Re: Surf-filter lists

[Cerridwyn Llewyellyn <ceridwyn@wolfenet.com>]

At 02:31 PM 7/17/96 -0500, you wrote:

><rant>A Private organization cannot "censor" anything.  The fundamental 
>definition of the word require some agent of the government take action 
>to censor.  To accuse Surf-Watch, net-nanny, AOL, MSU, AT&T, or whatever 
>of "censorship" accomplishes nothing except to make us look the 
>fool.</rant> 

I am not going to go into petty details about the actual definition of
censor, and how private organizations do censor, but private citizens
have the option of getting their information from an uncensored source,
the same as when a government censors. The only difference is the 
government is allowed to use physical coercion, whereas on the surface
corporations are not yet allowed to do so.

I will, however, address your argument on a different level.  Your view
of this issue typifies one of the primary objections I have to many of 
the arguments amongst libertarians.  The problem is NOT JUST GOVERNMENT.
It is with any authority that has power over you. When a private entity 
becomes powerful enough that they have the ability to forcefully exert
their influence over you, they are just as bad as Government.  Granted,
Surf-Watch and so forth haven't yet become that big, but there are some
rather large Media companies who have, as well as institutions such as
the Church.  For example, I think our mainstream news IS censored, and 
not necessarily by the government, more by corporations intent on keeping 
us in the mindframe that will make them the most money and prolong and 
extend their power.

I am not saying that a private entity doesn't or shouldn't have the Legal
Right to censor, but I am saying that censorship of any form by any
entity is a Bad Thing and the public (not the government, mind) should
fight it on all fronts.  This, in my mind, is the only reason to be
dismayed by the decision on the CDA.  It was found that the government
shouldn't censor on the Internet because there were forms of Corporate
censorship available.  It would have truely been a great day if the
decision had been that the government shouldn't censor on the Internet
because censorship is wrong.

>I agree that the problem with the "bait-and-switch" filtering of net 
>materials by these various filtering packages needs to be addressed.  If I 
>want to protect my kids from seeing alt.naughty.pictures, I shoudl still 
>be able to unfilter political and health speech.  The real problem isn't 
>censorship, it's disclosure by the makers of filtering packages about 
>what exactly their packages are going to filter for me and my family.  

That is another problem, not the Real Problem.  The Real Problem is that
parents are scared to have to explain to children why something they've
seen is wrong or bad.  They are afraid to teach their children their
beliefs and values, so instead would rather just filter everything that 
conflicts with those beliefs, so that they believe it by default. This is
a big problem when those children grow away from their parent's influence
though, and creates bigotry and intolerance. (They don't know why they
believe what they do, but believe it with fearful vengeance).

//cerridwyn//