Appeals Court Rejects Child Online Protection Act, Again

mabesty writes "From The Washington Post: A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that COPA restricts free speech by barring Web page operators from posting information inappropriate for minors unless they limit the site to adults. The ruling upholds an injunction blocking the government from enforcing the law." We last covered COPA when the Supreme Court handled it last year.

Comments

Way to Go Absentee Parents!

[Talking Goat]

Finally, a decision. Now will parents stop pushing legislation and start monitoring their children's online activities? No, they'll just push another bill. But at least we have a precedent, again... Wait, what was the point of a precedent? Apparently, parents haven't caught on yet.

Complexities inherent in this issue

[Dukeofshadows]

Some people will define "protecting" children by different means. The Christian Right around here would deny children access to everything they don't agree with, cinluding evolutionary textbooks since they might "corrupt" their kids. Other people will take their 7-year-olds to go see Robocop or the Rocky Horror Picture Show for the hell of it. Trying to protect children requires good parenting first and foremost, not just overly protective laws. Public schools are trickiest of all since so many ready-to-litigate families have different concerns for their kids. I think the easiest solution would be to either have all of the computers monitored by a faculty member. Maybe they could also tell the kids well in advance that their activities will be monitored with justification neccessary for visiting sites deemed "questionable". Granted, that system could be abused and not all kids need protection, but for Johnny trying to e-mail the president and instead visiting a .com instead of a .gov (whitehouse.com is a notorious porn site), some measure of protection should be in place.

Online porn

[tonywestonuk]

One reason that I would think twice about letting my kids (if I had them) use the net would be for the amount of accessible porn, and the like that is so freely, and easily available. Over a certain age (15 maybe, maybe more) then anything goes, but, as it stands, I can click on a page within a presumably benign google search, and be presented with something that isn't. Allowing sites to show 'information inappropriate for minors' to minors is like selling kids top shelf mags, or allowing them in to the movies see uk cert 18 movies.
I'm completely against censorship to those of us who have arrived at adulthood, but saying that kids should be allowed to view adult material because of 'free speech' is wrong.

T.

Re:Online porn

[stratjakt]

I agree with the parent. Kids shouldnt be allowed to view adult material, and it really shouldn't require anything but some common sense and good faith from the web community to prevent it. But that good faith doesnt exist.

I built a PC for each of my children, for their rooms to do whatever they want with. I dont want to have to sit over their shoulders and watch them constantly, because I want them to be able to learn the computer the way I did, by just screwing around on it. I want them to be independent and learn from doing, like I did.

So I set up a proxy for them, with PICS filtering and other 'standards' (squid and dansguardian, OT: anyone know how to transparently proxy with dansguardian?. The idea was it would make a good enough whitelist.

Now, I'm more worried about the kids finding a pokemon chat room and being stalked by some pedophile than I am about them accidentally seeing a boob.

cartoonnetwork.com has a really cool (kid speaking) c-toon trading game my one kid loves. You watch TV on fridays and they give out codes, which you punch in to the website, to get c-toon cards, and then can play a card game (pokemon like) online with other kids. Whats great about it is that there's absolutely no way for personal information to get across. You dont pick a username, it presents a list of made-up silly names that you choose. You cant chat, you can pick from lists of prewritten phrases. (So no trolls posting ascii goatse)

Anyways, back on topic. I've noticed that some pricks out there put fake PICS and other codes into their porn websites. IMO it's a pretty contemptable way to make another nickel or two off of their banners. Its also IMO criminal, since they're basically marking the content as a childrens site, which is like sticking copies of Hustler into kids hallowe'en bags.

Meh anyways. I dont know what my point is. Some people are just pricks. We wouldnt need laws if they werent. Personally I'm in favor of the kids.us domain, I think it's the best compromise. It gives parents a very simple way to whitelist for younger children. It would be nice if it didnt have to be mandated by government, but if you left the registrars to regulate it, well, they wouldnt.

Re:Meta tag

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because then it will be up to the author of the Web page to decide what constitutes "adult material," and if he guesses wrong, he goes to prison.

In some cases, it's obvious: porn site operators and the proprietors of sites like rotten.com would be idiots if they didn't use the tags. But there's a huge gray area. Is my personal home page "adult" because it contains a few four-letter words? I don't think so -- but some prosecutor, somewhere, might, and then I've got big problems. What about medical sites which, by their nature, include detailed discussions of human anatomy?

I wouldn't object at all to the creation of a standard (I'd rather have it done by the W3C or some other private entity than the government, but whatever) for "opt-in" kid-safe sites: a clearly published set of rules that says, "If your site does not contain any of the following [naked people / dirty words / etc.] then you are authorized to use this tag." Then the more extreme censorware could look for this tag.

I would still object to public libraries and the like being required to block stuff that doesn't contain the tag, for all kinds of reasons, but it would be a start.