Once In A Great While ...

[GSPODS]

Even the politicians do something that makes sense.

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York's attorney general notified Comcast Corp. on Monday that the state will take legal action if the company — the nation's second-largest Internet service provider — doesn't agree to eliminate access to child pornography.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants major Internet access providers to agree on steps to remove certain newsgroups that contain child pornography and purge their servers of Web sites that contain child porn.

New York has already reached such agreements with AT&T Inc., AOL, Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc.

"Last week, Comcast joined with nearly the entire cable industry and 48 state attorneys general and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to sign an unprecedented, and highly praised, industrywide agreement to fight child pornography,"

My only question is, "What took them this long to ban such illegal, immoral, disgusting filth from the internet?" Did they have higher priorities?

That brings up another question. Should internet providers block all forms of pornography automatically? Most "IP's" provide a username and password feature upon initial setup, so a manual override could be built into any questionable website, without having to purchase NetNanny or WebSitter or any number of other products that cost money to prevent something that should not be an issue on the first place.

Why should responsible parents be required to spend additional time and money to block everything just because IP providers allow web addresses to be so similar that one type-o brings up something children should not see?

Try this for proof: Google "Domination game", an actual role-playing game for children and teens.

If the Google "automatic filtering" is on, the results are safe.
If the filtering is set to "do not filter my results" ...

Who's going to manually block their children from any website containing the word "game" just to prevent such an accident? Who's going to block Google, Yahoo and every other search engine? That's what I thought.

I'm the farthest thing removed from being a prude, but I have both the sense to double-check the web addresses I type, and the personal tastes to not be offended or disgusted by an errant website ...

[KazooSkinsFan]

Child porn is not content editing, it is a crime and should be because of the child, not the content. But other then that, you want to turn over the job of raising your kids to the government because it's hard? You want government to edit speech?

Major regression in your "libertarian" initiative. And like all anti-freedom campaigns it won't work. You cannot protect children from reality, you have to train them to deal with it. Sorry life's work, dude. Despite the Republicans and Democrats endless lies they will take that work away from you if you turn over your and your kids lives to be run by them.

[GSPODS]

Child porn is not content editing, it is a crime and should be because of the child, not the content. But other then that, you want to turn over the job of raising your kids to the government because it's hard? You want government to edit speech?

Major regression in your "libertarian" initiative. And like all anti-freedom campaigns it won't work. You cannot protect children from reality, you have to train them to deal with it. Sorry life's work, dude. Despite the Republicans and Democrats endless lies they will take that work away from you if you turn over your and your kids lives to be run by them.

The word "censorship" did not make any appearance.
This isn't a question of censorship.
It is a question of who is responsible for what.
You and I pay for the e-mail addresses we have through our internet providers. We don't pay for them so we can receive spam.
We have mailboxes so we can receive our bills and the mail we actually expect or request, not so we can receive third party solicitations and junk mail.
I see no difference between my phone number, which is both non-published and non-listed, and not for the purpose of being harassed by sales calls, and my IP address, which is not for the purpose of receiving solicitation e-mails and solicitation pop-up ads of any kind.

I understand it is impossible to block everything, especially when shady spammers are spoofing e-mail addresses and subject lines. But many of us use computers for school and business use as well as personal use. My wife is working on her PhD in early childhood education. I'm quite confident the research she is doing is for that purpose, and not for the purpose of being solicited by any 3rd party, including but not limited to pornographic spammers, pornographic pop-ups, and pornographic spoofed web addresses.

I don't want "The Government" to do anything, which is good, because that is usually what they do. I want the providers of content to be held responsible for the content in the same way an author or a musician and the publisher and producer are all accountable for the content of the material.

[Countertrey]

You people are sick. Just what are pedophiles supposed to do with their free time, now?

[GSPODS]

You people are sick. Just what are pedophiles supposed to do with their free time, now?

I have a few ideas, but I didn't place this thread in Smack.

[langleyparkjoe]

Child porn? I'm still trying to understand why search results would even display anything about child porn unless its a sex offender list. By the way, those lists are great.. I looked up my zip code and boy o friggin boy.. I just have to remember vigilante law isn't really law, its just getting our revenge for those innocent children who have been violated.

Sad world that we even have this as a discussion huh folks?

[KazooSkinsFan]

Child porn is not content editing, it is a crime and should be because of the child, not the content. But other then that, you want to turn over the job of raising your kids to the government because it's hard? You want government to edit speech?

Major regression in your "libertarian" initiative. And like all anti-freedom campaigns it won't work. You cannot protect children from reality, you have to train them to deal with it. Sorry life's work, dude. Despite the Republicans and Democrats endless lies they will take that work away from you if you turn over your and your kids lives to be run by them.

The word "censorship" did not make any appearance

It didn't have to, it was clear enough:

Should internet providers block all forms of pornography automatically? Most "IP's" provide a username and password feature upon initial setup, so a manual override could be built into any questionable website, without having to purchase NetNanny or WebSitter or any number of other products that cost money to prevent something that should not be an issue on the first place.

Why should responsible parents be required to spend additional time and money to block everything just because IP providers allow web addresses to be so similar that one type-o brings up something children should not see?

[GSPODS]

Child porn is not content editing, it is a crime and should be because of the child, not the content. But other then that, you want to turn over the job of raising your kids to the government because it's hard? You want government to edit speech?

Major regression in your "libertarian" initiative. And like all anti-freedom campaigns it won't work. You cannot protect children from reality, you have to train them to deal with it. Sorry life's work, dude. Despite the Republicans and Democrats endless lies they will take that work away from you if you turn over your and your kids lives to be run by them.

The word "censorship" did not make any appearance

It didn't have to, it was clear enough:

Should internet providers block all forms of pornography automatically? Most "IP's" provide a username and password feature upon initial setup, so a manual override could be built into any questionable website, without having to purchase NetNanny or WebSitter or any number of other products that cost money to prevent something that should not be an issue on the first place.

Why should responsible parents be required to spend additional time and money to block everything just because IP providers allow web addresses to be so similar that one type-o brings up something children should not see?

The question was: Doesn't it make more sense to block questionable material first, with the ability for adults to override the block than it does to allow everything first and then have lawsuits such as the ones against myspace and facebook?

This isn't about censorship. Age checks are commonplace.
This is about common sense, which seems to be lacking in all aspects.

[GSPODS]

A US federal appeals court today struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, a Clinton-era censorship law that the Justice Department has been struggling to get implemented for a decade. (The ACLU filed suit as soon as COPA was signed in 1998 and won an immediate injunction.) The battle has made it to the Supreme Court twice, and the DoJ has essentially never gotten any satisfaction out of the courts. This was the case for which the DoJ famously went trolling for search histories. In the ruling issued today, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that COPA violates the First Amendment because it is not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult Web sites. The law would require sites to check visitors' ages, e.g. by taking a credit card, if the site contained any material that is "harmful to minors," whatever that means.

[Rent-a-Hero]

Blocking anything on the internet goes against everything this country stands for. What ever you view is up to you, whether it illegal or not. I say more freedome and less control. But, veiwing specific content on the internet should be illegal and jailable, which it is.



-RaH-

[Rent-a-Hero]

Child porn is not content editing, it is a crime and should be because of the child, not the content. But other then that, you want to turn over the job of raising your kids to the government because it's hard? You want government to edit speech?

Major regression in your "libertarian" initiative. And like all anti-freedom campaigns it won't work. You cannot protect children from reality, you have to train them to deal with it. Sorry life's work, dude. Despite the Republicans and Democrats endless lies they will take that work away from you if you turn over your and your kids lives to be run by them.

Although you continue to accuse me of being someone else, this is probably the best post I've read thus far.

-RaH-

[Rent-a-Hero]

You people are sick. Just what are pedophiles supposed to do with their free time, now?

And this guy.....continues to post nonsense.

-RaH-

[Countertrey]

You people are sick. Just what are pedophiles supposed to do with their free time, now?

And this guy.....continues to post nonsense.

-RaH-

Sorry...
Had I known that we would have our very own visiting NAMBLA member, I would likely have addressed him specifically in Smack...

But, since we aren't in smack...