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Currently software filters are not 100% effective in blocking offensive material. Also, they often err on the conservative side - blocking important educational sites about drugs, sex, health, non-violence, etc. Most filters do not give enough control to the consumer to decide what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. Filters are too narrowly focused to be useful with current technology.
Had the CDA not been overturned, anyone in the United States who posted adult material to the Internet could have faced minimum fines of US$250,000 and two years in prison per occurrence - unless they could prove that only those over 18 could access their materials.
In 1997 a unanimous Supreme Court decision, ACLU v. Reno, struck down the Communications Decency Act (CDA) saying that the Internet should have the same free speech protections as more traditional media.
Factors Leading to the Ruling Against the CDA
Regulation efforts were overbroad:
- Material easily available in bookstores, libraries, and record shops would be regulated on the Internet.
- The free flow of information on the Internet would have been stifled.
- Development of multimedia products and services would have been limited.
- Indecent speech online would be regulated unconstitutionally.
- Level of public discourse curbed due to banning of the "seven dirty words"
- Newsgroup postings may reach hundreds of thousands around the world
- Re-transmission of information is an internet norm
First Amendment right to "indecency" violated through similar definition for "obscenity"
- Sexually explicit material may be indecent but not obscene
- Supreme Court requirement of "least restrictive means" violated
- Trditional regulations should not apply to interactive media
- Historically used only for radio, television, and audiotext
- Unique user control
- Great abundance of capacity
- These efforts failed to take advantage of user and parental control features inherent in interactive media
- Government regulation is not necessary to shield children.
- Legislation should promote greater parental and user control.
- Congress should identify both legal and voluntary means in encouraging user control.
Factors Which the ACLU Hopes Will Lead to the Failure of Future Filtering Legislation:
- Filtering software is notoriously clumsy and inevitably restricts access to free speech.
- Various sites posted by religious groups have been blocked by filters
- e.g. American Family Association, Society of Friends, Glide United Methodist Church
- Various sites posted by organizations devoted to information about filtering have been blocked by filters.
Example
Parents and teachers should provide young people with guidance about accessing the Internet.
Legislation would put responsibility on government rather than parents, teachers, etc.
Students without home computers may never realize the full informational potential of the Internet.
Filters significantly reduce the amount and diversity of speech and information available
Filters have blocked access to non-controversial web sites
- e.g. no information on "mars exploration" because the letters "s-e-x" appear consecutively
Additional Problems with Filtering Systems
- Consumers are not given enough control over whitelists and/or blacklists.
- Children need to develop their own internal filter with the help of parents and teachers.
- Domain / site names can be easily changed to workaround filters.
- Sites are published online which provide information about working around filters.
- Filters developers seek to maintain a competitive advantage by not publishing white or black lists.
- Filtering software like all software is subject to bugs
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