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A Parent's Guide To Linux Web Filtering
Roblimo writes "Not all parents want their children exposed to everything on the Internet, especially porn. So far, virtually all home-level Net filtering software has been for Windows. This tutorial on NewsForge, by Joe Bolin, shows Linux-using parents how to set up Web filtering for *their* children -- and shows them how to customize filters to fit their own tastes and beliefs instead of relying on a commercial software company's ideas of 'good' and 'bad,' too."
Well, this is good news for linux parents, and hopefully it will set a precedent for either, more people moving off of windows, or developers of filtering software for windows to make their products more easily customizable to what parents think their kids should not see, instead of what the company thinks their kids should not see
I thought we were mostly in agreement here. Consorware is bad. Filters don't work.
Why is it that censorware suddenly becomes good when it's implemented by an open source program?
This is better than letting some company configure it for you. A lot of the companies that make filtering software don't even allow you to know what their critiera is for blocking a site.
On the other hand, I tend to think that when my daughter becomes interested enough in sex to seek out these kinds of pages, that maybe it is better that she be able to.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
That's two too many, as far as the target audience is concerned. I'm no GNU/Linux programmer or anything, but what's stopping people from putting that all in one single installer?
I'll admit I didn't read on to see (God forbid) what other numerous (supposedly "easy") hoops that parents would have to jump through to get the desired result. Not that it matters; they'd probably already lost most of their target audience.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I say just run the box in console mode, and if the kid can figure out how to configure X and open a browser, they are old enough for porn.
Seriously, this is a little strange in it's scope. In the fourth paragraph, it defines for the reader what a "server" is, and then they expect the reader to be comfortable just jumping right in and editing the squid config. Seems like a little user-friendliness is probably needed before we can consider the parental filtering thing taken care of...
Paper Pusher
Man, if you think the only things that you can find on the Internet are naked people and goatse, you must have been on the Internet for all of about 8 seconds.
Parents need to protect their kids from extreme pornography, highly graphic images (like rotten.com and the like), and websites that foster extreme viewpoints and hate speech, like the Aryan Nations. These things can have a much more profound impact on a child's immature mind than it would on a mature and rational adult's mind.
What your personal threshold for your family is as to how extreme content has to be before you feel the need to protect your kids from it is dependent entirely on your own belief system. This is why systems that allow the parents to decide criteria, rather than depending on things like Net Nanny, is so attractive.
So much is made about filtering content for children, presumably to prevent them from wandering upon unsuitable content. The fundamental flaw with this (techological limitations notwithstanding) is the notion that kids under the age of 13 or so should be left alone to browse the net.
It seems to me that proper parenting requires an active participation with your kids, whether it be in watching TV, checking out books in a B&N, or spending time on the net. Simply throwing in a vchip, blocking channels or applying hole-ridden filters can never be a substitute for actively being entertained, lerning, etc. alongside your child.
At least I think I read that somewhere...
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Putting filtering on Linux doesn't make it better. Filtering still:
a) doesn't work. Kids who want pr0n will find it, or find a way to get around the filters; and
b) creates and adversarial relationship between parent and child instead of a collaborative one.
Having parents set up their own filters instead of trusting an outside organization to do it for them almost GUARANTEES that the filters will not be effective. Who has time to be comprehensive on content, given the rate at which new sites are created? The only alternative is to trust some organization that does have the resources to do a more comprehensive job, and even then will not be complete.
The more serious issue is the loss of trust demonstrated by putting filtering software on the computer.
No matter what people say, how futile it is etc etc, it's an important step in getting Linux to be more common in the educational environment. A school or library needs to be able to say "we tried our best!" when it comes to these things. It helps linux get its foot in the door.
"Why should I protect my children. That's what I pay taxes for!"
Protecting children is one of our chief duties as adults, whether we are parents, professionals, or friends. But we also have to ask: What are we protecting them from? My book says that sexuality is a fact of life, and a potentially wonderful part of growing up for children at all stages of their lives. It's not sex itself that is harmful to children, but the conditions under which they might express themselves sexually that can leave them vulnerable to harms like HIV, unwanted pregnancy, or sexual violence.
In our country, there are people pushing a conservative religious agenda that would deny minors all sexual information and sexual expression. They're the people behind abstinence-only education, the child-pornography laws that get people arrested for taking pictures of their babies in the bathtub, or laws that make abortion risky and traumatic for young women. These so-called protections are more harmful to minors than sex itself.
But most people don't have an agenda. They're just nervous thinking about children as sexual beings and they're worried that something bad might happen to a kid they love. I'm not saying we should stop caring. But let's care realistically. Do we really want to strip sexuality out of young people's lives?
Really, is only naked women or men. In Mozilla Firebird, I have setted it to "Block images from goat.cx" (not visit!) and if my kids pictures of naked people find, fine. I did as child. I run linux but don't need this.
Well, there's naked people, and then there's porn. Personally I'm more worried about sites like bangbus which come 1/2 inch from condoning rape. I don't want my son treating women like that, and I don't want my daughter being treated like that, clothes on or off.
As friend said "You Americans are so puritanical!"
And that is just insulting. How do you resolve the above stereotype with the fact that most the porn *origninates* in the States? I suppose you think each and every German wears liederhosen too?
What "average" users do you know that would be comfortable with modifying .conf files and all that other crap that this forces them to do?
Anyone who calls this process "easy" is completely out of touch with the average PC user.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Then go looking for news articles about kids being lured to their death by people in chat rooms, etc. You'll find plenty.
You need to monitor what your kids are doing on the net. The children aren't responsible for their actions, You are.
Make sure that when they are very young, that you are with them any time that they are online.
Then, when they are old enough to understand, you open the Internet wide open and log everywhere they go. Make sure that they know you are logging.
Discuss with them what you think is inappropriate for them. If they visit sites that you don't approve of, talk to them about it.
Don't get me wrong, I love cool technology, but technology isn't a valid substitute for parenting.
Yes, my daughters love pill bottles. Love to try and open them and eat anything that pops out.
But according to half the people here I should let them at it.
There are legitimate reasons to agree as a society that kids viewing porn is not a good thing.
The government frequently passes laws restricting behavior of children in the interests of protecting them. (mandatory bike helmets, can't buy beer until you're 21, ban Joe Camel ads, etc.)
I have installed two different filters on my kid's computers and I still find porn in my son's cache. Whether Linux or Windows, to date, the only filter that realy works 100% of the time while I am not at home is to disable the lan connection to the internet. It's only a matter of time until he figures that one out too.
While this might take care of keeping kids off a large number of porn sites, it still will allow kids through to sites with all pictures. Those can't be filtered by keyword.
My personal belief is that kids under a certain age should NEVER be on the Internet without close supervision. As the kids get older, they should be given more freedom to explore by themselves, but monitoring software is still a good idea.
A close friend of mine who's 18 and getting ready to go off to college still isn't allowed on the computer when her mom is at work during the day. The computer is password protected so the mom has to be around when they're on it. They just accept it and deal with it. She doesn't sit and watch over their shoulder now that they're older, but she's at least around and able to glance at the screen occasionally.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
What about all the good porn that has no nipples in it?
Putting limits on material they want their children exposed to is a HUGE part of parenting. So why do you oppose software intended to let parents do just that?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Regarding all the "kids will hack it" and "watch your kids" content so far.
The underlying issue is quite simple - Access to the Internet is the equivalent of allowing your kids to leave the yard without permission, not bothering to know where they are, who they're contacting or being contacted by and generally leaving them at the mercy of the big, bad world.
So, establishing them on isolated segement NAT'd computers where every single 0 and 1 goes through a router that their parents manage or through a proxy service of the same circumstance isn't anything more complicated than insuring that Jack or Jane ask permission to leave the yard and to know where they're going and who they'll see when they do.
With kids, you don't throw out the rules for sake of convenience or with the idea of being "progressive" about child rearing. The consequences are just too dire.
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
But of course! We will always have people who will want to hand their responsibilities over to those willing to accept them.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
That's a different problem, which this solution doesn't attempt to address. This gives proactive parents another tool, which is a good thing.
I think the grandparent is aware that bangbus is fantasy, but the problem is: will kids be this aware? If they see pretend rape happening and nothing being said against it, it is not unreasonable to be worried that they will view the real thing as fine too. Remember that a small child's mind works differently to ours.
Not sure how all this is supposed to work and all, so anything I'm spouting off is strictly theoretical.
Couldn't someone float to a web-based proxy, get the stuff there, and pass it through the filters? If it's keyword-based, you could even probably parse it through a "translator" to get rid of those particular words.
It mentioned pushing traffic through the proxy -- does this mean that it'll be strictly on port 80? No FTP, no NNTP, no SMTP/POP, no Realplayer streams? Sounds lovely already.
I work at a place that does content filtering -- all MS-based with the proxy/filter hardwired to IE (this implies a few things, but I'll leave that as an exercise). Though this stops most folks from getting to certain places, the filter doesn't do too well taking out the IP-based addresses that some porn popups are made of. Even better, it won't stop anyone from receiving valid web-based e-mails that may contain "objectionable content" either in text or as attachments.
I believe filters are made to comply with rules. Otherwise, totalitarian dictator admins would simply restrict access to every port but 80...and even then, subject that to some heavy filtering and logging.
You are looking at this as though parents making mods or installing software are trying to prevent kids from looking at something they are actively searching for.
The real reason we want this stuff is so the kids won't stumble on to something bad they had no intention of finding. The lack of trust being demonstrated is a lack of trust toward every jerk on the internet that doesn't care about my kid.
That's my reason anyway. Does anyone here have kids?
Sorry, but I don't want my 10 year old daughter to be seeing pictues of violent and abusive sex, whether staged or not. Neither will I want my son to do, when he gets old enoughj to staart using the computer. Not to mention the many sites of brutal, if putatively consensual, abuse of women that are also out there. At ten, she is NOT ready to see pictures of women beaten bloody, being pissed and shat upon, and enduring mutilation of tits and genitals. Hell, I'm in my 40's and some of that shit is hard for ME to dismiss from my mind if/when I see it. Turning a child loose on the internet without supervision, is the psychic equivalent of sending them out to play on the freeway, without even giving them Safety Orange vests to wear.
Why don't various culture magazines offer filtering proxies tuned to reflect their cultural values? Like a Web "Reader's Digest". Different magazines would draw lines differently around sex, violence, gender, and other sociopolitical issues. Their magazine editorial would fill that out, and let people make consistent decisions through these infomediaries.
Of course this scheme doesn't thwart the porn-hungry mormon teenager, or the santablind pre-barmitzva. That's an NP-complete problem: a bad kid will just go to a friend's unfiltered web terminal. But I note the Slashdot oracle's fortune at the bottom-right of this posing page:
It is a wise father that knows his own child. -- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"
--
make install -not war
I think the big issue that when some my age (late 20's) sees a site like bangbus, they see it for what it is.
It's a fantasy site. Centered around the idea "What if your driving down the road and you drive by a hot woman and for 500 bucks she does anything you want."
We adults see it for the fantasy it is and nothing more.
The problem is that when a minor sees something like that, they're not going to see the fantasy aspect of it. Their going to see it as an acceptable way to treat a women. Then people will be all shocked when that same kid goes out and objectifies every woman he meets into a sex object.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Only if you agree that children don't acquire some rights to control their own reading habits at some point. Seems to me the best filter is active parental involvement. What kid wants to try and sneak a peek at something when the folks are sitting right there with her? :)
I do not have a signature
The Best HTTP proxy is at the local netcafe, where, upon paying your $3 (what lunch money) said 10 years old is now getting a faceful of creampie.
Clueless Conservative Parent:
"I'm gonna filter my puter and Johnny's not gonna get access to nuthin."
Johnny:
"My friend Jason (the other 13 year old) just burned me a CD with 30 hours of german bdsm, as well as Jenna Jamison's entire collection! My dad's so stoopid."
"Piter, too, is dead."
Whoa there conclusion jumper, did I say I wanted to ban bangbus? No, I said I don't want my young children seeing depictions of rape and the general lack of respect for women that I see there. What is "painfully obvious" to you and I isn't so obvious to a 7 year old.
You miss the point entirely. This article is good because it puts the power of filtering in the hands of the parent, where it belongs *NOT* the government.
we have a few on our street who demand "GO SLOW! We love our children!" signs from the town instead of teaching their kids not to run into the road
You're obviously not a parent. If you were, you'd never make such a moronic statement. Kids do stupid things. You can teach your child not to run in the road - is that a guarantee that 100% of the time the lesson is going to stick?? Hell no!!!! That's why residential neighborhoods usually cap the speed limit at 25.
I don't see how filtering for linux is going to help. You're not very likely to find linux running in in a trailer park, folks.
Insightful, my ass. This article isn't for Joe Sixpack. It's for Linux users who want a filtering solution. If I'm a Linux user, and I want to apply net filtering for my kids, this is how I do it. Pretty simple logic, huh bubba??
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
What reasons are these? By the time you're interested in porn, the last thing you need is for everyone to pretend it doesn't exist, which is what this guide is helping parents do. If your parents are of some denomination that makes this sort of thing bad, that's one thing; you can raise your kid however you like. Still, 'agreeing as a society' is kind of a stretch-- my grandfather is a psychiatrist, and he quietly made sure I wasn't at a loss for what was going on. And when you get down to it, I'd rather have 13 year olds masturbating to internet pron than 13 year olds engaging in sex with each other. How is it protecting kids? They still have these desires, the urges. The only thing it's protecting is their parents' conscience. Don't get me wrong, little jimmy shouldn't have to see goatse if he doesn't want to, or if his parents don't want to; but that is a family-based decision, and not one all of society agrees upon. Honestly not trolling, but don't want the karma backlash either.
Well, given that neither paying taxes nor sending your children are optional activities, I'd say your argument doesn't apply.
But there's something insidious about someone taking money from you (via taxes), and then using that money to undermine your parenting. Those who view children as a nuisance and the school district as a babysitter could care less what happens there. It is the parents who are actually being parents who take greatest offense at their own taxes being used to undermine their parenting efforts. It isn't an issue of free-speech rights, but rather of the rights of a parent to raise their own child in the manner they see fit. I don't tell you how to raise your children; why do you think you have the right to tell me how to raise mine?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Only if you agree that children don't acquire some rights to control their own reading habits at some point.
I think that if your installing a filter of some sort, you are controlling your kids reading habit. Parental involvement does not necessarily mean physically standing over their shoulders 24/7 though. You need to give children a degree of freedom while protecting them (what you protect them from is up to the individual parents). If you are filtering for your kids 24/7, they likely won't learn how to make decisions for themselves based on the values you have instilled into them. I'm not saying that you don't stay involved with kids but that you have to prepare them for that day when they go out on their own. I do agree that parental involvement is the best filter but it isn't the only way to protect and raise children.
My proxy system enforces just a few basic rules:
I told her straight out, if you think a blocked site is legit, just tell me and I'll see about unblocking it. I have blocked a few fringe science, religion, and political web sites. When she refused to discuss the contents with me, I blocked the sites. I was perfectly willing to leave them unblocked, but only if she was willing to discuss them rationally with my wife or myself.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Home schooling and and private schooling are always options. Taxes pay for more than just schools and it is good that you should be responsible for more than just your own children. And as a society, we do have the right to tell you how to raise your children. It is not just the family that raises the children, but the whole village.
Besides, it is more likely the parents undermining the schoold system. Parents come in bitching about little Sally getting an F even though she did no work. If parents backed up schools, then we would have better kids in society. Instead, we have parents teaching kids not to respect authority.
There is a time to question authority, but that time is not when you should be learning to read and write.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Not all parents want their children exposed to everything on the Internet, especially porn.
I find it strange that porn is the only content to be avoided that is explicitly mentioned by the story submitter and many comments. There are lots of things in the Internet that would be way more disturbing for children than porn, such as very extreme violence. Until that kind of content can be filtered I wouldn't even start thinking about filtering porn.
-- Repeat with me: "There is no right to profits".
Perhaps you should offer drugs to your children, so that they can learn to resist? Or more realistically, take them shopping and then yell at them when they want you to buy them something? Kids don't need all the temptations of the Internet. Hell, I don't: I installed Dan's Guardian to filter my own browsing.
who won't sit down with their kids and discuss what Johnny learned in school today
If you think it is trivial to ask your kid what they learned in school today, you don't have kids. The "Leave it to Beaver" ideal of sitting around to dinner table and talking about their day in school doesn't exist. But, whatever, this is slashdot, you get what you pay for.
The fundamental flaw with this ... is the notion that kids under the age of 13 or so should be left alone to browse the net.
Fully agree...
My 8-year old has a list of bookmarks for sites that he is allowed by me to access. Additions to the list are pre-screened by me, and I'm not afraid to tell him why something will not get on the list. I try to hide the Address box so that he can't type in URLs, but sometimes I do forget... Not that it much matters. I have his computer in plain sight of mine, and I watch him on the 'Net, if I am not interacting with him at the time. I also monitor TV usage, friends that he plays with, etc...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not micro-managing him, nor am I always in his face. He has my trust and confidence to make a decision on his own. If I feel he makes the wrong one, I try to educate and guide him, and discipline if necessary.
You have a very interesting style of discussing a very common belief. I'm assume you are not using particular language to offend - perhaps this is how you really talk about this subject.
There is some good in the idea that one should expose children to many variants of disease and illness to build a healthy immune system while they are young and physically able to handle the ravages of such bacteria and virus.
But that doesn't prove your point.
Subjecting a child's body to alcohol, nicotine, polio, etc is provably detrimental to their physical health. To say that there are no mental or emotional equivilants to these compounds is to dismiss decades and centuries of behavioral studies and observation.
"The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably in thought and act." -Orison Swett Marden
While you and I may disagree on what specific emotional and intellectual activites are worth restricting to adults I suspect you may agree that there are such limits you wouldn't want your children to pass. I could come up with a million hypotheticals, and many (many!) actual examples - but I'm sure you are equally imaginative.
-Adam
This software should make Linux a more viable option for families, but parents need to remember that no software is a substitute for watching what their kids are doing online in person. That's really the only sure-fire way that no objectionable material gets into children's hands.
Of course, that's difficult to do in practice, especially with latchkey kids. That's why teaching responsibility on the Internet is more effective than just installing a web filter.
However, this could be used by corperations to keep their employees on task instead of goofing off on the Internet, too. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. However, it is probably a more useful application of the software than using it as a net nanny.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Home schooling and and private schooling are always options. Taxes pay for more than just schools and it is good that you should be responsible for more than just your own children. And as a society, we do have the right to tell you how to raise your children. It is not just the family that raises the children, but the whole village.
<pa feedback>
Testing, testing. This thing on? Uhmm, fuck the village. Thank you.
</pa feedback>
Besides, it is more likely the parents undermining the schoold system. Parents come in bitching about little Sally getting an F even though she did no work. If parents backed up schools, then we would have better kids in society. Instead, we have parents teaching kids not to respect authority.
If by undermining the school system you include demanding my child's teachers actually work to educate their students rather than simply lecturing them out of a book, I'm guilty as charged. Also, if by teaching kids not to respect authority you mean teaching my children not to simply swallow what the teacher spews and take it as gospel, I am guily of that charge also.
There is a time to question authority, but that time is not when you should be learning to read and write.
When is it then? When they've dropped out? How about when they're in prison? Ooooh, I know. When they're standing in the soup line carrying their worldly goods under in their arms.
You missed the point entirely. The parent post I responded to seemed to indicate that installing a filter was side stepping parenting by putting the responsibility on software.
Perhaps you should offer drugs to your children, so that they can learn to resist?
Now why would you think of doing this? Did it work for you or your kids? Come on, nobody would do that. Kids need to be taught the dangers of drugs (and lots of other things), but offering them drugs isn't the approach I would use.
Kids don't need all the temptations of the Internet. Hell, I don't: I installed Dan's Guardian to filter my own browsing.
Kids using the Internet is almost a requirement in schools today. My kids (ages 7 & 10) have both had reports that asked for one Internet resource as part of their reports. Now that doesn't mean you give the kids unlimited access to the Internet because of the content. You could almost look at the Internet as going to the mall. For the most part, the stores are OK for kids to be in. You might want to "filter" them to not go into a "Spencer's", "Victoria Secret", etc... because you don't agree with the content (NOTE: I'm not saying these stores are necessarily bad, but as an example, their goods could be seen as "bad" for young children). Installing a filter for browsing can be useful to keep the "bad" information from showing up in your kids browser. I don't actually have a filter installed on my system but rather I do sit with my kids when they are doing anything in a browser. My kids do enjoy a few of the sites (Barbie, NeoPets, YuGiOh (sp?), Lego, Bionicles, etc...) and once at that site I might let them on their own for a bit. They know how to operate the browser and they also know that if they see anything that they weren't expecting that they are to get myself or my wife immediately. The sites they visit are what we consider acceptable material. Now my son has asked to look for things on Google and we as parents have told him that he can't use that unless we are sitting there with him. For now we trust him to follow our wishes and until he shows that he can't be trusted, we'll continue to give him some level of freedom (in this case we don't "block" him from doing things on the computer).
Or more realistically, take them shopping and then yell at them when they want you to buy them something?
Well telling them that you aren't buying them anything depends on why you went shopping in the first place. If you were going because you needed to pick up some groceries, then you can tell the kids that you aren't buying them anything. If you take them to the store and tell them that you are buying them something, then by all means you should hold to your word.
Back to the topic though, filtering is a tool that parents may choose to use to protect children from information they deem inappropriate. As for using a filter for your own browsing habits("I installed Dan's Guardian to filter my own browsing"), I guess you feel that you can't make a good decision or wish to rely on someone elses opinion (which may or may not match your own). You probably shouldn't allow your children Internet access as you don't seem to be able to protect yourself from the content. My approach is to prepare my kids to judge for themselves, within reason for the age/maturity.
When a kid is in fifth grade, that is not the time to be questioning authority. Questioning authority at that age is just being disrepectful to your elders.
Teachers can not actually teach, they can only present material. If the kids do not want to learn, then they will not. Your attitude teaches your child to be a selfish prick that needs to be spoon fed. Have you actually taught in a classroom setting in the last decade? I have.
Kids need to respect thier teachers. Kids need to do the work. And parents have to back up the schools in making the children accountable for what they do and don't do. If you feel that a teacher is only doing a mediocre job, then explain your concerns privately either to the school administrators or the teacher. If necessary, teach your kids what you feel they are missing in school. Don't tear down the teacher in front of your kids, that will only do the teacher and your kids a disservice.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
This brings us to environment. Only by exposing one's kids to life in the real world
I only wish to add a little something to this, which is that children will not so much learn purely from exposure, but from watching their parents deal with the exposure. I guess most of what we're talking about with filtering is naked people. Well, a child seeing nudity may or may not learn anything, but watching whether his father pervs, looks away or just accepts will surely guide his future behaviour.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I think the sign will make a small difference. I, personally have no qualms about doing 80 in a 65 if that matches the flow of traffic (living in Phoenix, this is a fact of life). Even at lower speeds, it's common for most drivers to "bend" the speed limit by 5 mph or so. If I know I'm in a residential neighborhood, and I'm aware that there are kids playing, (school zone, etc) I'm more apt to keep to the letter of the speed limit. More signs certainly not a "catch-all". If a jerk wants to fly through a school zone at 45, a sign isn't going to stop him. But I do believe that it does slow down a percentage of drivers (especially parents).
Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
We see a child misbehaving in public, we morally have the responsibility to step and tell the child that they are doing wrong.
That's ridiculous. If I had children, I wouldn't trust 90% of you yahoos to "pitch in". What you and I consider "morally" acceptable are, quite possibly, light years apart. I don't give a rat's ass if a kid wanders around in public swearing and being "vulgar" and etc. etc. However, lots of other people do. Who's the one with the right to enforce their moral opinion here? If some bible thumping klan member explains to their child that it's morally wrong to say "fuck" but morally right to refer to black people as "niggers" and gay people as "faggots", do I have the moral right and obligation to go over and beat the kid in the head with my ideals which are completely opposite of that? Hardly. I may WANT to, but I don't have any RIGHT to.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
And as a society, we do have the right to tell you how to raise your children.
No, you don't. As long as a parent isn't harming their child, they have the innate right to raise him or her as they see fit.
If that child doesn't live up to the societies standards, than society has to take it up with the parents - it's their right and responsibility.
Parents come in bitching about little Sally getting an F even though she did no work. If parents backed up schools, then we would have better kids in society.
If the schools backed the parents up in return, then it'd be great. If I were a teacher, and a parent came in asking why Little Sally got an F, I'd point out the requirements for each grade level - and show how Sally did not meet them. (Then again, I'd have the policy that one of my teachers had explicit - if you turn in every assignment, and they're all complete, you will pass the class.)
My kids - they're being homeschooled. 1st, my wife and I feel that it's best for my family. 2nd, we can't give them the kind of education we want for them in school.
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
NSFW links below, but that should be obvious.
Children are tough. Seeing goatse or rotten.com or pichunter.com (a personal favorite of mine) isn't going to warp their minds. These are all things that happen and exist in the real world; seeing them as a child isn't going to do any more harm than seeing them as an adult.
"Subjecting a child's body to alcohol, nicotine, polio, etc is provably detrimental to their physical health."
Alcohol and nicotine are drugs, not diseases, so it makes no sense to give them any when they're young. What do you think they put in polio vaccines, or any vaccine for that matter?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
That said, I can see parents getting annoyed when they have to fight a constant rear-guard action against smut, violence, and what-have-you everywhere. Despite what your parents tell you, it is undeniable that what the kids see around them is what they accept as normal. So parents do have a legitimate interest in public debate over what types of material are appropriate for public places / airwaves. And especially over how much of their own social/political philosophy teachers should be allowed to preach in classrooms.
There is an argument to be made between community standards, especially with respect to media which is so easy to see (often impossible not to see), and 1st amendment rights. Speech is protected, but
Not necessarily. Many gifted students don't need to do the many repetitive exercises that teachers assign the entire class, because they can pick up the ideas after the first or second time through. If the kid can prove they know the material, then why make them waste their time (and yours)? Let them do something else.
Whether or not a person believes that a word should be used in a public place because it is wrong is a function of morality.
Whether or not a word should be used in a public place because other people believe it should not be used in a public place is a function of politeness.
Therefore, telling a child that they should not use a word in public because other people believe it should not be used is a function of politeness.
Telling a child that they should not use a word in a public place because it is wrong is a function of morality.
Short of vulgarity laws existing to enforce a community's veiw of acceptable behavior, you have niether the right to be surrounded by polite people, nor the right to enforce your moral viewpoint on anyone else.
This difference of belief we have here is a function of social liberalism/conservatism. Liberals hate it when someone tries to enforce an arbitrary code of conduct on them. Conservatives want their own arbitrary code of conduct enforced on other people. To be honest, I view the conservative position as utterly idiotic. The idea that other people should presume to know what's better for me than I do when I am not afflicted by anything that would impair judgement and I'm not impacting any unwilling third party negatively is ludicrous. Obviously, society needs to protect itself to a reasonable extent, and that's when we hit laws. The argument is over just how much society needs to be saved from itself.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I agree that filters may not be the most effective tool, but they can be useful, particularly in preventing accidental viewing of some of the more extreme material on the web. The first example I can think of would be something like the whitehouse.com vs whitehouse.gov (I don't know if this is still a problem).
As far as the long term approach, if I'm trying to filter when they are in their mid-teens, likely I messed up when they were younger. In my opinion, a value system has been instilled at a much younger age. I'm sure that my kids will get a level of curiosity at some point but I don't want to expose them too early.
PS: Sorry for misinterpreting.
I can't believe this is the same slashdot crowd that flames every other attempt at even the slightest application of censorship. (And, just a little while ago, was comparing their favorite pr0n mags)...
:) ). (So flame on :) )....
What's the point of all this? Explain to me, logically, how blocking the real world from a child is going to help him or her become more mature and prepared to deal with the same real world later on? Exactly what "mind warping" are you all so afraid of?
Come on, think about it...they can't stay in your little plastic bubble forever. All you're doing is stunting their mental growth (no pun intended).
Face it. The world is the world. You can't change that, no one can. Don't think about "protecting" them...think about preparing them. How are they ever going to become independent if you are working to prolong dependence and naivete?
I know I'll probably get modded troll for this, but it's an honest question: why censorship? What good, specifically, does it do?
Besides, unless you've seriosly locked down your machine (read: padlock+ ), it's pretty trivial to bypass these little pieces of software... Knoppix CD, anyone?
Even if they aren't able to bypass it (say you've set up a Fort Knox of padlocks, bios passwords, bootloader passwords, system passwords, filtering at the gateway, filtering off-site, etc), it's only a matter of time before they try looking for the same stuff on a different, less "protected" computer. And thus, they just will become resentful towards you....
Just my $0.02
(And no, I'm not a parent