Censorware Works/Doesn't Work (was Re: Filtering Turn-About)

[Seth Finkelstein]

Andrew I. Mutch wrote:
> Having convinced the Court in the ALA case that filters were effective
> controls on pornographic material, the government suddenly found that
> argument turned against its arguments in COPA that filters weren't an
> effective tool to stop children from accessing pornographic web sites.
> On the flip side, the free speech coalition found itself in the
> position of arguing that the use of filters by parents and others was
> a preferred alternative to the restrictions that COPA would have
> imposed.

	This is actually an extremely old horns-of-dilemma, going back
to the original Internet censorship debates in the mid-90's concerning
the Communications Decency Act. The politics is often counter-intuitive,
quite different from what would naively derive from simple models of
censorship positions.

	In fact, when I first decrypted censorware in *1995*, I
was specifically asked *not* to publish the results, because the
civil-liberties strategy was to argue that censorware works, as part
of a legal *and social* campaign. Thus, anyone who contradicted that
strategy was off the reservation. So my efforts to publicize what
censorware actually blocks, were, surprisingly, discouraged and hindered
*by* *the* *civil-liberties* *side*. And it's all completely logical
once one discards the assumption that it wouldn't happen, and grasps
the imperatives outlined above.

	Here's a few references (none written by me) if you want to
read about the background: (note some of the material is historical,
and doesn't necessarily reflect current attitudes of an organization).

http://sethf.com/anticensorware/history/junger-least.php
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/history/sims-liberties.php
http://sethf.com/pioneer/red.php
http://sethf.com/freespeech/censorware/legal/effapology.php

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
Interview: http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234
Seth Finkelstein's Infothought blog - http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/