Blocking Software: Political Agendas For Sale!
By j3nny3lf
- 828 reads
There are three reasons why I am strongly against filtering
software.
The first reason is that there is no such thing as a complete filter
list. Thousands of new porno sites are opened every single day, and
absolutely no software filter list can possibly keep up with them all.
This means that for every website your kid cannot see, there are dozens
that he or she can see.
The second reason is that the internet is not a babysitter. You can no
more set your ten year old down at the computer and say 'have fun,
dear', than you can drop them off on Saturday night in Times Square and
expect them to come through unscathed. It's a big, scary world out
there, folks, and as parents we have a responsibility to supervise our
own kids and not expect either websites, software, or the government to
do that for us. When your kid goes online, you should be right there
beside him or her, guiding them along. Lay down basic ground rules (in
our family this means no chatrooms, no signing up for websites without
checking with me or her Dad first, no giving out any personal
information other than her first name and state of residence), then
guide your kid as they learn to work within the rules your family
adheres to.
My daughter, in her 3+ years of websurfing, has accidentally run across
precisely one pornographic site that was linked through another page
she used to frequent. She blinked, said 'ICK!', and clicked her home
button to go to Yahooligans. She was not freaked out, she was not
traumatized, she was not scarred for life, because I had prepared her.
I had told her that some day she may see stuff like that, and that all
she needed to do was hit the HOME button on her browser and she would
be fine, and to talk with me if she was ever worried or bothered by
anything she had seen.
The third reason is somewhat controversial. Filtering software tends to
come with political agendas. What? you say! Yes indeed, folks,
political agendas. Now, some of you may approve of the things I am
about to point out, but I for one find them to be the worst examples of
censorship that I've ever run across, and I am sure that a lot of folks
out there share my viewpoint and do not know about these issues.
The majority of filtering software appears to carry a conservative and
fundamentalist agenda. I am now going to list some of the sites blocked
by some of the major filtering programs, along with the names of the
programs that block them. This could get long, folks.
Website Blocked
(reason for block)
Community United Against Violence - Smartfilter
(blocked for opposing violence against homosexuals)
CYBER SITTER has blocked:
National Organization for Women
(Blocked for maintaining information about gay and lesbian
rights)
www.peacefire.org
(for hosting an article against cyber sitter)
CYBER PATROL has blocked:
The Ontario Center For Religious Tolerance
(No reason given)
The Jewish Bulletin
(Seems the CP creators didn't like the personal ads, which, btw, are
very bland.. 'nice Jewish boy seeks nice Jewish girl for marriage on
kibbutz in Yisrael')
Electronic Freedom Foundation
(blocked for undisclosed reasons, but an interesting point is that
Cyber Patrol's website displays the EFF's blue ribbon logo)
The HIV/AIDS Info Center
(No reason given. This website is maintained by the American Medical
Association)
Envirolink
(For anti-vivisection articles)
Nizkor
(No reason given. Nizkor is a Holocaust remembrance site)
the soc.feminism newsgroup
(one can only guess why on this one)
X-STOP has blocked:
The AIDS quilt
(No reason given)
The homepage of the Society of Friends (the Quakers)
(No reason given)
The San Jose Mercury News
(Pulitzer prize winning newspaper, no reason given)
The Holy See website
(Hey, even the Pope isn't good enough for this one!)
Shamash
(The Jewish Internet Consortium)
Y-ME national Breast Cancer Organization
(probably for having the word 'breast' on the site. Can't have our
daughters learning about this stuff, can we?)
Net Nanny's list includes:
The Banned Books list at Carnegie Mellon University
Several dozen websites devoted to AIDS awareness and education
SURFWATCH has blocked:
The official website of the White House
(tsk tsk, Bill and Hill!)
Washington University's Student Health Center pages
(STD information)
Facts About Sexual Assault from Health Net
(let's guess why)
I-GEAR has blocked:
More HIV/AIDS education sites than you can shake a stick at, anti-fur
sites, anti-gun sites, anti-prejudice sites, anti-abuse sites,
anti-rape sites, and definitely all anti-fundamentalism sites.
With these things in mind, you need to decide whether you want your
surfing dictated to by the conservative right wing element of our
society, or whether you prefer to make up your own minds by visiting
the sites they block and deciding for yourself whether they merit a
return visit or not.
Meanwhile, for those of you who say: "Hey, I surf with the filter
turned off, I only make my kid use the filter." Well, like I said
before: No filter program is a substitute for proper supervision. No
filtering program will ever provide you the opportunity to reinforce
your own family's feelings about everything ranging from politics to
religion to the weather the way supervising your kid properly will. And
if you ever, heaven forbid, are faced with breast cancer, no filtering
program is likely to let your kid or you through its insanity to find
out what hope you have and what treatments are available.
As for me and mine, we prefer to think for ourselves. I hope that you
do, also.
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