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Senate Approves Censored .kids.us Domain
lostchicken writes "The Senate has approved the first viable "kid-friendly" system that doesn't try to control the Internet. See the story here. It is an opt-in system that allows a .kids.us domain to be pointed at a site approved as safe, as opposed to an adult only domain type system."
they could not set up chat rooms, instant messaging or other interactive services unless they could certify that they did not expose children to pedophiles or pose other risks. .kids.us, what the hell did they create it for?
If you can't pick up kids on
I like choice. Choice gives you options.
This is a good idea, and maybe might be extended to the other TLDs: kids.com, kids.net, etc. Obviously, it would require some kind of monitoring and management, but it certainly appears to be a better way of "protecting" children then spurious free speech attacks on the 'net as an entity.
In fact, I believe extending this to the commercial TLDs would be a big marketing tool. Point out to parents that "our site is kid safe, we're part of the kids.whatever domain."
Build a better mousetrap...
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
I don't know who chose the domain 'kids' but goat-related domain names do not always have a spotless record...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
You know this'll be like those damned child-proof caps on medicine bottles. In your average (read: non-geek) household, who do you think will be the first to figure out how to setup the browser? Certainly not Mom and Dad!
They wouldn't deal with ICANN at all, they'd be dealing with NeuStar, who they made a sweet deal with:
Your credit card information wants to be free.
While I look at most things that the government does as some veiled attempt of hiding the true motive I actually kinda agree with this.
Kids are running rampant on the internet and can come across some truly disturbing shite. I myself was on this technical-nerd-/. site one day and clicked on a link and was presented with largest bloody rectum I have ever seen. Wait the only large bloody rectum I have ever seen. And it is more ubitiqous than the Bonzai buddy pop up.
Anyway, I dont have kids, soon, and I plan on treating them like adults. But not turning them into little Ron Jeremys.(That is my job for the time being).
So a restricted domain where it is all about kidstuff is cool with me. Might even fun for our jades asses to look at. Of course when I strip off the emerald spectacles it is gonna be a marketing haven for toy companies, candy companies, and anything that sells kiddy products, a market with a demographic that is always renewing itself.
So lets see how it works. Could be a good thing. And we can always have a good guffaw when the script kiddies hijack a couple of sites and plaster them with the goat.cx guy, nude shots of ana nicole, and John Holmes memorials.
The Flatline
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
This seems simple enough to me. If you want your children to access the .kids.us sites, then you have to install a Mozilla or an IE plugin. Those that don't have those plugins can't go (Boo-hoo...) and those that do are subject to the restrictions placed upon them by the .kids.us domain sites.
.kids.us domain. Those serious websites that do will no doubt also maintain a regular version.
Does this allow the government or Neustar to spy on people and gather information if they want to? Yes, it does. Since it is an opt-in system, I'm comfortable with it. No serious site will place itself in the
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The story title is off, it isn't "censored", it's "moderated", there's a difference.
Content isn't altered, content is accepted or rejected.
I'm surprised: an intelligent and implementable system actually came out of Congress.
.kids.us (he goes through a squid proxy right now that defaults to denied [I have an ACL of acceptable domains]) and he comes across something inappropriate, may I then sue NeuStar for allowing that exposure?
Of course, I wouldn't want to be NeuStar. That's a hell of a responsibility; to police an entire subdomain for appropriateness. And I wonder what sort of liability issues that creates. If I let my 10-year-old browse at will through
As it stands now, my son's email account receives close to 50 spams a day, 10 of which are sexually revolting. But because of the nature of the beast, I cannot press charges against any of the companies that originate the mail (if I could find them, that is). It would be refreshing to to have a "Kid Safe" label and have it mean something*.
* Unfortunately to get any organization to truly "Certify" that (and be able to TRUST that certification), there must be real and hurtful penalties attached.
Because xxx.safeForKids.org is pretty much a contridiction in terms. Unless you're suggesting to make the xxx safe for kids? ;)
-lw
Mods: Disagreeing with me != my post Offtopic / Flamebait.
World without hate or war, invaded. Tragic?
The problem is that there is lots of content that some people (christian right) would find "objectionable" for children, and a lot of it isn't pr0n. The classic example is that of renaissance nude paintings, which always get picked up by the "naked people finder" filter programs and will probably be banned from .kids.us as "smut" even though they are obviously art. For that matter, do you want to force every site that mentions human reproductivity into a pr0n domain, just because some "anti-smut" campaigners don't want their children to know that babies aren't delivered by the stork?
(cf the ridiculous controversy about a "burka" being forced on that statue of justice)
How are they going to monitor it. What about a site that is about furry teddies one day and porn the next.
no sig.
Do they really have any power to tell ICANN to revoke a domain name?
It's a "dot US" domain name. ICANN has no authority over how the names are handed out.
Best Slashdot Co
NeuStar would be expected to police the subdomain to ensure it remains free of inappropriate content.
Policing a kids domain is definitely necessary. It doesn't fall to the side of censorship but rather common sense.
However this may create an opening for the government to define what is appropriate for children beyond the known vices. For example, what about people's religious beliefs. Could the government decide on one over the other, ban all as hate speech for the sake of not having to deal with it, etc.?
If the kids.us domain is too restrictive, parents are going to let their kids look elsewhere for information, which may doom the kids.us domain. Of course kids.us is not supposed to be a success story (so "doomed" may be incorrect); instead it's supposed to protect children. For the kids it does protect I know we are all thankful.
Might the system not work better if there existed different levels of these subdomains like "kids.highprotection.us", "kids.mediumprotection.us", and "kids.lowprotection.us" (no comments about the names please -- they are just examples), then the medium level might include religious beliefs, and the low level might include regular news sites, etc. This way parents could decide on a level that that deemed most appropriate for their kid/s (maybe based on age, etc). This would also provide a good way to wean the kid onto the "real" Interent as they get older. Sooner or later the kid is going to be at a friend's house (whose parents have less restrictions) and will experience the real Interent anyways. Just like when I was a kid I first got to play video games (Atari) at a friend's house because my family didn't own a game system (my parents probably thought it was a bad idea at my young age because I shouldn't have spent a lot of time in front of the TV).
But honestly, this will be difficult to regulate. And more than likely the pedophiles and grown men that cruise with names like Soccergirl342 will be there in masse. The way things are going now, the FBI is going to have to be in every chat room.
.kids for kidsfun.kids.
/.ers that think this is crap, or have some nutty agenda about having a kids safe internet, I suggest you go play legos with your cousins today, and then think about if they are mentally prepared yet for what some of these bastards will plan to do with them. You'll change your mind soon enough.
God, I hope that they do something right for a change on the internet before some place like adultsexplayhouse.com or donkeysweat.org decides to move into the kid market... and sue ICANN for "their rightful domain name" on
So for all of you
I wonder how many times does it happen that 14 years old kids are the only ones able to configure a computer in their own family.
<SARCASM>Fortunately, these times are about to finish. With Trustworthy Computing and DRM all these free speech morons will finally shut up and we will live happily together placing our kids in front of the monitor and letting other people decide what's good for them.</SARCASM>
Seriously, I don't think such technology is bad, but the first prevention measure should be education of kids, which requires education of adults (I understand that not everyone is supposed to be a geek, but it's parents' responsibility to know what their kids are doing).
Signatures are for stupids.
I fail to see how this is better than any filtering software. If kids can only access .kids.us sites, then they are confined to a list of sites that have been pre-approved by some censor who thinks that only they know what is good for America's children. If, on the other hand, if children surf through filtering software, then they are confined to a list of ... (i.e. the same exact situation.
Several things need to happen here:
While we would all like for the world to be a place where everyone is happy, and protected, that is simply not the case. You have to look out for your own -- you can't rely on some (government, company, whatever) to raise your children for you.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
What powers will the controlling group have when (not if) someone breaks the content rules?
.kids.us?
What recourse do I have when my kids happen upon content that should not be there in
Are kids in the US the only ones befitting a "safe" surfing experience?
I realize that it would be nigh impossible to create a worldide standard, but theis tastes a little of "screw everyone else".
My brother has VNC going on the home network just to keep an eye on his two kids, and one of them's gotten the family AOL account shut down for inappropriate behaviour in a chat room (don't ask).
Leave the computer out in the open, like the TV, and let the oversight be implicit. Your kids may watch something out of line when they're out or you are, but something tells me that neither you nor they are going to watch XXX when you're both in the same house.
Like it is at work. Your behavior might change if a URL log is kept, but it would really change if your back is to your boss who can always see your screen.
North American Marlon Brando Look-a-like Association? What does THAT have to do with .kids?!?
This sounds like a perfectly reasonable solution. Those parents that do not restrict what their kids see online (like mine) do not have to worry about having the government do it for them. Those parents that do want to restrict what their kids see online have to make sure that their restrictions only affect their kids, and not anyone else. In both cases, the control is with the parents where it belongs.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
www.thinkofthechildren.co.uk
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
If a child's web site is dedicated to history, would commentary on the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor be considered "Hate Speech" since it might offend Japanese kids?
Or what about a current events story on the conflict between Isreal and the PLO? Would the other side denounce any opinion given as "hate speech"?
Or more recent - there are some that consider it "hate speech" to talk ill of Al Qaeda (despite the fact that their goal is the destruction of the US).
Sounds like this may be just another example of political correctness gone too far. Why shield kids from any speech, even if it is vile, racist garbage? Wouldn't it be better to point out to the kids that racist organizations exist, but are wrong because they don't believe that All Men (and women) are created Equal?
The URL was "www.canda.boys.com"
it didn't take long for the rightful owners of boys.com to spot this and add a "*" entry to their DNS table...
I'm sure I don't have to tell you what happened next...
WHAT ARE YOU QUOTING?
The text of the bill is here. It doesn't say anything like that. Neither of the restrictions you discuss are in the bill.
This seems to me a perfectly good way to make an internet playpen without eating internet freedom. Please don't scaremonger.
I, however, don't know if this will be successful. Parent who don't wish to monitor their children, like those that complain about South Park and the like, will complain that the system is not perfect when a nude painting inadvertently makes it into a discussion about classic art. Christian fundamentalist will try subvert the intention of the domain by using it to promote their religious beliefs. The fast food chains will dominate the advertising in a continuing attempt to brand our children.
But, all in all, a good attempt and a gold star for congress. I am really not trying to be ironic. It is just we need to first teach our children to think. Sometimes I think we are so concerned with nipples and penises that allow equally dangerous, but more socially accepted material. Of course I agree that stuff like goatsx should be banned, but perhaps also this Jerry Falwell propaganda against muslims.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
boobs ARE for kids, the very small ones at least. But like model trains, it's mostly the fathers the end up playing with them.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It's a serious problem. I couldn't allow in good conscience a pre-adolescent kid to roam free on the internet. There's just too much junk. While I'm not in the US, .kids.* (or even .kids TLD) could set a good precedent, and really get children out of the crapola.
Combined with a ".kids" browser with severe linking limitation (browser only allows links to other .kids sites) and legal repurcussions for companies violating the .kids standard (Corruption of Minors?) I'd be more than happy to make changes to the way my computer worked to facilitate this.
In a way it would create a sub-web of the internet, kids domains only interlinking with kids domains, and this would be a great thing. Many existing domains exist to populate this with numerous sites targetted for kids.
In fact, if it was made a TLD, this could easily be expanded into pretty much all IP software to make 'em kid friendly. And kid friendly would have to come first over functionality; no putting in IP addresses directly to go to a site. It is a severe limitation but with a good watchdog, and approval process for .kids domains, I'd rest a lot easier about having a kid on the net.
---
When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
Actually this is just fine.
Even if "hate speech" is too broad, I would like a domain like this that is very restricted and controlled.
When your kids grow up and you think they're mature enough, just turn off the kids domain stuff, and let them surf away. This is the best solution, no restrictions on the "regular" internet, and a very restricted optional space for kids.
I see no problem with this.
- sigs are for wimps.
This is really pretty condescending. Most of us who have children understand this. The real issue is that there is quite a bit on the net that children may encounter that they just aren't ready for. Only a few folks have real fears of actual physical harm befalling a child as a result of surfing the web. Most of us would just like our children to have an actual childhood, however brief.
People need to realize that most censorship does more harm than good. Every attempt to provide a list of "good" and "bad" sites has failed, and will always fail, because "good" and "bad" are purely subjective.
Censorship is a bad thing only when foisted on adults. I think, however, that you are going to have a pretty hard time making the case that keeping a 7 year-old from accidentally encountering www.fursuitsex.com is a bad thing.
People need to stop raising such gullible children, The world contains bad things, and everyone has to learn how to deal with them. If a child is brought up, and hasn't ever seen "bad" in his/her life, then (s)he will be ill-prepared to function in our world.
If you have ever raised children, you would understand that sheltering a child from all "bad things" is impossible. Few parents are attempting to do this. While I'm all for porn and violence, let's not pretend that it somehow builds character and prepares you for life -- it doesn't.
While we would all like for the world to be a place where everyone is happy, and protected, that is simply not the case. You have to look out for your own -- you can't rely on some (government, company, whatever) to raise your children for you.
Nobody is relying on the government to raise their children. All this bill does is attempt to create a limited, safe space. It does so without foisting draconian censorship on the rest of us and reducing the Internet to the lowest "kid-friendly" denominator.
More importantly, the creation of such a safe space strengthens the hands (politically) of those who oppose broader censorship laws, such as COPA and its ilk, since it essentially takes away the "but we must protect the children " argument. This is a good thing.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I know everyone is gushing over this as if its a good idea. Just look deeper. Look at whats happening today and you can see what will happen in the future. Let me help you.
1. servers in the kids.us domain immediately come under attack by crackers hell bent on inserting pr0n into those sites.
2. Parents attempt to sue Neustar.
3. Supreme court rules they cannot be sued and complaintants must sue the US Government (which one cannot legally sue)
4. Parents turn their fury to the individual server administrators.
5. Administrators can not keep up with all the bugs in the software and request help or protection from the us government.
6. FUD ensues.
7. White house demands new Cyber Terrorism laws.
8. DHD creates new Cyber Terrorism division.
9. more freedoms shot down in the name of "the children."
You can divise any scenario you like. The one common thread is that these servers will be major targets for crackers and they will succeed time and time again.
This idea is simple to implement for parents and easy to understand for everyone involved (but a pain for NeuStar).
The various objections raised here seem silly, and not very well thought out.
Kids need to learn to avoid this stuff on their own. It's censorship! Damn right it is censorship, and you're an irresponsible parent if you don't practice it. Kids get enough chances at avoiding (or seeking out) this stuff at school and around their peers. They don't need things handed to them on a silver platter. Parents need to be ever-vigilant, but they need a break too.
Someone else is going to decide what's okay, and what's not! Their morals might not be your own! I'm willing to let someone else make the decisions, and check in occasionally to make sure they make sense. There may be material that's a little too mature (ever see some of the teenage girls on Nickleodeon?) or a out of whack politically (PBS kids programming chaps my ass some days with this), but I'm willing to trade a little boundary-pushing for a much safer experience.
Parents will never figure out how to set this up! FUD & bullshit. They won't need to. If the US adopts this how long will it take for AOL 9.0 to come out with a button that locks down the system? Or Internet Explorer 7.0? Plugins galore that do the same thing? Not long and every software resaler will fall all over themselves to help parents remove this objection to letting the kids use the Net. Remember, *kids* drive a HUGE portion of the US economy.
It's a US-only thing! Yup. Too bad. (For you or for us, depending on your viewpoint.)
Why not just have a .XXX or .SEX domain? Two problems, first is that not every bad thing for children is porn -- I don't want my kid spending time at the Illinois Nazi website either. Second is that the genie's out of the bottle already. It's going to be impossible to legislatively corral it back in. Better to set up a sandbox where the genie's not allowed to go and defend that spot rigorously.
Get off my lawn.
As much bashing as the U.S. congress has gotten here, I think they now deserve a conditional kudos for having a clue. I say conditional because they do hav a tendency to sneak in little easter eggs that come back to bite us in the butt.
.kids.us, leaving the school surfing of the 'net relatively reasonably without having to employ censorship software whose motives are often suspect (they filter political as well as objectionable content, usually but not always with a pro-right-wing bias, etc.).
.kids.us domain is transparent and public, this will work reasonably well. Yes, there will be politics and debate, but it will be open and, if not always fair, at least reasonably democratic (quite possibly reminiscent of local school board politics). If not, it will just become another dysfunctional censorship project run amok.
As one who routinely, and scathingly, bashes congress here and elsewhere, I have to agree. This appears to have been a rare instance of insightful, intelligent, reasoned, and balanced governance, something we have seen far too little of lately.
I think this actually has a good chance of being quite successful, and school firewalls can easilly be designed to only access
As long as the criteria, process, and oversight of the selection of material that is allowed in the
However, I am actually fairly optomistic that some lessons may have been learned, and it will be the former, not the latter, which happens. In any event, this is a good, well balanced start to solving a problem without, for once, trampling on either the constitution or the most promising new technology to emerge in a hundred years, namely the Internet itself.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
screws.us
fscks.us
ruins.us
like,
washington.kids.us
verizon.screws.us
or even, archaeology.ruins.us
R
Stuff that matters: circuitbreakers, vacuum-cleaners coffee makers, calculators generators, matching salt+pepper shakers
It looks like Congress is once more failing to understand what the internet is, or rather what it isn't. The world wide web is not the Internet - the net is a much larger system encompassing many more services.
A domain name references a set of records that in turn may reference computers that in turn offer an array of services, one of which may be a set of web pages.
Is congress intending to police all of those services on all of those computers that are referenced by all of those different types of records under each domain name in kids.us?
And what are they going to police? As others here have mentioned, there is no single standard for content for children.
Not unless the commentary was structured to incite hatred of the Japanese or some other currently existing group.
Given the current situation, yes, both sides undoubtably would. In fact I think we can assume that tens of thousands of complaints would be engendered by any statement that portrayed either side as less than saintly. Content providers would probably be wise to avoid the issue - and honestly, I don't think any "reasonable person" wants his or her kids to learn about the Middle East situation from a "kid" site. Such sites would be quickly dominated by the better-funded Zionist movement in any case; no balance could really be achieved.
I doubt our "reasonable person" would consider it "hate speech" to "talk ill" of an admittedly terrorist group, unless one advocated hate towards them, or a group that resembles them. It's obviously hate speech when Billy Graham's demented larva pronounces that "Islam is Evil" and proposes "new crusades", and it's hate speech when the President says we should single out Arab communities for opression, but it's not hate speech to describe terrorism accurately
But again, we come back to the issue of appropriateness for children - any truthful discussion of Al Quaeda is going to be sufficiently disturbing that it is not appropriate for unsupervised children.
I suspect that you have no kids! Why not just give three-year-olds loaded submachine guns, they have to learn sometime what death is like, right? FUD phrases like "political correctness" and "multiculturalism" should probably be banned from kids.us, incidentally.
Yes, far better, once the kids are old enough to handle the concepts. I didn't explain to my African-American three-year-old what "kill all nigger-lovers" meant when she saw it spray-painted on the sidewalk behind the house. I explained it very carefully to my WASP six-year-old, and I certainly would NOT want him to have had it explained by a web content provider while I was out of the room for a moment.
Your concern is understandable, given the slanted education given most kids by government controlled institutions (Sex is bad! The Government never lies!) entertainment concerns (Sex has no consequences! Violence is fun!) and religions (God hates people of other faiths! Sex is evil!). But I think the idea of an opt-in system where parents and providers can choose to impose censorship over what a parent's children can see is a good one, and far better than any of the current alternatives.
My children wanted to surf the web at two years old. It would have been very nice to have something equivalent to the Disney channel, where I could safely leave the room for a second or two and leave the box turned on. They will have time for hatred and violence later, right now I want them to learn things like language skills, music and arts.