use of Internet filtering is heating up in Europe
Any sane person has to be sick at the thought of kiddie porn. Twisted F”!%#N minds that produce that stuff need to be shot or worse.
But .... when I see words like “censorship” combined with governments I get sorta shaky. Kiddie porn should be shut down and there can’t be any reasonable debate as to exactly what that entails. There aren’t any grey areas there.
I just wonder if these folks are gonna try and swat an insect with a hammer.
There’s already debate(s) in Europe re. downloading what they say is illegal music, and the Eu is asking about turning off any ISP that allows it. Case of fly and hammer here. Altho while I don’t feel huge sympathy with the cry in designer beer “artists” and especially record companies, I do understand the royalty thing having been in that business. Ah .. but I’m also aware of the vast sums that are wasted in that business. Think in terms of going to a mountain top and tossing money down on the world.
on 02/23/2008 at 08:27 AM
There is no question that the so-called “information superhighway” has become clogged with pure, unadulterated, wall-to-wall bullshit. One need only “google” almost any topic at hand, and the proof struts itself across your screen. With distressingly few exceptions, the “information superhighway” has become a fetid, miasmic sewer, to be navigated at your own risk.
If one can manage to find a way through the online feces to some purported “information,” on almost any topic at hand, one is apt to find that scholarship is nil, integrity is less than nil, and reliability is a sick joke, not to mention an ulterior motive that stinks to high heaven.
That being said, it must be asserted that cleaning such a sewer is not a task for a wannabee regulator here, and another wannabee regulator there. It seems that each of them is interested only in his own pet peeve (or his own ulterior motive), and nothing else. Doing things by halves is no damned good.
It might be different, if (and it is a damned big IF) an international convention could do as they once did, decades ago, in the case of regulating radio broadcasting. That too was an anarchistic jungle until it was organized by international agreement. The key is agreement. A basic set of guidelines (like a constitution) must be accepted by all, and it must then be upheld by all, with no (and especially no self-serving) exceptions.
It is a difficult proposition, but precedent exists, and it is manifestly better than tinkering on the part of every governmental jack-wad that fancies himself God’s palpitating little second lieutenant in charge of the bytes!
The subject of protecting our children online has been spoken about many times but parents are too busy to understand the immensity of the problem and fathers, like me, just haven’t gotten involved enough!
For the past 15 years I have been working as an executive in the Telecommunication industry and have now channeled all that experience towards showing parents how to protect their children online and not be intimidated by the internet themselves.
I started a company called, WiHood. WiHood protects children while surfing the internet by providing each child with a brand new virtual PC online. While they surf, do homework, play games, all the normal things they do on a PC, their internet sites are being filtered.
WiHood is about protecting our children and closing the digital divide, simultaneously. I thought you would be interested to know about WiHood because your article showed that you cared about informing parents like we do and about the danger of children being online and what parents should do to protect their children even when they are not around.
Thomas F. Anglero, Father and CEO
WiHood LLCPosted by WiHood
02/24/2008 at 05:40 AM
I work for one of the largest school districts in the country, and our iWatch program is nearly 8 years old.
The one thing we keep pounding and pounding on is: NOTHING will do the parent’s job. There is no software that can’t be circumvented, no Nannybot that doesn’t have holes, no way to keep kids away from the internet in locations other than home.
Filters are clumsy, and do work after a fashion, but anyone who uses one and assumes his kid is now “Safe” is dreaming.
Vigilance a constant, open dialogue, and keeping your home computer in plain view is the best start on child safety.
Posted by heldmyw
02/24/2008 at 06:03 PM
I could not agree with your more about NOTHING replaces the parent! If anyone ever makes the claim that software can replace a parent then that person is clueless. Parents must spend time communicating with their children about everything including the internet which has many parents confused.
I don’t think a successful software or internet service is meant to lock a child into anything that they don’t want to use. This is why many schools have programs that the students spend more time hacking than learning the school’s IT learning tools. An ideal software program creates an environment that the student voluntarily wants to be a part of because this is where their community exists, there files are stored and their identity is recognized.
I know this because we, WiHood, have had success with this exact philosophy; parents can not be replaced and children must feel that the PC and the internet are “their” personal place. We are in discussions with schools in Norway and I take your advice to heart, thank you.
I promise to not preach false promises and ever insinuate that a parent can be replaced...ever!
Thomas F. Anglero, Father and CEO
WiHood LLCPosted by WiHood
02/24/2008 at 06:31 PM
We seem to have a growing idea of government censorship. The Soviet Union was rather adamant about suppressing ideas or information that contradicted the party line. Some people don’t like the Koran, some don’t like the Bible or Nietsche. Some folks think that a woman showing her ankle is hardcore pornography. How will we define what can be transmitted and what can’t? Who is going to make the decision for the rest of us? What right of appeal will we retain? How does any of this square with the First Amendment?
Certain particularly vile forms of pornography have been banned and those bans have been upheld by the courts. I’m O.K. with that. What I’m not O.K. with is any form of censorship any more restrictive than that. Fetid sewer or not, abridging anyone’s freedom of speech abridges the freedom of speech for all of us. Go take a look at Thomas Jefferson’s remarks when he was being vilified in the press. He didn’t like what they were saying. He didn’t like the lies and distortions. He also supported their right to publish those lies and distortions without qualification.
It seems funny that a group that generally wants the government limited and out of our lives can even consider giving any measure of power to a government censor. I can’t be the only one who read 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. This is a situation where we must be very careful what we ask for because we’re likely to get a lot more than we bargained for.
....and the very next news article I saw was:
Pakistan Blocks YouTube for ‘Blasphemous’ Content
You can guess what the blasphemy was, or you can read the article and also see who else banned what and why. To us, even if the comments were about our own faith, we’d shrug our shoulders and get on with our business. In this case, all access to YouTube was shut down. Freedom of speech is precious. Don’t throw it away lightly.
