opinion only holds true if the Supreme Court is similarly configured, compared to today's Court, when this issue comes before them. If the next President's appointments bias the court toward Right-wing interpretations then this filtering bill may be upheld.

The Biggest Point politicians forget...

[DrQu xum]

Politicians are always ranting about the World Wide Web...problem is, they forget the first two words..."WORLD WIDE".

For some reason, they don't realize that a ton of pr0n sites (and some of the best ones, in my book :), as well as many gambling sites, radicals, "How to make a nuclear weapon", etc., are located OUTSIDE the US.

For example...

US Government: "Hey, Holland! Shut down all the porn and pro-marijuana sites that end in .nl!"
Dutch: "You're fooking kidding, right?"

The US has no jurisdiction over overseas sites, and better not try to pull any stunts to usurp power to do so ("Pull thehun.net or no more automobiles for you!")

And one more point...let's see the filters extract this link (WARNING! LINK CONTAINS EXPLICIT ASCII-ART! NOT SUITABLE FOR 90% OF /. READERS! Link may not be available after a few days. You've been warned.)

Stupid election year politics -- might be good...

[Masem]

Obviously, this bill is being rushed through as a way to get extra votes for those reps that have seats up for grabs this year. Go back to their district shouting "I supported filters on public schools and libraries", and they'll have every parent on their side. Some bill of "won't someone think of the children" nature at this point in time usually happens every 2 years, and this is no different.

Now, as this is a big huge 1st Amendment issue, I fully expect someone to contest the case, whether the ACLU, EFF, or the various schools/libraries organizations around the country. And I really don't think that this case , as it stands, will hold up in the Supreme Court. Filtering technology as it is right now is a violation of free speech, and either the SC will nix the law, or force the development of better filtering software that actually *does* the job that is should do. If filters had a 99.999+% hit rate, and less than 0.001% failure rate using sites that, as deemed by the community, are either appropriate or inappropriate, then I would not have many qualms about using them at public terminals. But as with any first amendment challenge, one has to be careful to make sure this goes no farther than public terminals.

Re:This isn't what they're talking about

[DrQu xum]

They have the ability to LOCALly block "the porn and pro-marijuana sites." This wouldn't shut the sites down, it would just prevent access.

Then feed it through a text filter (e.g. Jar-Jargonizer, Lamer-speak, even Babelfish). I highly doubt that Cybernanny or Netwatcher et.al. would be able to block those types of sites out.

Even better idea -- feed some random page with a questionable URL through a ROT13 filter. See if any blockers try to un-ROT13 it and therefore block it. Claim they're using an unauthorized decryption routine and sue them under the DMCA. :)