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Utah Wants To Give ISPs That Filter a "G-Rating"

Posted by kdawson on from the there-goes-sundance dept.

An anonymous reader writes "HB407 in Utah would create a child-friendly designation for ISPs that block out a range of prohibited materials. Google, Yahoo, and others are fighting the bill, but Rep. Michael Morley says, 'I think it's a positive thing for those who are looking for a site that is dedicated to fighting pornography.'"

9 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Unworkable by milsoRgen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It will never work, the state and/or companies that would try and implement it would needlessly expose themselves to liability once parents who let the computer screen baby sit their kids realize it's not fool proof.

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
    1. Re:Unworkable by Otter+Escaping+North · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The parent in me understands the concerns at play here; that we want to restrict the nature of the media that our children are exposed to. The geek in me understands why this short-term impossible, medium-to-long-term semi-workable on a small-scale, but undesirable for the ISPs, the search engines, and the like.

      The only way you can pull this off is with a trust-system. The ratings analogy seems to conveniently skip over the existing infrastructure of that trust-system. The content producers are responsible for obtaining the ratings, and the end-distributors (movie houses, broadcasters) will only carry that content which already has obtained such ratings.

      So you can try to get ISPs to only serve websites that have previously been "rated" by some certified body (something as reasoned and transparent as the MPAA-rating-committee, I'm sure) - but the sprawling nature of the web, and the user-driven-content model of the so-called "Web 2.0" sites are going to move most of the web off the field for that. What you're left with are a few sites that are specifically kid-oriented, and can probably be more easily achieved with a home-grown routing whitelist.

      Are there not consumer products that easily allow parents to set such a list? Or are we talking about something that sounds nice in theory, but that no one is actually looking for? Seems to me that if you're worried about this kind of stuff in your home that it should be solvable with a $50 router and an hour reading the manual.

      --
      Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
    2. Re:Unworkable by KublaiKhan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The weakness in that argument is that it requires that parents take responsibility and make an effort to educate themselves.

      Your typical soccer mom "doesn't know anything about computers" and has no interest in doing so--but wants to make sure the kids are safe, because anything other than total and utter safety Just Won't Do.

      Now, if you decided to build yourself a cheapass firewall/filter/proxy appliance, form factor about the same as your typical cable modem and priced at about the $50 point you mentioned (with, say, $19.95/month updating service) that you could plug inline between the modem and the home LAN, you could conceivably make a profit--but if it required any activation by the parent more complicated than a typical windows "click yes" wizard and selecting a secret code, you can forget about any sort of widespread adoption.

      --
      In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
      A stately pleasure dome decree
    3. Re:Unworkable by Jtheletter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That reminds me of a couple years back, when in one year Yahoo three times killed off their own breast-cancer support-group mailing list. Talking about breasts is porn, y'know, and we can't let impressionable children read about them.
      And that reminds me of waaaay back when AOL first started censoring chat room names based on a blacklist of words. For two days the "Breast Cancer Survivors Group" was the "Hooters Cancer Survivors Group" before it was fixed. Cancer is not funny, but 'hooters cancer' sure sounds funny.
      --
      -- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
  2. Re:Unintended effects by NekoIncardine · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are many Bible-thumpers who would love the idea of jerking off to "Christian Moral Values" works. You think I'm making this up, of course. You haven't seen how screwed up some hardcore Christians can get.

    --
    Omeg La. Rofl Leh.
  3. filter does not imply child friendly by fermion · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is going to do nothing but cause a false sense of security, will not block the soft stuff that most kids are perfectly happy with anyway, and will block legitimate sites. I often use an ISP connection that is highly filtered to weed out content not appropriate for kids. I sometimes even go further on put on google full safe search. The stuff that is supposed to filtered is still there, and often shows up on otherwise innocuous searches. OTOH, I have been blocked from perfectly reasonable content, for reasons I cannot fantom. I have had similar results on filtered pubic access connections.

    The reality is that not everything can be filtered. Combine that with the fact that nearly every kid over the age of 10 have access to proxy server, and the whole notion of a g-rated filtered pipe becomes quite humorous. The only way to remotely sell a legitimate rated service is to white list acceptable sites. It si time consuming, but effective. There are still tricks to get around it, but the bar is significantly raised.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  4. Re:!Censorship by phoenix.bam! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is absolutely no need for the government to become involved in this. If a company wants to offer a filtered package, that is something they can advertise. The government has no business rating ISPs based on its arbitrary standards.

  5. What the fuck are they? "Utahians?" "Utahans?" by Didion+Sprague · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think Utah folks (and everybody else, for that matter) should consider the up-side to pornography. Most geeks (and non-geeks) have strengthened their dominant arms/fingers/hands considerably since the advent of insta-porn. Increased strength means your base metabolic rate increases -- which points the way to increased weight loss. It's a win-win.

    A couple more:

    - There's a link between visual stimulation and increased brain activity. This is good -- and probably helps prevent dementia and all sorts of crazy brain diseases.

    - There's a link between porn and sex. This is good. Porn improves sex lives -- including residents from Utah. Everyone benefits from healthy sex lives -- even if you're doing it solo. See above.

    - Exposure to porn lowers your surprise threshold. Lower surprise thresholds mean an increased ability to concentrate on the stuff that matters. Porn does not matter on the scale of "stuff that matters." Limiting porn is like limiting gambling: it's all about power and nothing about the "social ills" it purports to assist. Gamblers gamble, pornographers pornograph, and porn viewers view. This stuff is part of what it means to be a human being. Those moralists opposed to gambling could probably learn a thing or two about mathematics, social science, and spiritual balance by taking a look at gambling -- and how to gamble effectively.

    And no -- gambling effectively is not an oxymoron. The best gamble is to realize when you have the best of it -- and then make the bet. Ditto for the best porn. It's understanding what you like, searching it out, finding it, and deriving pleasure. There's nothing wrong with pleasure. Pleasure is good. Winning money is good. As Paul Newmann says in the "Color of Money": "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."

    No truer words spoken. If the fucking Utahans -- or Mormons or whatever the fuck they call themselves in Utah -- if they'd zero in simply the idea of "pleasure" -- and look for ways to make the pleasure safe and even more effective -- they'd all enjoy their fucking nutty nitty lives a bit more.

  6. Re:Filtering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Posting AC due to modding.
    You're correct that creating an ISP to fill a specific market niche is capitalism. Creating a law that creates a new market is not. And this is what this law is doing: it creates the new market of G-rated ISPs, and market entry is determined by whether a company abides by completely arbitrary rules that have little relation to the purpose of the market.

    At best, the law is completely useless, as it merely duplicates the work of a free market. At worst... ugh, I don't even want to think about what abomination could come from this. Can you imagine having to get an X-rated ISP to do anatomical studies, and to have your name made public "because only child molesters use an x-rated ISP"?

    That's why I'm against this law - it provides zero benefit, and the potential for negative impact is enormous.