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

Re:Way to Go Absentee Parents!

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It's not the rest of societies problem. Parents are doing far too much insisting on protection 'for the children' which ends up restricting what adults can do.

I agree with your second sentence, but I have reservations about feeling so absolutely correct about the first.

Yes, it is quite correct that the majority of parents are underqualified and have unrealistic expectations that society will assume some responsibility for raising their children. Talk to any public school teacher and you can find out pretty quick just how bady most parents are neglecting their jobs.

And so I believe that heavy-handed Internet porn filters at libraries are bad policy. That parents should be monitoring their children's activity and not complain so much. Automating the monitoring to save money doesn't wash as valid excuse to me, no more than using a VCR and TV as a convenient babysitter does.

But, unless you can afford to home school your own children, there is a necessity for you to go a job and to send your kids to some public school somewhere where you are physically unable to monitor what your children are doing.

In that case, I think parents have a reasonable expectation that society will fulfull some responsibility for monitoring their children and preventing them from exposure to things that they would rather their kids not see at a young age.

Zoning restrictions that prohibit the establishment of adult movie theatres near schools are another example of where society has collectively decided it is their problem and made some policy decision.