Child Online Protection Act Appeal Rejected

TarrVetus writes "The Associated Press reports that a federal appeals court in Philadelphia has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act will not be revived, upholding a 2007 decision that the unimplemented 1998 law is unconstitutional. The law, which made it a crime for websites to allow children access to 'harmful' material, was declared a violation of the First Amendment because of existing elective filtering technologies and parental controls that are less restrictive to free speech than the 'ineffective' and 'overly broad' ban."

Comments

Re:Adult entertainment?

[Volante3192]

The trick lies in blocking adult entertainment from children while making sure it's delivery is unhindered to the adults who are legally allowed to view it.

Furthermore, you have to be sure to seperate adult entertainment from sites talking about, say, breast cancer, that kids may need for research projects in high school.

So, while I'd wager many share your view, many of us here have to come to the realization that a comprehensive solution is too unwieldly to even imagine.

This is where parental supervision comes into play, and often where the kick falls short.

Think Of The Children!

[Kenyai]

I'm glad this happened.

Allow me to be blatantly honest. I think kids should have the right to explore their sexuality in a safe manner online. I know I did.

Why is "adult entertainment" so exclusive anyway? You know, they could have extremely tame erotic websites to cater to kids who are interested. Probably like softcore Playboy pics or something.

Re:Adult entertainment?

[powerlord]

How do you monitor what your children do online? That is the equivalent of trying to keep track of everyone that your children associate with, everywhere that they go with their friends, everything that they say, etc. It is just not possible to do that, and it never was.

I'd imagine Its sort of like monitoring what they watch.

- Set them up on a restricted account (on whatever OS you use), so that they CAN'T change things/install things without your approval. That might mean that you need a different
computer for YOUR use, vs. the "whole families use".
- Add a password, don't tell them what it is. If they want to use the computer, then an "adult" needs to be monitoring their usage. Yes, you might sometimes just unlock it and let them play on site X, but if they want to get on-line, you have to know they are there. Check in from time to time at random and see how its coming. Maybe spend some time playing their games with them, or just watching.
- Install "parental control" software (yes, its not 100% effective, but its at least a step up).

Talk to your children and let them know about the "dangers" to both themselves and their computer of going to random web sites, "accepting digital candy/files from strangers", etc.

Realize that at the point they can bypass all of your "controls" to look at pornography, they are doing the equivalent of you sneaking into your fathers drawer of Playboys (albeit quite a bit more graphic)

Alternatively, perhaps one idea is to make a drawer of playboys something that they can "sneak into" so they have less initial dive to get at the hard-core stuff?

At a certain point they will be old enough that it just won't matter, part of that is their age, and part of that is how you raise them (and who their school friends are).