I saw this article over at ZDNet awhile ago and was going to post about it, but was in the middle of NaNo so I let it go. Today, I'm NaNo-free and in a rant kind of mood.
For you savages that have no clue about how the internet works (how the hell did you get here anyway?) and can't click the link, I'll sum up the article as best I can.
The ACLU (generally not a group I side with) and a group of people sued the federal government over the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (COPA), claiming the law is unconstitutional. For a brief overview of COPA, I'll refer to the article:
The law would impose a maximum fine of $50,000 a day and up to six months in prison for anyone who uses the Internet to "make any communication for commercial purposes that is available to any minor and that includes any material that is harmful to minors."
On the surface, it seems like a good idea, protecting children from the awful things they might find on the internet. But I have a problem with the law that goes beyond the court battle - the law shouldn't be in place at all. It never should've been introduced and it damn sure never should have been signed. All this craptacular piece of legislature does is take the burden of responsibility off of the parents to monitor and control what their children access on the internet. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.
But attorneys for the U.S. government called the law necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material and said Internet filtering technology was not good enough to block offending Web sites from personal computers.
Wrong on both counts! Oh how I love to see my tax dollars at work, funding this complete asshattery!
The law isn't necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material, PARENTS are necessary to protect young people from sexually explicit material! Wow, what a concept! Parents should be watching their children like hawks, especially on the internet.
And internet filtering technology is good enough to block offending websites. I should know, our hardware-based filter stops a ton of inappropriate material from getting through to the computers in Little Johnny's third grade classroom. But the thing to remember is filtering technology is not "set it and forget it". All filters need to be updated regularly (ours updates at midnight every day) in order to be effective. But that's where mom and dad come in again. A responsible parent shouldn't have a problem with making sure the filter is up-to-date to ensure their child isn't exposed to the crap that's on the internet.
Is content filtering 100% effective? No, it isn't. But it will block the majority of the inappropriate material that a child shouldn't be exposed to. Any decent filtering solution will provide the user with the option to manually add a website that isn't in it's records.
We don't need another law to take the job of responsible parenting off of our plate. All we need is for parents to do their jobs and raise their kids.
If that's too much to handle, don't have kids.
