Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| Internet Zoning Law
In this case, the proposal comes from a professor from Brigham Young University, Cheryl B. Preston, who's proposing the idea for an Internet Community Ports Act (ICPA), which would create special "zones" online where it would be okay for "adult" material to reside, and other zones that would be kid friendly. Apparently, this is needed to:
Find a reasonable balance among the values of the First Amendment, the appeal of an unfettered technological frontier, the right to be free of unwanted speech, and the right of parents to have the aid of the government in protecting children from age-inappropriate sexually explicit content online.
As with all proposals of this kind, I have two problems with it (beyond any Free Speech concerns):
1 - Who's going to define what is sexually explicit content? Will a site about breastfeeding be deemed sexually explicit? Will a site about breast cancer be called sexually explicit? Will a site demonstrating or describing safe sex procedures be called sexually explicit?
2 - How will you stop sexually explicit content that comes from overseas? If the site is located in Russia, how will you force it to conform to US law?
If the government should do anything (and I really don't think this is a place for government intervention), it should put together a recommended set of easy to use and affordable filtering tools for parents to install. This way each parent can decide for themselves just what to block and what to leave available. (For example, I might decide to leave the safe sex website available, but another family might think that should be blocked.)
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-Jason Levine
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