The state attorney general must create a database of Web sites containing “material harmful to minors.”
Internet service providers must use filters – checked annually by the Utah Division of Consumer Protection – to keep children from seeing the sites. ISPs must offer the filters by 2006. If they don’t, they risk paying fines up to $10,000 a day.
Internet content publishers and ISPs would be subject to the state’s harmful-to-minors law, which would expose them to felony charges if they violate it.
There are obvious constitutionality issues involved here. Thoughts? I don’t see why this must fall on the ISPs. I think parents should just get filtering software on their own, or actually take the time to monitor their childrens behavior, and try and teach them (if the parents feel this way) that p0rnography is not good to be looking at.
The difficulty is actually being able to differentiate between a porn site and other sites. You could partially do it off of text on the site. And there even exist automatic image scanners that could help there. But it’s a heavy burden to bear.
They shouldn’t obligate ALL ISPs to do this. You should just allow for the market to take over and have their be “family friendly” ISPs that help you limit this. AOL is doing this on its own.
An analagous example would be those services creeping up that are editing movies to remove racey or violent material (the legality of this though, is in question).
They shouldn’t obligate ALL ISPs to do this. You should just allow for the market to take over and have their be “family friendly” ISPs that help you limit this. AOL is doing this on its own.
Totally agree. I want to sign up for the pr0n-friendly ISP, if only for the Hottie Thread!
How would that work? How would the ISP know whether it was me or my kid logging on? Even if I had a different log on for the kid wouldn’t the request be coming from the same computer or worse yet from behind a router?
“The difficulty is actually being able to differentiate between a porn site and other sites.”
Not only that but can you imagine the burden of keeping the “list” up to date. Easy as it is to Change site names etc. Also this will ahve no effect on Peer to Peer stuff like Limewire, E-mule etc. Not that I would know but that’s where all the kids go for their porn…
Well…yer wrong. You cant use keywords to block porn sites…many today just image everything and there is no actual text to the site. In addition…you cant block “penis, vagina, sex” and many other words. I work in medical IT…you can use your filter all day long…but the fact is a urologist needs to see “penis” on some sites…want to see some nice vaginas? Heck, look up labiaplasty and you can see all you want on actual business medical sites. One mans medical research is another mans porn.
What needs to be done in this instance is to put sites in a category and block categories…check out www.websense.com to see how it works. This IS NOT the job of an ISP though…parents need to take control.
The ISP could just have various user/subscriber categories, so a business can itself determine if it has a legitimate need to see sites with “naughty” words. Key word filters would in fact work for some, not all, porn sites. This limitation is why I also mentioned image scanners. Please don’t cherry pick, especially since our opinions are agreeing.
I use websense at work, and that is exactly what I was talking about. I do not think it should be a legislatively mandated thing for ISPs to do. While the idea behind this is partially admirable (no one WANTS to give kids porn, unless you are a 14 year old male), but it is a bad business move and bad legislation.
I never understand why people want the government to raise their kids, then can complain about the power and lunacy of the government. This is not the first, nor the last, attempt at such legislation. Too bad the simple answer is to let the parents do it.
I forgot, another method is to simply only allow internet access to a list of sites. If your child wants to look at a site that they aren’t allowed to, the parent can turn off the filtering software (or whatever they are using), examine the site, and make a decision. People are over engineering this stuff.
You could use my favorite method. It appears to work in all situations. Chores not getting done, bad grades, we’re not around to check occasionally to see what’s going on etc etc…Just unplug the computer from the router. Works 100% of the time. Especially since I have a lock on the door of the room where the router is. I rarely get the question of “why is teh internet not working” anymore because it usually is only not working when something is not getting done.
I agree whole heartedly. It’s simply ridiculous to legislate or even expect that someone else should “protect” your children. Games, TV, magazines, music etc etc are all available in forms that are unacceptable for children to have. I make it my business to know what my kid has. If it’s not appropriate I take it.
On the same subject the problem stems from plain old lazy parents. I have a CD sitting on my desk that was given to my daughter last year. It was given as a birthday present, by another kid. On the front is the “legislated” explicit lyrics and content warning. My daughter was turning 13 at the time. OK so why did the other kid have it in the first place adn second what kind of parent allows their kid to give it away as a gift?
I know this is going to sound like a huge troll, and maybe it is…
But isn’t it likely that the people who support this kind of legislation would tend to be the fairly right- wing conservatives that also talk about personal responsibility and less government interference?
