Peacefire irks anti-porn groups. Now, I am not ‘anti-porn’ and I appreciated the various female forms in various stages of dress and undress as any hetero man, but I am opposed to this man.
So now all an inquisitive child needs to do is to is to find out about peacefire.org (which filter software should also filter, and will be added to my ‘do not allow’ list tonight) in order to override parents’ wishes at filtering content coming into their home. Why do we need such a service. Because
Well, if it is for a school project, then I will personally help my child access what they need to in order to do the project. Other, more sensitive issues should be addressed by a parent or guardian (I know they often aren’t). However, considering the amount of bad information to good on the web, I (personally) don’t think it is the best place to get solid answers to tricky questions. If my children complain WebMD is blocked, I’ll unblock it. Johnny Grunge’s site on DIY abortions can remain blocked.
Do we really need anti-anti-filtering software? What purpose does it serve? And lastly, why would someone like this feel he has the right and obligation to override parents’ limits?
Honestly, I don’t see anything wrong with it, myself. I’m not certain what the problem here is. Software doesn’t replace parenting, and I’m not even sure it aids it when the parent isn’t there.
I don’t agree with what he is doing. But I just wanted to add that filters are generally not effective. They should not replace keeping an eye on what your child is doing on the internet.
I’ll give you an example. The other day I wanted to go to the white house web site. The first thing I typed in was whitehouse.com. It is a porn site. I doubt a filter would have caught it. The real site is www.whitehouse.gov (duh)
So, playing devil’s advocate for a moment, maybe if the filters become less effective due to what this guy does, maybe parents will be less likely to place all their faith in a program. Maybe they will be forced to actually pay attention to what their kids are doing on the internet.
No, we don’t really need it, but there’s obviously a demand for it. If you were a minor frustrated by your parents control, you would understand it’s purpose and find it useful.
If the kids are sharp enough to realize that there missing out on, and they take intelligent actions to find it, I doubt they’re so young as to be completely overwhelmed by what they find. Ironically though, by expressing your anger, you’re only increasing the publicity for PeaceFire. There are minors at the SDMB too!
My main concern as a parent wouldn’t be what they saw, but who they could interact with. Could a filtering program control that?
Well, if that is the case, I stand corrected and apologize for the misinformation. I was under the assumption that they simply looked for key words. Even so, with the amount of new sites popping up each day, I would hardly imagine they are all-inclusive.
I knew about Peacefire when I was in high school on filtered computers. I didn’t use it to surf for porn at school, but I did (and still do) appreciate that it was there.
I was a bright little high schooler, and at that point I think my parents trusted me to be able to handle any information that I came upon without any problems. My school, however, was run like a prison and they barely trusted us with computers at all. I was mature enough to understand the issues involved and old enough to seek out further information on the issues. At that point I don’t think anyones- not my parents, not my schools, not some legislator trying to pass library filtering laws- right to decide what I do and dont get to see surpassed mine.
I guess I just appreciated someone giving a little bit of credit to youth. It is amazing how people underestimate the youth and treat them like semi-humans. Young people are thoughful, worthwhile, full-on people, and we need to give them the tools to come to their own decisions and maybe screw things up every once in a while and actually learn something.
Let’s see… how can kids get educated about sex these days?
Frank, open discussion with Mom & Dad? I’m guessing maybe 10% of the population can manage that one. And I’m being generous.
Sex education in schools? Hamstrung so badly by politics, it offers almost no education at all. Just, don’t do it, and if you do do it, be careful.
Peers? Never the most reliable source of information.
Experimentation? Usually a bad idea, but offers a lot of enticement.
The internet?
I wish I’d had the internet when I was a kid. I spent way too long completely convinced that I was the only guy on the planet who wanted to sleep with other guys. And then way too long thinking that there were a few other freaks out there. When I could have been spending my time coming to terms with who I was.
I understand the use of filters in order to keep kids from accidentally running across inappropriate information. But when a kid gets to the point where they’re actually going out seeking that information, filters are worse than useless; they’re blocking out reputable sources of information like WebMD, and limiting the kids’ surfing to obscure porn sites that pop up faster than the filtering software can add them to their databases.
I say, why do parents think that they can limit their kid’s access in the first place? More to the point, the censoring of Peacefire is one of many blatant examples of exactly what Bennett Haselton is fighting. Peacefire is not pornographic or violent. http://www.mrlizard.com/Sitter.html
Lizard, a Smart Dude, says it better and with more style than I could.
musicguy, most filters use a combination of keyword and specific site blocking strategies. None are all inclusive, no doubt. But simple mistakes like mistyping the Cartoon Network’s website or the White House domain are blocked.
perspective, point taken; I may just have given minors ways around parental controls. And I’m not so old as to have forgotten my own frustrations at my parents. But I am old enough that there wasn’t a global community actively working to thwart my parents’ efforts.
erislover, I don’t believe software replaces parenting. However, there comes a point where you are not going to watch every click a child makes (although they are told that deleting their history folder is forbidden - yes, I know that individual items can be deleted, but there are other way’s to track them if necessary). Just like you are not going to follow them every place they go. I believe children need to explore their world, and I slowly increase the area in which they can operate without full supervision (note, I did not say without supervision). However, I’d like to retain the power to exclude certain areas from that area; it is my right and my duty as a parent.
even sven, perhaps you were the exception to the rule. However, my family (several generations, at that) and my contemporaries all believed they were bright teenagers, but realized we all got dumber the older we became. Generally speaking, teens are less capable of discerning good from bad information (although there are quite a few adults who never figure it out); I’d like the opportunity to steer them in the right direction. I don’t think an impressionable, pre- or early-teen girl needs a site extolling the virtues of anorexia.
Some people may treat teens as semi-humans; I prefer to think of them as young humans. I do think they should be allowed to screw up. I’d rather, however, have some control over the screw-ups; coming on to older men in chat rooms and meeting them IRL is not an acceptable screw up.
Responsible parenting is difficult enough as it is. We don’t need the Bennett Haselton’s of the world making it tougher.
Quick question: Why censorware? Why not let kids look at porn? Don’t kid yourselves: kids are perfectly capable of killing spam and pop-ups by themselves. Censorware is to stop kids who are searching for stuff* to find it.
and not just porn, either. Symantec blocks websites with the words abortion, gay, or feminism in them. Hell, symantec blocks half of the threads on these boards.
But to reiterate: Why are you keeping kids from getting porn? As far as safe sex goes, it’s hard to be safer than a modem and hand lotion. Or. . . Hmm. I have no idea what peripherials are required by the fairer sex. Is there a thread discussing this?
robertliguori, to each his own. I’m certainly not one to take a moral high ground on the porn issue. On the other hand, I’m not going to just let it walk through the front door, in its sickest forms, without a fight. They can learn about sex the old fashioned way - sneaking into R-rated films and buying cheap porn magazines at Penn Station.
I can’t speak for Symantec’s software and, as I stated, I know filtering software blocks out some legitimate sources. Great - you want to know about the feminist movement, let’s research it together. Or, at the very least, I’ll temporarily disable the software. Abortion - same thing, and I’ll get the opportunity to refresh my and Ms. D_Odds opinions on the subject. Gay - again, we can work together. I’ve made it clear that I view gay people no differently. Problem with WebMD; I’ll unblock it in a second. Problem with gayporn,com - forget it. We both know you shouldn’t be there.
Not every parent is going to give enlightened opinions or discuss difficult topics. Most probably won’t do one of either, too many won’t do both. But don’t make my job harder. Don’t make porn sites that actively try to outwit filtering software. Don’t make software that disrupts it. And if you do and we meet, don’t be surprised if I drag you in a dark alley and try to ‘convince’ you of the error of your ways.
Peacefire isn’t exactly marketing itself as “Hey kids! Look at porn without your parents’ permission!”. It is about educating people (not objectively, but still getting information out there) and giving people a greater understanding of technology that they often use without thinking fully about it.
The “get around the filters” aspect of it isn’t really the point at all. It is more of an act of political protest than a practical tool for parental defience. And I am all about non-violent, informed political protest.
What do you feel about tools that get around workplace restrictions? How about tools that allow people in countries with free speech restrictions (China, France, etc.) to access sites that their government does not allow? How about using encryption standards that are being restricted by our own government?
I just don’t see how this guy doing his thing, writing his code, making his web site, hurts you.
To expand on what even sven said, Peacefire’s main mission is not to teach kiddies how to access porn. It’s really about giving people tools to allow them to freely navigate the web. Peacefire has done a great deal to show how utterly arbitrary and inaccurate most web-filtering software is. It was Peacefire that first exposed how many popular filtering programs actually blocked legitimate & useful websites. Eventually even the Supreme Court agreed with Peacefire’s position that the low accuracy of filtering software violates the First Ammendment when used in public libraries.
And if you’re a parent who feels the need to “protect” their children from unfettered access to the web, there’s still no need to feel threatened by Peacefire…the Peacefire Website is blocked by almost every web-filtering program!
