From Bess to Worse

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes " From about 1996 to 2003, there were regular reports listing examples of sites stupidly blocked by blocking software. The genre has tapered off recently, probably as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in 2003 that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was constitutional, requiring blocking software in schools and libraries that receive federal funds, despite all the evidence of over-blocking presented at the trial. The last high-profile story about a site blocked by blocking software was about the blocking of BoingBoing almost a year ago. But the lack of recent reports on blocking software errors doesn't mean that the software has gotten better." The rest of his essay follows.

One product that generated several reports over the years was "Bess, the Internet Retriever" from N2H2, which has since been bought out by Secure Computing, which also makes a blocking program called SmartFilter (the one that blocked BoingBoing) and now sells "SmartFilter, Bess Edition" which uses the same database as Bess. Different organizations and individuals published a series of investigative reports about Bess from 1997 until 2002, listing sites about gay rights, eating disorders, and other subjects that were blocked as "pornography". In Ben Edelman's supplemental report, submitted as testimony in the CIPA trial, he listed examples of erroneously blocked sites that he had reported to N2H2 in his first expert report, and which were still being blocked five months later.

Since Bess represents a set of data points showing how the accuracy of a blocking program can change, or not change, over the years, recently I began testing it again. I didn't know whether to expect it to be better or worse. On the one hand, advances in technology and greater revenue to censorware companies could have caused the software to improve. On the other hand, the number of Web pages, and the rate at which dynamic sites like blogs change content every day, has exploded. The result? I'm still tabulating data, but it looks as if the accuracy rate is roughly the same as it was in 2000, when about 30% of blocked sites were obvious errors. Then and now, I found most of the errors by starting with a large list of URLs culled from search engines and other sources, and simply running them through the software to see what was blocked.

Here is a partial list of some of the questionable categorizations made by Bess; as of this writing, all of the following sites are listed as "Pornography" when you look them up on Secure Computing's Bess lookup form. (This is not just a fluke of the lookup tool; I tested against a copy of the software that all of these sites really were blocked.) The "screen cap" link next to each site links to a snapshot of the results taken from the lookup form (you can check on http://database.n2h2.com/ to see if the page is still returning the same results, although the more obvious errors will probably be fixed after this article is published):

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Austin chapter (screen cap)
• Cretans of Houston (screen cap). That's Cretans, as in "people from the island of Crete". Not to be confused with the Cretins of Houston, located here.
• The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (screen cap)
• The website of the public art galleries of British Columbia, Canada (screen cap)
• Rail2000, now the Bay Rail Alliance, a consumer group lobbying for a San Francisco regional rail system (screen cap)
• Rainbow Service Organization, a gay rights advocacy group (screen cap)
• GardenMentors.com, a custom gardening services company in Seattle (screen cap)
• A web site for Catalina 380 series boats (screen cap)
• Open Source ERP, a site promoting open source software for enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (screen cap)
• The Bryn Mawr Mainliners, a barbershop harmony group (screen cap)
• Timber Trails, an outdoor recreation site (screen cap)
• The MEFTA Institute: "Middle East Free Trade Areas for Business Peace" -- world peace through cheap oil! (screen cap)
• Topple Rummy, a (somewhat out-of-date) site calling for the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld (screen cap)
• The Alabama Network of Children's Advocacy Centers (screen cap)
• PSARA, a non-profit organization for training cruise travel agents (screen cap)
• Park Place Behavioral Health Care, a non-profit mental health care agency (screen cap)
• The Oklahoma chapter of the American Institute of Building Design (screen cap)
• The Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix (screen cap)
• CEMTACH -- Computational ElectroMagnetics Theory-Algorithm-Code-Hardware. "Our goal is to develop systems simulations capabilities based on time-domain computational electromagnetics methods." Thanks for clearing that up. (screen cap)
• Fund for Humanity, a San Francisco non-profit supporting environmental organizations and organizations that assist the poor. (screen cap)

A long-standing point of contention while earlier reports about Bess were coming out, was whether every site on their blacklist had been reviewed by a human before being blocked. In 1998 the CEO testified before Congress that "All sites that are blocked are reviewed by N2H2 staff before being added to the block lists." However in their 2002 annual report the company finally admitted that not all sites were reviewed before being blocked: "Through automated categorization or human review, Web sites are identified as fitting into one or more of our categories". At one point an N2H2 employee also told me that when one site is blocked, they will often block all sites hosted on that machine or at that IP -- which of course means that those sites are also not reviewed before being blocked. In any case, it's possible to access some of these sites by IP address, such as the BC Art Galleries site via this link, or the or the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence via this link -- so if they're not sharing their IP with other sites, that wouldn't explain how they got blocked either. Smartfilter spokesperson Tomo Foote-Lennox said that one other blocked URL that I found, http://www.arbiol.org/, was the result of an experiment N2H2 once did with fully automated website ratings.

Foote-Lennox added, "In general, we find that schools are VERY sensitive to under-blocking. The would rather block a whole lot of useful reference sites to avoid exposing one porn site." Probably true, although keep in mind we're talking about liability issues, not actual moral outrage. (If they were really morally outraged, they'd be trying to keep kids away from uncensored Internet access everywhere, not just in school! That is in fact the approach that schools take with things like drugs, which do inspire moral outrage because they really are harmful.) Perhaps what is needed is a law explicitly shielding schools from all liability for what students do or see on the Internet at school, if the faculty had no knowledge of it.

(Obligatory interstitial advertisement for common sense: I still don't see what the big deal is about porn anyway. Ask yourself: Why is it harmful to see a picture of a naked person, or even a picture of people having sex? And try to find an answer to that question that doesn't involve, "Lots of other people think so." That includes all variations like "Our society has determined...", "We as a people have decided...", which are just re-phrasings of "Lots of other people think so." I submit that if you disallow those variations of grownup-peer-pressure as an excuse, most people can't really come up with any reason at all.)

OK, flame-retardant suit off, lab coat back on. Previous reports have listed absurd examples of sites blocked by Bess, and looking at any one of those examples or the ones listed here, I'd say that in terms of public policy discussions -- specifically, whether a blocking software company should be trusted to decide what students can look at -- any one of these blocked sites would be more significant than, say, the blocking of BoingBoing which got so much attention. BoingBoing got blocked because of a non-sexual picture of a bare breast on the cover of one of the books they reviewed -- and in fact they were blocked only in the "nudity" category, which includes only "non-pornographic images of the bare human body". So the block on BoingBoing really only revealed that Secure Computing was a bit heavy-handed. (The real problem is that SmartFilter has the category for non-pornographic nudity blocked by default, even though the CIPA filtering law certainly doesn't require schools to block non-pornographic artistic images!) On the other hand, the fact that EFF Austin and the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence are currently blocked as "Pornography", suggests that in many instances the blocking companies have nobody at the controls at all. To focus on stupid-but-not-completely-insane blocks like BoingBoing is letting them off easy.

So why did the laundry lists of blocked sites released over the years never become as widely known as BoingBoing, or the guffaw-inducing examples like "Beaver College", which had to change their name in part because of students reportedly being blocked from accessing their website? I think it's because the news favors a good "punch line" -- a fact that anybody can understand that makes us feel smarter than the computers making these dumb mistakes. "Oh, I get it, it was blocked because it was called Beaver College!" But the "punch line" anecdotes are precisely the ones that let the blocking companies off lightly, because it gives them a plausible-sounding excuse for making an error. On the other hand, when the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence gets blocked as "Pornography", that could probably force the blocking company to answer some tough questions if it got more press, but there's no good punch line there, so the story just fizzles.

So, while I'm looking through the rest of the data, let me try and come up with some punch lines for reporters to make these blocked sites newsworthy. OK: Why was GardenMentor.com blocked? To keep kids away from all the dirty bitches and hoes! Get it? Ha ha! Why was the Catalina 380 yachting site blocked from kids? Because teens are too vulnerable to pier pressure! Hey, where are you going?

Comments

Maybe I'm stupid...

[Anonymous Coward]

From about 1996 to 2003, there were regular reports listing examples of sites stupidly blocked by blocking software. The genre has tapered off recently, probably as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in 2003 that the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was constitutional, requiring blocking software in schools and libraries that receive federal funds, despite all the evidence of over-blocking presented at the trial.
 
... but I'm not seeing the cause / effect here.

Re:Maybe I'm stupid...

[rblancarte]

I would have to agree here. Maybe reading the whole article would help this make sense, but IMHO, the summary does not.

RonB

Re:Maybe I'm stupid...

[torstenvl]

CIPA = constitutional; CIPA mandates school internet filtering; therefore schools are required to have internet filters
Schools are required to have internet filters; Stories about false positives were to prevent schools/libraries/etc. getting internet filters; therefore the issue of false positives is moot and can't do much good
The issue of false positives is moot with regard to school filtering; there are few other reasons to give media exposure to such stories; therefore such media exposure is now rarer than before

Money, for people.

[Rob T Firefly]

Fund for Humanity, a San Francisco non-profit supporting environmental organizations and organizations that assist the poor. (screen cap)

I know them! Someone donated in my name as a Christmas gift.

Woohoo!

[mwvdlee]

My photography site, which contains some minor nudity on some pages and properly labels these pages in the HTML headers marking them as "some nudity", isn't blocked! That either means they understand my artistic views as a photographer or my site just isn't visited by anybody.

Re:Woohoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've listed your site's address and indicated (on slashdot) that there is pr0n^H^H^H^Hminor nudity on your webpage. I don't think you have to worry about it not being visited anymore.

Re:Woohoo!

[JourneyExpertApe]

Maybe it's because it's in freaky deaky Dutch.

Re:Woohoo!

[pyrrhonist]

That either means they understand my artistic views as a photographer or my site just isn't visited by anybody.

I took a good look at your site. I don't claim to understand the artistic views of a photographer, but I do have to say that this is one fine pussy!

Re:Woohoo!

[jonadab]

> My photography site [...] isn't blocked! That either means

It means nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I've seen the numbers that the filtering companies all publish, boasting of how many sites they have categorized. The numbers look impressive only if you have absolutely no concept whatsoever of the size of the world or of the scope of the internet. 50 million URLs in 30 languages is a typical number, and bear in mind this is everything they've categorized, not just porn and such but also games, chat, education, ecommerce, and so forth. The *largest* number I've seen is Websense's 200 million URLs in 50 languages, still a *tiny* fraction of the internet. I don't have a recent figure for the number of websites on the internet, but I'm sure the number of registered domain names, let alone URLs, is so far beyond 200 million that there's no comparison. (Indeed, it's not particularly difficult to find a single word in the English language for which Google returns over a billion results, without resorting to trivial words like "the" and "of".) Furthermore, the filtering companies never say anything about the *currentness* of their lists, so I suppose a significant percentage of those 200 million URLs are 404 now anyway, or maybe don't even resolve.

Some of the filtering companies try to compensate for their inability to hire enough staff to build lists that large either by blocking entire IP ranges or by on-the-fly AI checking of URLs the first time they are encountered, to see if they should be blocked. Of course, these strategies lead to false positives, which is what the article is mostly about.

Frankly the only sane approach is to *supervise* the children while they are using the internet. You know, have an adult *watch* them. I suppose that's too difficult.

Or I suppose you could use whitelists. That's very limiting, and takes overblocking to the extreme, but it does actually *work*.

Re:Doing my part

[Fahrvergnuugen]

I believe this is the list you were looking for.

It boils down to a choice...

[StressGuy]

Either you accept the blocking software with the understanding that some sites that should not be blocked get blocked anyway.

Or, you don't use the blocking software because of censorship of otherwise legitimate sites

Or, you niavely belive that the above situation will reconcile itself (i.e. blocking software that works precisely the way you want it to all the time).

Like anything, where you are with this depends on your particular needs and/or station in life.

I see no need to turn this into an assault on the 1st amendment, it really boils down to how some parents are trying to protect their children from potentially harmful content.

I say, live and let live on this one.

You want a better debate? Try applying the same philosophy to the death penalty. In order to be pro-death penalty, you must fall into either one of two camps:

1) You believe a system can be put in place such that an innocent man is never put to death.

2) You understand that 1) is a practical impossibility, but are willing to accept the consequences for the "greater good"

Or,

3) If you don't believe 1) and can't accept 2), you are anti death-penalty.

4) If your personal beliefs preclude ending life for any reason, you are anti-death penalty.

To me, these "contraversial issues" are not so complex once broken down. People will be different, rather than waste time trying to get us all on the same page, just let them be different. Neither of the above arguments are ultimately winnable, all we are left with are laws that the majority of us agree to.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[JoshJ]

The "majority of people" supported slavery. The "majority of people" supported keeping 'dem uppity negros' from being able to ride in the front of a bus, or use the same restrooms as white people, etc.

The majority can kiss my ass- this country at best can be nothing more than an idiocracy, and that's only if the corporations and the church would get out of the government.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try applying the same philosophy to the death penalty. In order to be pro-death penalty, you must fall into either one of two camps:

1) You believe a system can be put in place such that an innocent man is never put to death.

2) You understand that 1) is a practical impossibility, but are willing to accept the consequences for the "greater good"


You forgot 2.5) My daddy was pro-death penalty, and if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me! Wait, what's a death pena... ooooh! NASCAR's on! Gotta go!

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[UbuntuDupe]

Well, about the death penalty:

I believe that people who are innocent of the capital crime of which they are accused, will be inevitably executed.

I do not believe the people who are innocent of the capital crime of which they accused AND:

a) cooperated with the police
b) did not confess to the crime
c) took the witness stand at trial
d) did not commit any other capital crimes
e) cooperated in their defense at trial
f) are in a country with an independent judiciary
g) did not assist in the crime
h) had DNA tests done

will inevitably be executed. Counter-examples are welcome.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[computational super]

It makes me want to break the system. If I wasn't so lazy, I'd write a bot to report every site as porn to every monitoring system (and flag everything on YouTube as "inappropriate", etc. etc.) If all of us who opposed censorship did that, we'd eventually break the system completely and at least people would stop with the damned filters.

I'm too lazy to actually do it, though.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[spun]

Are you saying that people who are innocent and take all necessary steps will NEVER be executed? And then you want counter examples? So we're supposed to find cases where someone has been executed, THEN proven innocent, and ALL those things are true? If we can't find any, that would prove what, exactly? Do you REALLY not see how ridiculous your criteria are?

Here's a list of death row inmates exonerated since 1973. There is at least one case in that list that meets all the criteria, and would have been executed, except they were subsequently found innocent on appeal. Here's a list of people executed, but possibly innocent Realistically, that's as close as it's possible to get to providing counter examples.

Thanks for playing "Excusing the Inexcusable." Here's a copy of our home game, in which players attempt to construct arguments supporting such things as torture, rape, and Celine Dion.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[UbuntuDupe]

Do you REALLY not see how ridiculous your criteria are?

No, I can't. When someone says "the death penalty may snare innocent people", they're insinuating that it puts ordinary, innocent people, like me, at risk. Failing to meet those criteria would refute that.

"Possibly innocent" won't cut it, I'm afraid. "Exonerated" won't either. In a lot of the cases the accused confesses, or helped cover up the crime. For me to be afraid of being wrongfully executed, I have to be afraid that I would be executed, even if I did everything in the list. Yeah, it sounds cold, but it's hard for me to feel sorry for someone who got executed, when he "merely" covered up the crime, or "merely" misled the police as to who the killer was.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[spun]

Ahhhh, how exactly is one to be proven innocent after one is dead? Who would go to the bother, and who exactly would decide? What would you accept as proof of innocence?

I'm sorry but you have set up criteria that are impossible to fulfill. And can you please answer the question: do you think that innocent people, defined by your criteria, are NEVER executed? Really? Never? Go ahead, say it plainly and clearly and see how it sounds: "Innocent people, as defined by my criteria, have never, are never, and will never be executed." Go on, say it. We all need a good laugh.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[UbuntuDupe]

Ahhhh, how exactly is one to be proven innocent after one is dead? Who would go to the bother,

Just guess here: maybe people who are hellbent on proving that the innocent get executed?

Know anyone like that?

and who exactly would decide? What would you accept as proof of innocence?

Anything that establishes innocence beyond a reasonable doubt: DNA evidence showing it was someone else at the scene, a recording showing the person was somewhere else, a witness significantly altering testimony, etc.

I'm sorry but you have set up criteria that are impossible to fulfill.

No, they're easy to fulfill if examples exist, and they're precisely the heart of the matter.

And can you please answer the question: do you think that innocent people, defined by your criteria, are NEVER executed? Really? Never? Go ahead, say it plainly and clearly and see how it sounds: "Innocent people, as defined by my criteria, have never, are never, and will never be executed." Go on, say it. We all need a good laugh.

Innocent people, as defined by my criteria, have never, are never, and will never be executed.

If you didn't commit a serious crime, and you're accused of it, here's a crazy idea: tell the truth.

Don't cover for Uncle Mikey. Don't change your story. Tell your story to the jury. Tell your defense lawyer everything.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[spun]

I already gave you what you asked for, then. You obviously have not even read the links I provided. Since you are too lazy to click on a link, let me copy and paste for you.

a witness significantly altering testimony

Juan Moreno, who was wounded during the attempted robbery and was a key eyewitness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only identified Cantu as the shooter because he felt pressured and was afraid of the authorities.

Ruben Cantu was executed in 1993

 

Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an "enforcer" who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.

Leo Jones was executed 1998

Do accept the fact that you are wrong, or will you try to weasel out of this by claiming that some part of your criteria were not fulfilled? If you wish to try to weasel out of it, I would posit that the burden of proof is now on you. Go look up their cases and show me where all your criteria were not fulfilled. I suppose in the second case he doesn't technically fulfill the "not confessing to the crime" criteria, but I don't think a confession tortured out of someone should count, do you?

This is why I had you state your beliefs clearly and unequivically. I had already provided you with the proof that you were wrong, had you bothered to read the articles I ilnked to. But you had left yourself an out in how you worded your original statement. You also had neglected to state what you would consider proof. Now you are trapped between your own statements and the cold hard facts. You have stated a belief that has been proven false, and made to look quite the fool. I will enjoy watching you squirm as you try to extricate yourself.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[r3m0t]

"Either you accept the blocking software with the understanding that some sites that should not be blocked get blocked anyway."

Some sites? At my school (Jews Free School, filtering run by the government under the name London Grid for Learning) about 30% of sites are blocked. Usually any incorrect blocking is "match making site" or "Sex Site" (where there are surely no keywords in the page to incite blocking). I find an (incorrectly) blocked website roughly every 5-10 minutes of browsing. Occasionally valid websites are also categorised as "hacking site".

Any forum, discussion site, comments area in a blog or chat room is blocked. Any social site is blocked. Any image search is blocked. Any secure websites are blocked (except from teachers and UCAS, the national university admissions system). Any .doc, .exe, other MS Office, .zip is blocked. Any .swf is blocked except from teachers. They once blocked .css for about a minute, presumably because they didn't know what it did. Javascript files are blocked, preventing most websites to be used as they are supposed to.

When I reach a blocked site, I (almost) always click on the submission link, and it says "Sent to NetSweeper". Still, it's just as inaccurate as it was when I entered the school 5 years ago.

There will always be some false positives, yes, but does it really have to be so bad? I'm pretty sure a more accurate system would not be difficult.

At the same time, you can visit Wikipedia and I suspect (although I haven't tried it) visit articles about sex positions, etc. Just have to make sure that nobody's reading Maddox...

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[Anonymous Coward]

> No, I can't. When someone says "the death penalty may snare innocent people", they're insinuating that it puts ordinary, innocent people, like me, at risk. Failing to meet those criteria would refute that.

So... you're okay with it so long as it doesn't put people like you at risk? I guess I can understand that.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[UbuntuDupe]

I already gave you what you asked for, then.

No, you didn't. You ignored what I asked for and then gave something you deemed "close enough".

You obviously have not even read the links I provided.

Of course I didn't. The links as labled didn't indicate that they could contain what I was asking for.

Do accept the fact that you are wrong, or will you try to weasel out of this by claiming that some part of your criteria were not fulfilled?

I asked for people who met certain criteria. You gave people that failed to meet the criteria. Objecting on that ground is not "weaseling out". It is you "not getting it".

I suppose in the second case he doesn't technically fulfill the "not confessing to the crime" criteria, but I don't think a confession tortured out of someone should count, do you?

My critera was "no confession". And I seriously doubt it was "tortured out of him" as conventionally understood, otherwise he would have "e) cooperated in their defense at trial" and gotten it thrown out on this grounds. I don't deny that force was used, but this is not the same as "beating a confession out of someone", even if it is reprehensible.

But you had left yourself an out in how you worded your original statement.

Not unless you consider *any* criteria for *anything* to be an out. "Hey, on this triangle, a^2 + b^2 doesn't equal c^2 ... oh RIGHT, nice one there, you left yourself an out in that the triangles have to be *right* triangles. ****in' weasel."

You have stated a belief that has been proven false, and made to look quite the fool.

How does someone who can't suppress his knee jerking look?

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[spun]

You still haven't addressed the first case I provided, and all I have to do is show one case that meets your criteria where the person was executed. I have done so.

The sad fact is that criminal investigations are often political, and law enforcement officials are pressured into getting a conviction no matter what. Also, some people in law enforcement are racist and have no qualms seeing an innocent minority killed. Innocent people have been executed in this country, and innocents will continue to be executed. I'm sure I won't convince you or other reactionaries of this fact, but I don't really need to. I only need to convince the fence sitters, and as I have presented a much stronger argument than you have, I feel like I've done what I set out to do.

I will admit that, if you are white and/or make enough money, you have little to worry about wrongful execution. Another sad fact about our justice system.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[UbuntuDupe]

You still haven't addressed the first case I provided,

Right, because I'm not going to be jerked around by someone who knowingly chooses examples that don't fit.

Do you really expect me to disprove each example one-by-one until you get to one that counts? That's not how it works, I'm afraid. I'm not obligated to go through the effort to disprove each example until you can get your act together. Just for fun, I'll check it out some time though. I don't think it tells on each one whether they took stand.

Innocent people have been executed in this country, and innocents will continue to be executed.

I agree with that (for a narrow definition of "innocent"). Remember my original position?

and as I have presented a much stronger argument than you have, I feel like I've done what I set out to do.

Yeah, you presented an "argument" no one here disputed. My concern was about a more nuanced question -- one you didn't address.

I will admit that, if you are white and/or make enough money, you have little to worry about wrongful execution. Another sad fact about our justice system.

Only to the extent that those groups correlate with "not doing stupid **** when accused of a serious crime, and don't as often commit those crimes".

Again, I don't dispute that people are executed when they didn't commit the crime. What I dispute is that people who follow the simple formula I outlined have a risk of execution.

Now, if you want to say that, gosh, if someone's innocent, we should expect him not to be convicted even if he does mislead the police, hide evidence, sabatoge his own defense, refuse to tell his version of events, etc. I might even agree. But that's different from saying that the death penalty leads to random, innocent people being railroaded against the best honest efforts on their part.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[linuxrocks123]

Okay, well it's a shame that secure sites are blocked, because that's usually one of the best outs you have; it is the best one I had.

If the blocking is done heuristically, then you're pretty much screwed. However, if it's done with a list of sites (and it sounds like it is), set up CGIProxy on your home computer. Then, navigate to the raw, dynamic IP address and search from there. I had an https CGIProxy on my Linux box at home throughout my last 2 years of high school or so. It + Knoppix disk = they can kiss my posterior. Even if you can't get https, the http cgiproxy would do as long as it's just using blacklists.

Good luck, and Fight the Man :)

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[mcspoo]

In some cases, it's the choice between being funded and not being funded.

A law was passed (for most states) which requires that all PUBLIC LIBRARIES must use some manner of filtering in order to obtain LSTA grant monies. If you do not filter, you cannot obtain these monies. Thus, you're forced to make a decision not based on the needs or desires of the community itself, but based on "can we get by on a single Amiga 500? (or whatever bargain basement POS you have available).

Many communities, like mine, do not want a company from California, or managed by some flippant nincompoop organization that thinks say, typing, writing or think the word "boobs" is reason to revoke the first ammendment making filtering decisions for me, or my community.

Re:It boils down to a choice...

[monkeydo]

You forgot David Gale.

Re:Doing my part

[JoshJ]

That's not categorized like a retarded web filter does. I managed to forget a few, though: Bomb, Explosive, Dynamite, TNT, Nuke, Nuclear, IED. This is quite fun, though there's someone knocking at my door no-- *CARRIER LOST*

more of a pain than its worth

[spazmolytic666]

I work for a high school fixing the computers, and to most of the staff the state required web blocking software is a huge pain in the ass. Lots of times I get complaints about teachers not being able to get to web sites that are related to their lesson because of the sensitivity of the software. Also, a good number of the students know how to bypass it anyway. Although I could set up the teachers computers to bypass it, it is not allowed.

Re:more of a pain than its worth

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a high school. For our internet everything goes through DansGuardian (transparently, and all other ports are blocked). For blacklists I use URL Blacklist (Commercial, but inexpensive) and Shalla's Blacklists (free for non-commercial use). Shalla's Blacklist occasionally overblocks, but if you submit the error to the feedback form it's fixed by the next day.

DansGuardian's content analysis tends to be fairly accurate. The blacklists are there for stuff it doesn't catch or for specific sites we need to block (ie, MySpace).

One thing I love about this is the software is GPL'd and the blacklists are human readable text files. Both lists respond to feedback very quickly. Plus, you have the power of Squid to control every possible detail. I can allow/block certain sites/categories based user, network, computer, day, time, or any combination of those.

I know the accuracy because I read the reports from Lire (log reporter) every morning.

Re:Doing my part

[elrous0]

Ironically, people say the same thing every day over at Oprah.com and no one blocks HER.

-Eric

What's the solution?

[XxtraLarGe]

Would it better just to create a red-light district on the internet, like the .xxx domain, or is it better for the industry perhaps to use a meta tag like , etc? There has to be a way to preserve freedom of speech and implement blocking for those who don't want to see or want their children to see objectionable content.

Re:What's the solution?

[XxtraLarGe]

Slashdot stripped out the meta tag. my example was meta=sex, meta=adult, etc.

Re:What's the solution?

[Yoozer]

The problem is that the site admin is still going to register and use the HotAdultVideos.com URL; maybe to redirect to the .xxx domain.

Most official (pay) sites have warnings; it's usually the free galleries that don't.

Those who don't want their children to see the naughty bits have to do something very simple: monitor them when they're surfing. There's the added benefit of spending quality time with your kids. Then they can also explain why they don't like that the kids go there instead of just relying on a dumb filter that is easily tricked.

Re:What's the solution?

[rblancarte]

You do hit the nail on the head. I have always wondered why people were against .xxx , it always seemed like a win-win solution that helped all parties. For the site owners, it allowed them to be pretty easy to find, AND they pretty much could run their site without any sort of fear that people would be going to it by mistake (ie, display anything you want). As far as the "think of the children" crowd, it would be easy, cut off .xxx and you are done with your filtering. Now clearly, you would have stuff slip through (rogue sites that don't move from .com to .xxx), but I think it would be a really good start.

Is there a downside?

RonB

Re:What's the solution?

[karmatic]

Which country gets to decide what is required to go there?

I just got back from spain (3GSM tradeshow) - companies openly displayed images of topless women. The same goes for their bookstores - something that wouldn't fly in the United States. On the other hand, there are a number of countries that consider "adult" violence that in the United States can be displayed at any time on public airwaves.

Besides the jurisdictional issues, you have issues with entire countries (ones that censor already) having a very easy job of removing all adult content in compliance from their country. Whether or not that is a good thing is subject to debate.

It also sets a bad precident - if the government (any government) has the right to force content to belong in certain regulated areas of the internet, it opens up the door to all kinds of abuse. How about we require all content in arabic to be on .islam, so we can more easily catch terror subjects? How about we protect the children by requiring any site that allows user generated content to be on a .adult domain, and verify government issued ID? Think of the children!

Easy filtering goes both ways - the easier it is for you to censor things for the children, the easier it is for others (government, employer, library, ISP) to filter things for you. In the case of the employer, it may be justified, but random ISPs should not be filtering without you opting in for such.

Re:What's the solution?

[paeanblack]

There has to be a way to preserve freedom of speech and implement blocking for those who don't want to see or want their children to see objectionable content.

Define "objectionable content" non-circularly. "Content I/you/he/she/we/they find objectionable" is not an answer.

No, I'm not being pedantic...this really is the absolute heart of the issue. Until you can actually define the problem, there is no solution.

Re:What's the solution?

[XxtraLarGe]

No, I'm not being pedantic...this really is the absolute heart of the issue. Until you can actually define the problem, there is no solution. Let's cut to the chase then. Pretty much, pornography. Perhaps you like it, perhaps you don't. Regardless of your preferences, you're probably like most people, who regardless of religion/creed would not want a 13 year old child doing a report at school, gathering information off of the internet, and accidentally typing something like whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov, and then see explicit sexual images.

To answer your question in another way, if we had meta tags for nudity, swearing, intercourse, etc. then people could adjust their filters to block that stuff out to suit their taste.

Re:What's the solution?

[Chris whatever]

I think they object because they are counting on those errors, mistype and such. A lot of pornsite rely on these errors (monority i guess)

Either implement by law the .xxx or implement some kind of tag on the website like a digital thing signaling that this site needs to be viewed by 18 year old and have that feature embedded in every known browsers so it can activated for the kids.

O.k all companies that produces blocking software would go under since it would come with the browser but at least, that way, you could safely block anything and if a website has no rating then it is the ISP itself that breaks the law since they would be held responsible for not tagging the website with the appropriate age rating.

Re:What's the solution?

[the_womble]

Which country gets to decide what is required to go there?

Easy, Saudi Arabia. That way there will be nothing anyone could find obscene on sites with other TLDs at all.

WebSense

[jrwr00]

here at work we use websense, they blocked slashdot one day for proxy avoidance!
then there is this image: http://img.thedailywtf.com/images/200612/pup/msmj. jpg

Re:WebSense

[Anonymous Coward]

Howstuffworks redirect goatse troll

Re:WebSense

[JesseBikman]

You bastard.

Re:WebSense

[ArchAlchemist]

You realize that the link you posted is also blocked by websense under the marijuana category?

Re:WebSense

[Anonymous Coward]

Websense is great, here is a list of some of the most noticable mistakes at my school:

Google.com - Under the category sex.
The Schools Website - Under the category blocked.
Everything - The category was a bunch of random characters.
The County Email System (provides all the email facilities to the schools, as well as some other very important stuff) - Under Pornography. The funny thing about this one is that the county operates websense on its proxy.
Anything with a social networking site name in it - such as bebo (see abebooks.com)
And you cannot search for words which may contain other rude words, or slight misspellings of rude words - such as cont(inue). This is supposedly how it is meant to work.

If you do not have rule by majority....

[StressGuy]

then what do you have? Dictatorship? Facism? Elitism?

This, last time I checked, is a Democracy...not perfect to be sure...but you might have noticed that slavery has been outlawed for quite some time (courtesy the Republican party I might add). Indeed, the political turmoil of that day led Abraham Lincoln to be our first, and only, third party candidate ever elected president (with the effect of the GOP displacing the Federalist as a major party).

Oh...and I am a descendant of the Chickasaw nation....feel free to talk to me about cultural oppresion anytime you want.

Re:If you do not have rule by majority....

[Mr. Slippery]

then what do you have? Dictatorship? Facism? Elitism?

A constitutional government is one in which the powers of government are spelled out and limited ahead of time, disallowing simple majority rule, the "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch" scenario.

A democratic republic is a government in which people act indirectly, electing capable citizens as legislators who (in theory) thoroughly investigate and debate issues before acting, preventing simple mob rule.

A constitutional democratic republic - which in theory is what the U.S. is - is a pretty good idea.

Of course, in real life people often elect idiots, not capable citizens. And once governments get power, we see that they don't necessarily feel bound by the constitution, and don't necessarily bother to thoroughly investigate anything but act in ways that pander to popular prejudices.

As Douglas Adams once put it, people are a problem.

Re:If you do not have rule by majority....

[hobo sapiens]

This was modded flamebait? How is that? What, because OP mentioned that the Republican party abolished slavery and people here don't like republicans? Fine, but know the history. First, the republican party was the party that supported abolition. The republicans and democrats basically switched social idealogies a while after the civil war. If you are a democrat now, well, likely you'd have been a republican 150 years ago. The republicans reluctantly supported abolition, though, since they were a new party at the time and needed some hot button issue to latch onto.

And the OP is right. Democracy is all about the majority. You can say you do not agree with the majority, but when you start talking about imposing your ideas on the masses who disagree, you start to scare people. You cannot let your idealism blind you to the rights of others to disagree with your views. If you do I guess you are in good company though -- I mean, Lenin and Trotsky were good company, right?

Re:If you do not have rule by majority....

[Danse]

then what do you have? Dictatorship? Facism? Elitism?

I don't think he's advocating those. I think the point is that people in general will often support things that are just wrong, either because they aren't really affected by those things, or because they've only heard one side of the story, or because they are just not interested in rocking the boat, or for other similar reasons. Sometimes it takes someone or some group of people to stand up and tell people that they're wrong and that things have to change to wake people up and make them think about the things that they didn't care about or didn't want to think about. We saw that with slavery. We saw it with the women's rights and civil rights movements. It's gotten harder and harder to do over the years as things have become even more polarized (ok, not civil war polarized yet, but it's gotten pretty bad).

Now each side has its own news sources and pundits and there's very few common information or opinion sources. So both sides live in their own world's where people tell them how bad and horrible the other side is and give them the latest spin on what the other side has been doing. So each side sees the other as a bunch of corrupt, evil assholes out to screw everything up. While that may be true in some cases, it's certainly not limited to one side or the other. I see it every day where I work. You've got the guys that sit there listening to Rush Limbaugh and the like all day long, and are always talking about how the democrats are out to destroy the country and how Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ. Then there's the ones that are listening to Air America or other similar outlets and believe that GWB is either a retarded chimp or a criminal mastermind, or both.

Unless we, as a country, get some perspective on things, and hopefully fix our election systems so that we don't continue with this two-party garbage, things will probably continue to get worse. I really don't want to see that happen.

My office quit using blockers

[amigabill]

My employer used to have one of these blockers in place. It didn't block any of the web sites that distracted me during the day such as Slashdot, cnn, and (believe it or not) Amiga computer forums.It did block some videogame sites and other stuff like that. But a few people were constantly calling in for exceptions on web sites they were looking stuff up on for work-related stuff. And one time our admin wanted to go to the blocker's own web site to download an update, and found that even that was blocked, and hilarity ensued. Eventually someone important enough decided that it was more hassle than it was worth and quit using it.

Avoidance

[ZOMFF]

At my previous place of employment, they used an annoying blocking mechanism (Websense I believe) which would block based on keywords on the site, or even the website name. It became so annoying that (almost) everyone within the IT department started using outside proxies to get around the blocker.

I wouldn't recommend doing that if you value your job as 7 people were terminated (myself included) shortly after doing so for circumventing their security measures.

Oddly enough...not blocked.

[Diordna]

I'm behind BESS here, and this page isn't blocked, even with all that.

It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[PIPBoy3000]

My son is eight years old. We have six or so web-enabled devices throughout the house (the Wii, a laptop, and four normal PCs). It's getting to the point where I need to decide if buying one of these "net nanny" pieces of software is worthwhile. Currently I'm leaning towards no, but he'll occasionally do things that make me wonder. For example, he's always entering in random addresses and seeing where it goes. The other day, he entered ".com" into the browser at school, and the helpful search engine displayed Girls Gone Wild as a top hit. Needless to say, the school's filter blocked it.

With porn, violent videos, and other mature content in easy reach around the web, I'm thinking he's going to find it sooner rather than later. Perhaps the best approach is to have lots of talks with him about what's out there, how to deal with it, and so on.

The thing that's a little sad is that at eight, I've got to prepare him for the adult world. Swearing, hardcore sex, and bizarre YouTube slapping videos isn't really something I'd like to expose him to just yet. Innocence is a rarity in this day and age and I'd rather have him just be a kid for a few years longer.

Ah, well. That's parenting for you.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The thing that's a little sad is that at eight, I've got to prepare him for the adult world. Swearing, hardcore sex, and bizarre YouTube slapping videos isn't really something I'd like to expose him to just yet. Innocence is a rarity in this day and age and I'd rather have him just be a kid for a few years longer.

No. What's tragic is that you've got an eight year old you you want to be an infant for as long as possible.

I can't understand people's views on this. Growing up isn't a tradgey of some kind. Children aren't going to lose some kind of "innosense" and "purity" at midnight of their 13th birthday. Every day you see your child learn something new, grow a little taller and generally take another step on the road to adulthood is a day you should be thankful for. Instead people lament the "loss" of their "little angels". How screwed up is that?

You know what I remember about being a kid? Wanting to grow up. Childhood is not the perfect, magical wonderland that people have convinced themselves it was. How many times did you say to yourself, "When I'm older, I'll eat all the junk food I want.", or words to that effect? Imagine the guilt trips children are put on today when their tearful parent practically mourns their passing in front of them.

Talk to your kid. Explain honestly to him that there's stuff out there that you think you influence him negatively. Be explicit. Accept that he will come across it. Accept that he will go out looking for it. Accept that this is in itself unlikely to serious negatively affect him. Tell him all this, but make it clear you'd rather he spent his time more productively.

Don't bother with censorware, because it's a solution looking for a problem. You haven't got a problem. You won't have a problem. You've got a kid. You're getting an adult. Don't try to keep a grip of the kid, because then you'll never get the adult.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[fishthegeek]

Whoa. He didn't say anything about being an infant. I'm a dad too, and teacher.

How many times did you say to yourself, "When I'm older, I'll eat all the junk food I want.", or words to that effect? When you say something like this as a child it is because you're thinking as a child. Children are not little adults, and they do not grasp adult things in an adult way. Parent's should limit junk food for their kids because kids will not understand that it isn't good for them. People that say otherwise are ignorant and probably childless.
 
It isn't possible to explain to a young child that something that they like is actually harmful to them and expect them to understand the concepts on any meaningful level (I am talking about young children here). It is a parents job to care for their kids, and blocking porn (some of which is in fact harmful) is part of that. He is his childs father, and rather than criticize him for being careful you should applaud it to some degree even if you aren't in agreement with him. There are way too many parents that do not give a rats ass about their kids, and you find one guy here on /. that does and suddenly you feel "holier than thou" towards him? I'd bet he is doing a good job with his son, or at least the best job he can do with what he has to work with. Get off his back.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[computational super]

Children aren't going to lose some kind of "innosense" and "purity" at midnight of their 13th birthday.

13th? I don't know what kind of pervert you are, but here in America, our children keep their innocence and purity right up until their 18th birthday and whoever tries to steal it from them goes to jail and has his innocence stolen by Bubba the inmate.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[try_anything]

I don't have any second or third-hand experience, and I grew up before the web, but my experience was that I was completely oblivious to all sex in media and advertising until I hit puberty, at which point I immediately noticed the less subtle stuff. It was there all along, but until I started paying attention to it, it didn't exist. Sex in movies, late-night chat line advertisements on television, sexed up pop stars, laddy mags at the convenience store, all that stuff magically winked into existence when I hit puberty, and it still took me a while to assimilate it all. (I didn't notice all the sex in old movies from the '40s and '50s until I was an adult.) There are a lot of things kids don't understand about the world, and they have to ignore most of it in order not to be overwhelmed by chaos. (Just like adults, I guess....)

I hope that makes you feel a little bit better about what your kid is exposed to right now. If he's anything like I was, you have approximately three years to figure out how to handle it. Then he'll see some hardcore midget donkey scat porn, start jerking off to it, be lured to Romania by a hardcore midget donkey scat-loving pedophile, and appear on Jerry Springer blaming it all on you.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[alphamugwump]

The other day, he entered ".com" into the browser at school, and the helpful search engine displayed Girls Gone Wild as a top hit. Needless to say, the school's filter blocked it.

Better nip that one in the bud as soon as you can. The next thing you know, he'll be doing XSS on myspace and get locked up for "hacking".

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is deserving of a +6 insightful rating.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[brother sloth]

Well said by a guy who is probably a single university student. I think you meant to comment on something you actually know about.

It's not about keeping a child an infant forever. It's just that there's a time and a place for stuff like hardcore porn, bad language, etc. OP has the right to determine that for his child.

Why is it anytime anyone makes a rational comment around here that doesn't fit in with the groupthink he is attacked by empty-headed bufoons like you? Look: when you move out of your mothers basement and stop watching llama porn all day and instead do something meaningful, then others may care about what you say. Until then, shut. up.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[linuxrocks123]

> You know what I remember about being a kid? Wanting to grow up. Childhood is not the perfect, magical wonderland that people have convinced themselves it was.

Amen to that. I'm in college right now. I remember childhood as sucking, probably even more than high school. Right now is the best time of my life, I know it, and I don't want it to end. You probably couldn't pay me to go through childhood again.

Btw nothing particularly bad happened to me when I was a child. I just didn't like being told what to do, having to put up with mean/stupid classmates, etc...

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid is *eight*, you freakin' moron.

You take whatever issues (oh, my childhood wasn't all sweetness and light, boo hoo) you have and you DEAL with them instead of dumping on others.

Re:It may be time for me to make this choice soon.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe in peace for my children but not my children's children, because I don't think children should be having children.

Along those lines...

[StressGuy]

[and we are getting way off-topic, but what the heck]

I've often thought that a 2-party system was a fundamental flaw. It seems that, with only two parties, it tends to break down to a "turf war". This, in turn, tends to promote the more extreme members. If it were instead a multiple party system, not only would there be more points of view to debate, but it would be necessary to build concensus. This, in turn, would force everyone to at least consider the positions of those they may not entirely agree with and should promote those who are better at building "bridges" instead of simpley "amassing territory".

But...political pundit...I am not.

Re:Along those lines...

[operagost]

The so-called "two-party system" has no basis in law, it is just a fact. Once the people are tired of the two parties, others will become more viable.

Re:Along those lines...

[Marlow the Irelander]

The problem with a multi-party system is that it promotes the extreme members, and extreme parties, even more.

Basically, with proportional representation (which is the way to achieve the kind of system you're proposing), coalitions will need to be built. In order to get a majority, you'll have to bring extremists into the government (because even if they only have 5% of the vote, that's still the difference between a 47% and 52% coalition). This gives them disproportionate influence over government policy - at the risk of pulling a Godwin's, both Hitler and Mussolini gained power in a coalition government.

For a current example, look at Israel, where a party with less than 6% of votes and seats (Gil) controls two Cabinet posts, including the Health Ministry, and two other parties with ~9% of the vote each (Shas and Israel Beytenu) both control a Deputy Prime Minister and a fairly important ministry (Labour and Strategic Affairs respectively).

Re:Along those lines...

[Moofie]

How do you figure? The winner-take-all voting arrangement, which is the way that most places do it, entrenches a two-party system.

Gerrymandering makes it almost impossible to remove.

Re:Along those lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to Canada! You can ditch the two party system, and vote for the (left to right)

Communist Party --- New Democratic Party --- Liberals --- Bloc Quebequois --- Conservatives

Or alternately the Marijuana Party, the Rhinorceros Platform or the Yogic Flyers, all of whom are off in the corner doing their own thing so I don't know where to chuck them on the spectrum.

Re:I call BS

[aditi]

Yes, but that's hardly the porn's fault. You wouldn't say the same thing about alcohol, would you?

That's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

The web filter our company used to use blocked "support.dell.com" as a porn site because Dell had the phrase "Dimension V-xxx" on a page. The web filter found the 3 x's and assumed there was porn there.

Re:That's nothing

[Joe The Dragon]

I just hope that you don't have any dell systems.

Re:That's nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Actually we are a Dell shop.

Our company doesn't use web filters anymore. They were installed because a couple of salesmen were caught downloading porn on the job. They were canned & the VP of sales demanded that we install web filtering software.

boinbboing

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the big deal with them being blocked? Some of the blocked sites seem pretty innocuous but boingboing has some serious issues with porn obsession. I can see how it would set off filters.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I, too, know of relationships ruined by porn addiction. This page has some interesting stats: http://www.divorcewizards.com/guidance/guidance_di vorce_statistics_pornography.html

At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in the divorces in the past year, with excessive interest in online porn contributing to more than half such cases. Pornography had an almost non-existent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago.

Surely it's only escalated since then. Try looking at the forums at http://recoverynation.org/ and then try to tell yourself porn doesn't hurt anybody.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

I second. This is nothing more than flame bait. The guy doesn't agree with filtering in general. The post is pointless. Its like having a creationist bash evolution and posting it. Its bad journalism at its worst. Not that I would expect more from slashdot.

If you are against any filtering, than *any* filter will have *serious* problems from your point of view.

As for the false positives, the same information can be found on other sites that are not blocked. Just as some of the information on the true positives can. You shouldn't expect software that's tasked with categorizing webpages to be perfect until search engines ( with much more money devoted to research and development ) reach that level of reliability.

common sense?

[hobo sapiens]

(Obligatory interstitial advertisement for common sense: I still don't see what the big deal is about porn anyway. Ask yourself: Why is it harmful to see a picture of a naked person, or even a picture of people having sex? And try to find an answer to that question that doesn't involve, "Lots of other people think so."

Ok, here's a reason: Much of it objectifies women and degrades them. I don't want my son thinking of women as sex objects, and I don't want my daughter thinking it's ok to be one.

Want another? Ever watch those dateline shows where they catch the would-be child molesters? If yes, did you notice that many of these men send the victim porn? Ever wonder why? Well, to desensitize them to sex and thus make them easier prey. Porn creates the mentality that casual sex is A-OK. Moral obligations aside, that's risky behaviour.

As a parent, it's my job to protect my children from things I deem harmful. Sex has a time and a place. But, much like other responsibilities my children will take on as they become adults, it's not something they need to be exposed to via porn. They need to be taught about sex, yes, but not exposed to the intimate details. I know that some of you will disagree with me. At the risk of sounding banal, if you aren't a parent then you really don't know anything about the subject. And if you are a parentand you allow your child to be exposed to porn, well, I am sorry for your children. I hope our children don't go to school together.

That is why I don't want my children seeing porn. Nudity (art, etc) is a bit different. The body is natural. A few years back, in my midwestern city, the most popular alternative newspaper in town had a cover with several nude female protesters on it. It was amazing how many people were offended and wrote letters expressing this. Not that we should bombard children with nudity, but if they see someone nude in a nonsexual way, I don't mind. People who do mind are sendng the wrong message to their children, that our bodies are shameful and dirty. That's going too far in the other direction and conveys wrong attitudes toward sex (hmm...just like porn).

Don't get me wrong, blocking software sucks. I hate the idea and I am not saying that it's not way too heavy handed. I wouldn't use it home even if I reasonably could. Instead I have to make sure my children know what is appropriate. But at the library, at school, etc, I don't want them to be able to get to it. Some parents don't share my view, and their children could show it to my children. Or, worse yet, an adult at the school or library could have his own reasons (see above) to show it to them. So it's with good reason they use it at institutions like this. If it means people can't get to boing boing at school, then so be it.

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much of it objectifies women and degrades them.

Much of it also objectifies and degrades men. Much of it doesn't degrade anybody and just depicts people having fun. What's wrong with that?

Ever watch those dateline shows where they catch the would-be child molesters?

No, I've generally found those to be nothing more than sensationalist tripe that satisfies peoples' need to hate somebody.

If yes, did you notice that many of these men send the victim porn? Ever wonder why?

No, but you're clearly a licensed psychologist who has years of expertise dealing with child molesters, so please tell us.

Well, to desensitize them to sex and thus make them easier prey. Porn creates the mentality that casual sex is A-OK.

Wait, what? How does a belief that casual sex is OK make you an easier target for sexual molestation? That's quite a leap of logic, there.

Moral obligations aside, that's risky behaviour.

Not if you're smart about it.

They need to be taught about sex, yes, but not exposed to the intimate details.

Right, because there's nothing smarter than your kids not understanding how sex actually works. That'll lead to their first experiences being nice and traumatizing.

And if you are a parentand you allow your child to be exposed to porn, well, I am sorry for your children.

Oh no, my children aren't being raised according to your belief and value sets. I'll bet you'll be even sorrier when you learn that they've also been taught that Christianity is a lie.

I hope our children don't go to school together.

I hope they do, so that your children can learn a little bit about the real world before they get thrust into it.

People who do mind are sendng the wrong message to their children, that our bodies are shameful and dirty.

And you're sending the message that sexuality is shameful and dirty.

Re:common sense?

[TubeSteak]

A few years back, in my midwestern city, the most popular alternative newspaper in town had a cover with several nude female protesters on it. It was amazing how many people were offended and wrote letters expressing this. Not that we should bombard children with nudity, but if they see someone nude in a nonsexual way, I don't mind.

What's the first thing Adam & Eve did after eating of the Forbidden Fruit?
They covered up.

The Abrahamic texts don't really leave much wiggle room on the issue.
Nudity, according to those texts, is inherently sexual and tempting.
Hence the Janet Jackson nipple-gate, etc.

Re:common sense?

[guruevi]

As a young adult I can say this: I grew up in the wake of the internet (was a teenager through the 90's) and thus parents didn't know what computers were, what the internet was they were paying for except that it was good for our development and would make us perform better at school by finding information faster, learning to program and becoming the next CEO of Altavista. It would also help us in keeping contact with the rest of the world, by IRC, ICQ, e-mail and (binary) newsgroups.

The Internet has porn, at the wake of the Internet, it was slow to get good pictures and we only had one computer with Internet in the living room and later common study so we exchanged Data-CD, floppies, stories and magazine's at school with guess what... pictures of naked women in suggesting positions. I had a computer in my room (with a 2MBit/s coax Netware network) and could thus 'enjoy' my newfound literature.

Now the Internet is mainstream and a lot of it has been sensationalized. There are predators out there, I am not going to dispute that, but most of them aren't going to be on the Internet, they are going to be in a van outside school, taking pictures (someone at my school was arrested for that) and sometimes luring kids in their vehicle with candy or puppies (heard plenty of those stories).

What you need to do is not shield/blind your kid's from it (as did my parents) because they are going to get curious about the VHS in the back of the closet or the movie coming after that recorded tape that was 'not for kids' and find out anyway. We are going to get in contact with porn, violence, abuse, rotten.com and more either in school, friends, home or just by accident.

If you don't tell your kids the real deal about it they are going to hide it (because it's bad) and then they are going to get the ideas they find out in porn and try it out (which is sometimes impossible - I found out) or link them to their own sex life, which is not always the best idea. Just go out there, tell your kids all about the flowers and the bees at a young age, because what predators look for is kids that have been 'protected' from that and are just curious, tell them what's out there (so they're not innocent about it) and how it's done, even what it feels/taste/looks like so they know about it and what to beware of.

Re:common sense?

[computational super]

if you aren't a parent then you really don't know anything about the subject. And if you are a parent

Yay, my favorite circular logic. "If you aren't a parent, you have no right to an opinion. If you are a parent and you're opinion is different than mine, your opinion doesn't count."

Re:common sense?

[hobo sapiens]

They covered up.

Yeah. But Genesis also indicates that they were created with no clothes. Their covering up had more to do with their fall into sin than anything else.

The Abrahamic texts don't really leave much wiggle room on the issue

Not sure what you are specifically talking about, but many of the laws were to prevent the Israelites from adopting the religious practices of their neighbors, which involved sex-worship.

Janet Jackson nipple-gate, etc

That was a bit ridiculous. You can debate the appropriateness, etc, but cmon. A boob for three seconds isn't going to hurt anyone. I think there were a lot of factors involved there, and not all had to do with nudity. Kids can see more than that at their local art museum or a national geographic magazine. Big deal.

Re:common sense?

[hobo sapiens]

your opinion doesn't count.

Nah, I didn't quite say that. Besides, that's not circular logic, that's more of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

What I meant is that if you expose your children to porn that's a bad decision, IMHO. That's my opinion, someone else has the opposite opinion. So what? I don't have to agree and neither do you. Otherwise, /. would be a very boring web site.

Re:common sense?

[hobo sapiens]

What you need to do is not shield/blind your kid's from it (as did my parents) because they are going to get curious about the VHS in the back of the closet or the movie coming after that recorded tape that was 'not for kids' and find out anyway.

You are right, indeed. Parents should not be hypocrites.

And I'm not advocating a "bury your head" approach. Parents must educate their children, and this involves having very frank discussions about sex. However, having frank discussions and allowing your children to have access to porn are two different things. The former is an absolute necessity. The latter is innapropriate (again, my opinion). That seems to be a very balanced approach, as far as I'm concerned.

Children might get ahold of porn, yes. They will most certainly be exposed to it at some point. That's why you train them -- so that when they are they can make a good decision. Even after all of that, though, using this rationale for letting your children look at porn is a little like saying "At some point, my children will be at a party where there will be underage drinking. I might as well have the party at my house and buy the liquor and invite all the neighborhood children!" Accepting that your children will be tempted with something and encouraging and condoning it are two different things. Hopefully you see the obvious difference there.

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, here's a reason: Much of it objectifies women and degrades them. I don't want my son thinking of women as sex objects, and I don't want my daughter thinking it's ok to be one.

Mod parent up (pardon the pun)!

I am also a parent and have concerns about this exact thing. There are too many people in my family -- myself included -- who consumed a lot of porn as kids and grew up having way-off-base opinions of women and sex within a relationship. My wife, my daughters, my sister... they are not just a means to an orgasm for any man. (cue tasteless jokes!)

It took me a long time to break this mindset. And when I had it, I totally denied having it; it's very self-protective and delusional.

Re:common sense?

[kindbud]

Ok, here's a reason: Much of it objectifies women and degrades them.

That's your opinion. Other men and women look at it as body-worship. Still other people see it as a simple pleasure without any social stigma attached. It's too bad you choose to look down on women who pose in sexual imagery. We all have our personal failings, but projecting them onto other people will not persuade anyone to your position. Just like the article author imagined, you couldn't come up with a reason that amounts to more than "Lots of people think so."

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exercise for the day: find the word "objectify" in a dictionary published prior to 1960. That reason still comes down to "lot's of other people think so" where those people have been inculcated with "feminist logic".

I will come up with a reason for objecting to real pornography, as opposed to simple nudity: I wouldn't want a pair of 5 year olds treating it as an instruction manual - fit tab A into slot B - because they are not ready for all of the consequences of those actions. Basically why you don't give kids instuctional videos on a whole host of subjects.

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn is a very vague, general word. There are many types of pornography. Heck, just go to a porn indexing site and you'll find hardcore, softcore, s&m, bestiality, etc. Forget the children, there are just some categories of porn that'll scar young adults and even adults for life. The difference is, the adult would know better than to click on a link that says "sex with a dog" while the child might, out of curiosity, out of ignorance, or both, click on it anyway. And, children are far more impressionable. If they see someone doing something, they'll think it's ok for them to do the same. Whereas an adult would pause to think.

I think it is legitimate to block these sites from grade schools and public libraries, if only because of this risk. Colleges though, should have nothing blocked. People should be mature enough to be responsible for their own actions if they're going to college. And by then, they should've had their sex ed either from school or at home or preferably both (if not, well, let's just say they probably got it anyway).

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, what? I don't recall Zeus creating anybody named Adam & Eve. And what's this "Forbidden Fruit" you're talking about? Is that the golden apple?

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Abrahamic texts don't really leave much wiggle room on the issue.

I respectfully submit that anyone looking for "wiggle room" in the tenets of their belief system would be better served by finding a belief system that suits their actual beliefs.

Re:common sense?

[hobo sapiens]

It's too bad you choose to look down on women who pose in sexual imagery. We all have our personal failings, but projecting them onto other people will not persuade anyone to your position

Hahahaha, did you respond to the wrong post or did you just not read mine?

I liked your post, though. Spoken like a guy. Ask your mother|sister|wife|girlfriend if she agrees. I'll bet you believe all those girls working in the strip clubs are working their way through law school, too.

Just like the article author imagined, you couldn't come up with a reason that amounts to more than "Lots of people think so."

I never said nor implied that. If you read that into my post, then there's no sense debating anything with you.

Re:common sense?

[alphamugwump]

They need to be taught about sex, yes, but not exposed to the intimate details.

If you don't, Mr. Goatse will.

Want another? Ever watch those dateline shows where they catch the would-be child molesters? If yes, did you notice that many of these men send the victim porn? Ever wonder why? Well, to desensitize them to sex and thus make them easier prey. Porn creates the mentality that casual sex is A-OK. Moral obligations aside, that's risky behaviour.

What do you mean? Tentacle rape is normal, isnt it???
Seriously, that one doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like a guy. Ask your mother|sister|wife|girlfriend if she agrees. I'll bet you believe all those girls working in the strip clubs are working their way through law school, too.

I hate to put a cramp on your apparent "women hate porn" ideology, but my girlfriend likes porn just as much as I do, if not more so. I know, hard to believe.

Oh, and those girls in strip clubs? I don't believe they're working their way through law school -- but I do believe they're making a living using what means they have available to them. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with that.

Re:common sense?

[I*Love*Green*Olives]

>>Ever watch those dateline shows where they catch >>the would-be child molesters? If yes, did you notice >>that many of these men send the victim porn?

Protip: That's a MAN, baby!

Or to put it another way, in the Dateline Shows there are no victims. What there are is vigilantes making a buck on the back of hysterical parents who believe everything they see on so called 'Info-tainment' News Shows. If you look, you'll see there's more entertainment than information in that description and it's that way for a reason. There is more focus on entertaining than there is on getting the facts straight.

For one thing, many of those who were caught via Perverted Justice's Dateline 'Info-tainment' antics were let off with nearly no punishment....

http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?arti cleid=10896&z=3&p=

Think about it, and ask yourself just how useful a tool these shows are if they have such flawed outcomes?

--I*Love*Green*Olives

Re:common sense?

[linuxrocks123]

> It's too bad you choose to look down on women who pose in sexual imagery. We all have our personal failings, but projecting them onto other people will not persuade anyone to your position.

Bzzzt. Straw man!

He didn't say, "I look down on women who pose naked". He said, "Much porn objectifies women". Those statements are not equivalent.

Much porn /does/ objectify women. If you honestly claim that someone who is handcuffed to a bed and sucking someone's penis is not being objectified (I made this example up, but it's sadly probably out there...), then we just have an axiomatic or definitional disagreement.

I would argue that not all porn objectifies women, but I don't think it's possible to reasonably argue that little or none does.

Re:common sense?

[kindbud]

Ask your mother|sister|wife|girlfriend if she agrees.

Why not suggest that I ask a nude model or a stripper? Do their opinions not matter? Don't you want to hear what they have to say? Or are they to depraved and degraded to have a substantive opinion?

Re:common sense?

[kindbud]

He didn't say, "I look down on women who pose naked". He said, "Much porn objectifies women". Those statements are not equivalent.

That porn objectifies women is an opinion, not a fact. That objectifying women is bad or wrong is an opinion. To say "Much porn objectifies women" is just shorthand for "I think that much porn objectifies women." We usually leave off the "I think that..." because it would be tiresome to always preceed all personal opinions with "I think that..." It's also safe to assume that he thinks objectifying women is bad, otherwise he wouldn't offer the statement as a criticism.

So, neither of you have yet offered any reason to hide sexually explicit imagery from kids other than "Lots of other people think so," just as the article's author imagined.

If you honestly claim that someone who is handcuffed to a bed and sucking someone's penis is not being objectified (I made this example up, but it's sadly probably out there...), then we just have an axiomatic or definitional disagreement.

Well yeah. What's so bad about being objectified, if one is OK with being seen that way by others? Are you going to presume to tell women that like to pose for porn that there is something wrong with them for wanting to do so?

Also, I wonder if you think it's possible for porn to objectify men, and if so, should we be just as outraged by male objectification as we should be by female objectification.

Also, have I objectified my auto mechanic by seeing him only as a means to repair my car? Is this as bad as objectifying a woman by seeing her only as a means to sexual gratification?

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are king of the non-sequitur. Everyone has to be good at something, I guess. At least your mom likes you.

Re:common sense?

[stewbacca]

And exactly how is your definition of "body-worship" any different than that of objectifying women?

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're sending the message that sexuality is shameful and dirty.

And you're sending the message that you have got to have your porn-fueled orgasms and you don't give a damn who it hurts. I don't know how you keep your hands over your ears like that when they are constantly glued to your dick.

Re:common sense?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you really so afraid of admitting there might be anything wrong with porn? are you guys that just won't admit it so scared because you think if you do your porn might get taken away from you? are you afraid that admitting it might be problematic is the start of a slippery slope to porn being made illegal? or is it because if you admitted that it is possibly problematic, then you might have to look at your orgasms with a little bit of a critical eye?

re: monitored surfing

[King_TJ]

Well, that is always the "ideal" solution - but monitoring your child's activities at all times proves to be an impossibility in the real world. I do know a number of schools use software that allows mirroring any of a number of desktops that are in use by students. They have sort of a "control center" full of flat-screen monitors that randomly cycle through all the screens that are in use, so people in the office can try to monitor what's going on.

I think, for younger children, the problem is much easier to address than for older kids. When they're younger, there's honestly only so much web content that's really beneficial for them. (My kid is almost 5, and she's been fascinated with computers since she was 3. But so far, her "web surfing" is pretty much limited to nickjr.com, pbskids.com and a few other random sites with good online puzzles, coloring books, etc. to play with.) It's easiest to block *everything* except an "allowed list" of known, good sites. Many little kids like this arrangement better, because they're more frustrated by accidentally clicking away from their page, on some advertising banner or what-not, and getting lost in some totally different site.

I used to have some neighbor kids who were around ages 9-11, and their school encouraged them to get on the Internet at home to research and print out things like topographical maps and statistics on things. (They didn't have a decent computer at their house, so they came over sometimes, asking if they could borrow mine.) What I observed with that age group is, they're very interested in the social networking types of web sites, and easily get distracted from what they started out doing, to "check my mail" on one or more of those places. An ironic thing happens then.... They try to avoid the "porn" web pages, knowing they're "not supposed to be looking at that stuff" (and afraid of getting in trouble for it), but their friends have obscene music videos, music and artwork plastered all over their "home pages", or links to it in their messages and blogs. So somehow, that's a whole different thing for them.

Re:I call BS

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Complete and utter Bull Shit(tm). Pornogrophy is addictive. To everybody? Of course not. But I know personally of lives and marriages ruined by porn addiction.

Addiction is not a valid concept. See Rat Park. What you know of is people who have made their own choices. Choices they made of their own free will.

Has apple.com or ms web site been stupidly blocked

[Joe The Dragon]

And the auto updater's on the computers fail.

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[langelgjm]

One is the correlation between the exposure to nudity/sex and increased promiscuity. That of course can lead to issues such as increased spread of STD's (which can of course be somewhat mitigated through education) and increased unintended teen pregnancies (ditto about education).

I actually recently ran across some information on this. Here's a summary quote:

In comparing the United States to similar societies, we find that American and western European adolescents become sexually active at similar ages on average; however, pregnancy, birth, and abortion rates are significantly lower among European teens, as are STI rates. (Virginity Lost, Laura M. Carpenter, NYU Press, 2005.)

The idea is that when people are more open about matters sexual (e.g. the more casual attitude taken towards nudity in Western Europe), they are also more open about the health concerns associated with them. It works the opposite way, too - young people educated in abstinence-only curricula are less likely to use/correctly use condoms when they do have sex.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

effect: Dilbert is Porn

[woodsrunner]

The effect is censorship caused by requiring schools and libraries to have filters "for the sake of the children". Where I work the strangest sites are blocked by Barracuda as porn: Dilbert, exile.ru, wonkette... It doesn't make any sense especially when it doesn't block a number of real pr0n sites.

Now consider how many people don't have internet access and rely on public terminals in libraries. These people aren't children, but are forcibly treated like ones due to CIPA. Worse, they are not only censored from pornography, a resonable thing in a public institute like a library, but are cut off from things that are added to the blocked lists just because they might represent a view that is unpopular.

I am not sure if that is the cause / effect you are seeking or the one between the Supreme Court ruling and the reporting of stupidly blocked sites. This cause / effect is probably because before the ruling the reports were frequent in hopes to overturn CIPA, now that the Supreme Court has ruled CIPA to be constitutional there isn't much hope in over ruling it. What legislature is going to jepordize their career by being proponents of exposing kids to porn just over some little censorship issue?

The next steps are being taken by putting filtering software in place for entire countries. This is where the Boingboing controversy came up. And there are many legislators in the US that want to do the same thing here and require all ISP's to filter "questionable material".

Re:I call BS

[symes]

I'd take issue with the one study suggesting addiction is not a valid concept. There's a few more papers suggesting otherwise. Also - the paper you cite reports research which cannot falsify the hypothesis that the rats were still addicted. Although the behaviour observed might suggest this is the case it is not conclusive. For a start the rats may well have been 'diverted' from their need for morphine by the open space, plentiful food and prospects for sex - a different environment from which they were exlosed to the morphine. Interestingly, diversionary tactics also work with human addictions although their success depends on the degree of addiction. A ten year crack habit will be far harder to break than one which is only a month or so old. But even if the diversions work, the person still remains addicted... and it takes, in some cases, a very very long time to overcome.

Fine, it was full of jokes...

[M-2]

...but I learned a lot and made a lot of good friends as a student at Beaver College.

So to hell with the slang, and also? Howard Stern (who made it a series of jokes on his show) needs to go straight to Hell.

I imagine this will be unpopular as an opinion.

I like how...

[Anonymous Coward]

This story is linked to a members only subscription site. Way to go on that one.

Porn != Molestation

[cinexero]

I mean, the ratio of slashdot readers who watch porn to slashdot readers who have casual sex is probably pretty high.

Re:Doing my part

[TubeSteak]

http://www.google.com/search?q=howard+stern+oprah+ indecency

To violate the FCC's indecency standards, [naughty things] must be said with the intent to tittilate/stimulate.

Whether Oprah does that or not is open to debate.

Boing Boing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Boing Boing should be blocked, it's full of freaking porn ads! I love the posts, they're always interesting but I just got fed up with the porn and will never go back. I say, keep on blocking until they clean up their advertising policy.

Re:Boing Boing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here, I go look every now and then ("oh, neat, a zelda scarf") and there're the inevitable porn ads and posts. I tell myself I'm not going to go any more but then I hope maybe it's gotten better. It hasn't. Oh, well. Like they say, it's a big internet. I can find a less porny place to play.

Re:Doing my part

[elrous0]

Good point. I think we can safely say that no man has ever been tittilated by Oprah.

-Eric

Re:I call BS

[computational super]

Well, at least you're honest. You've thrown out the "but it's just for the poor, innocent, little children" tripe and gone straight to "it should be banned for everybody."

tagging and tubgirl

[ghostlibrary]

It all comes down to whether you want more false positives or more false negatives.

As a parent, it's tough. I don't like overzealous blocking software, but I'd rather my kid not see 'tubgirl' while researching plants for schools. It'd be nice to have more sites tagged, not just 'nudity' but more akin to the G, PG, R, soft X, XXX ratings, split seperately for 'violence', 'sex', 'mature concepts', 'political beliefs'. Then (as a parent) I can ignore the stuff that isn't a concern but still have minimal filtering of things that apply to me.

In short, it'd be nice to have software do what I already do as a parent, only in a pre-emptive way. That, in a nutshell, is what blocking software is selling.

Then again, I see no reason to filter text. If you run into a racy passage of text or a concept that is objectionable, you can easily stop reading. Words are powerful, but words can be ignored. A kid browsing ASSM via google groups may get twisted ideas, but they are consciously browsing it, by choice. That's different from instant exposure to horrific images. So just being able to filter images would work for me.

Images can be potent. One really bad image (like, again, tubgirl) can really ruin your day. As they say, there's some fucked up stuff out there. I find google 'safe search' pretty reliable in terms of filtering out 'objectionable' images. Anyone that doesn't agree that images are more potent than text, hasn't studied how the media has used single images to guide public opinion (especially regarding wars).

I think google has it right, with a light touch, but I fear the proponents of school and library filtering have to be more extreme because of the hyper-sensitive 'janet jackson' reactions to the slightest hint of wayward content that might potentially offend an easily offended person.

With ideas of the semantic web or Web2.0 tagging, it'd be nice to see an open blocking software project designed to compete with the commercial ones, that allows levels of tagging and filtering and an open process for getting removed from it.

Re:tagging and tubgirl

[alphamugwump]

I never quite understood why people got so upset about goatse and tubgirl. Especially goatse. It's just this guy pulling open his you-know-what. What's the big deal?

And I seriously doubt many young kids would really understand it, much less be mentally scarred. Actually, kids can be pretty filthy-minded. My brother once stored tried to store his shit in ziplock baggies. That sort of thing is normal for kids. Shock at seeing goatse is more or less an adult thing.

Yes, you heard me right. I'm saying that obscenity is in the eye of the beholder. How does that saying go? "If your eye offends you, pluck it out."

Yes indeed, there's this thing called

[supercrisp]

brain development that's going on. Recent research suggests that people don't have their full cognitive hardware until early 20s. ethos appeal: another educator here; gf and I are working on the baby.

To those of you who came to my defense....

[StressGuy]

Thank you

Being politically independant, I've been known to tweak both sides of the aisle.

And, what the heck, let's throw some irony into the mix. A couple years back, I was having a....let's say "lively discussion" with a staunchly Republican friend of mine over the matter of Trent Lott. I basically said the Mr. Lott's statements were inexcusable - particularly given that your party was founded on a platform of civil rights.

This may be the only time that particular individual did not have a counter argument ready for me.

I believe that "Republican" and "Democrat" is just packaging for "Red" Vs."Blue"....and I truly believe there is good and bad in both camps.....but, sometimes, I wish there were more than only 2 major camps.

An Interesting Exercise

[bcharr2]

An interesting exercise is to lookup many of the "foundational" parenting books that were written in the 60's and 70's, and then reference how many of the authors actually had children. You'll find some interesting correlations between those without children and the advice being offered.

From my point of view, it is sort of like someone who has never smelled or tasted food writing their own cookbook. You may have some really wonderful theories about what you believe would make a appetizing meal, but without that first hand experience all you may really be serving up is a steaming pile of BS.

Or perhaps a better analogy would be showing up at the hospital to get your tonsils removed, and being met by someone who says, "I'm a medical student. I don't have any actual medical experience, but I've read some good books about it, and spent alot of time thinking about it. Also I had my tonsils out years ago and have been pondering a better way to do it ever since! I'll be flying solo on this surgery, so wish me luck. Ready for your pre-op?". Yeah. Good luck with that.

Interestingly enough...

[tatersalad]

My school uses Smartfilter Bess Edition, and the screen caps are blocked...

Re:Interestingly enough...

[phenz]

I don't know if it is still this way, but during my senior year Bess was blocking Slashdot's main page. Reason: Message board. Lucky enough bess didn't block any of the subservers (linux.slashdot it.slashdot).

I also have a couple young children...

[StressGuy]

I've had to disable the Linux screensaver that grabs random web images because it gets porn pretty much every time it runs. Now, I really don't care if it's just nudity, I honestly don't see that as a big deal. I am concerned about concepts of objectification, humiliation, abuse, violence, etc.

I can't protect him from such things, but I would like the opportunity to prepare him. At this stage, that means I need to monitor what he is exposed to.

You've shown why the article is very poor advocacy

[try_anything]

I have to say the article writer pissed me off quite a bit by opening the door to this topic. When you're looking for support on a moderately controversial cause, it's counterproductive to burden it with much more controversial views. It cuts down the number of people the article can be shown to and suggests that the two views have to go hand in hand.

Writers, keep in mind that persuading people who might disagree with you is very, very different from whipping up support among people who already agree with you. We need much more of the former and rather less of the latter, and the latter should not be exposed to people who disagree with you, because it is apt to insult and alienate them.

Very amusing

[try_anything]

You say, "Addiction is not a valid concept," and then casually mention free will. That's the best laugh I've had all day.

By the way, I found the Rat Park link very fascinating, and I wish more research was done along those lines, but I don't see that it even has the potential to invalidate the concept of addiction. Physical withdrawal from some substances is an observable physiological phenomenon. It makes sense that given the opportunity to use a drug, people or rats use more, become addicted more easily, and have a much harder time quitting when they are exposed to severe psychological stress. It's possible -- and I think this is what experiments like Rat Park have the potential to prove -- that external psychological stress can be a necessary factor for addiction to a drug of a certain kind and potency. That doesn't invalidate addiction any more than the polio vaccine invalidates the concept of polio.

Of course, free will has nothing to do with any of this -- free will can't be tested in a scientific experiment.

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[Sique]

Most interesting are the abstinence vows like the one the Southern Baptists have (The True Love Waits campaign and similar). Appearently everyone qualifies for the vow, even people who had sex before. And you can restate your vow as often as you want.
Maybe we should check the adolescenses' drawers for the numbers of TLW-buttons they contain to get a more exact number of sexual partners they had (One TLW button per partner).

Sweet delicious irony

[geekwithsoul]

The ad that got displayed when I viewed this article:

"Christ Centered Filtering
Internet Filtering at its Best 14 Day Free Trial. Take Control!
www.FamilyFellowship.com"

I can just picture the software saying "The power of Christ compels this website from your browser" or could I use it to filter out all the holy-roller references to Christ on websites?

Re:Sweet delicious irony

[Creepy Crawler]

Does it block religious sites??

SIGN ME UP SCOTTY!!

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[bogjobber]

One is the correlation between the exposure to nudity/sex and increased promiscuity. That of course can lead to issues such as increased spread of STD's (which can of course be somewhat mitigated through education) and increased unintended teen pregnancies (ditto about education). So part of the question isn't necessarily "what's so harmful about watching people have sex", it's, "to mitigate the issues raised above, what age is appropriate for viewing of such material".

AFAIK there is no reason to believe that increased access to porn and/or sex in the media makes people want to have sex more. Teenagers of every society ever in existence have been having sex, whether society was open about it or not. That's what people do. There is, however, extremely strong evidence that providing sex education lowers both the rate of STD's and teen pregnancies. I would even posit that it is possible for a teenager watching porn to have less of a chance of having sex, because he/she is satisfying their curiosity and sexual desire by watching sex as opposed to actually engaging in it.

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the southern baptists are hypocrites anyhow. Of course their kids are doing all kinds of stuff, pledge or no. They offer their children nothing but quasi-bible-based platitudes when it comes to sex. No sexual intercourse? Great, we'll do it orally or anally. The children have to compelling reason to live up to any pledge. It's quite ridiculous.

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[hobo sapiens]

I don't think the discussion is centering around sex education so much. It's about whether porn is harmful to children. I hope you aren't implying that porn and sex education are the same thing.

I would even posit that it is possible for a teenager watching porn to have less of a chance of having sex

Nice try, but I doubt that. I'll do it here, only because it's actually appropriate -- I'll trundle out a tired comparison...wait for it...it's like being hungry, looking at a restaurant menu, and then not ordering. Not gonna happen, right? You'll order the food and eat.

While you could very justifiably argue that sex education will lower things like like teen pregnancy rates (and I don't that would be much of an argument, because who could reasonably disagree?) I don't think you can really make same claim for porn. That's quite a leap.

High School experiences with Bess

[UnCivil Liberty]

I remember being assigned a project on the Kennedy Assassination freshman year in high school, you wouldn't believe what a pain in the ass it was trying to locate resources on the topic with Bess on our school's network. Eventually the librarian removed Bess for the rest of the class period as she was so frustrated with hearing complaints. Glad to see that to this day people still think protecting a minority from "harmful sites" is more important than the productivity of the majority.

Seeing a nude person in school harmful?

[koreaman]

I think filtering systems are bullshit because they don't work, with plenty of false positives and false negatives. Thus, I take issue with a different part of the article. There are plenty of reasons why seeing a nude person or a person having sex could be harmful in a school environment:

- It distracts from schoolwork, the legitimate purpose of those computers.
- Generally, the majority of people who stumble upon porn didn't want to see it.
- Pornography is harmful. More specifically, addiction to pornography is definitely considered harmful. Although one look doesn't form an addiction, we still want the availability of pornography to children to be limited as much as possible to protect them from developing or feeding such an addiction, as it is well known that children are more impressionable in basically every way than adults.

Also, "a bunch of other people think so" can in fact be a good reason:
- Schools are acting "in loco parentis" to prevent students from seeing, right or wrong, what their parents don't want them to see. As a blocking solution customized to each child would be unfeasible, they block what the majority of parents (a bunch of other people...) wouldn't want their children to see.
- Porn viewing in schools is so radically against the norm that nothing more than its bizarreness, noticed by the other students, would undermine the seriousness of the academic setting and the teacher's ability to teach.

Re:Seeing a nude person in school harmful?

[stewbacca]

The lady that was substitute teaching and had porn pop-ups jump all over her screen was found guilty of exposing students to that stuff. I haven't heard what the sentencing was. It wasn't her account, her computer, and she was only a temporary (substitute) employee, so I really can't see how that backwoods jury could have found her guilty. If I were her, I'd find out what "blocking" software they have and sue them (and the school district).

ANALysis.html

[mort_au]

A few years ago I was presenting a group assignment - I had made a website to present the information. One page was blocked, howerver. analysis.html. Now that's what I call quality filtering...

Re:What's wrong with sex/nudity

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nice try, but I doubt that. I'll do it here, only because it's actually appropriate -- I'll trundle out a tired comparison...wait for it...it's like being hungry, looking at a restaurant menu, and then not ordering. Not gonna happen, right? You'll order the food and eat.

Okay, that's a lame comparison. How is looking at a menu and not ordering equivelant to looking at pornography and jacking off?

the funny part about CIPA

[Kvasio]

THe funny part is that CIPA would be blocked content for Polish chldren, as it is an obscene terms for female genitals

Re:You've shown why the article is very poor advoc

[bennetthaselton]

(From the writer.) In general, I agree with you. However, advocating less censorship is a very special case of an issue where many people agree with the premise but are shy about speaking out, and (unusually for advocacy work) I think it is productive to whip up support, as you put it, among people who already agree. Having talked with lots of people about it, I think that a large percentage of people actually do agree that uncensored Internet access is not harmful to people under 18. (After all, many parents don't use blocking software, for one thing.) But they're timid about saying so, which I think is why, for example, this plurality viewpoint is not reflected by any politician's official position.

Still blocked

[Rukie]

I'm at a school t hat uses bess * spit* And although they are not blocked for pornography. Many of these are blocked for shopping/merchandising or recreation/hobbies and other sorts of things. However, a few of them are no longer blocked.