THE Internet is a rich source of education and entertainment鈥攏o wonder
parents are eager to get their kids online. But as publishing on the Internet is
so easy, it is also a rich source of drug information and misinformation,
propaganda for a variety of unsavoury causes and, of course, pornographic images
and stories.
So what are parents, teachers and librarians to do? In the best of all
possible worlds, they would surf with the child, discussing anything disturbing
or controversial. This takes time. Instead, governments and the Internet
industry encourage parents to rely on censorship software.
The most restrictive of these programs monitor what users type or try to
access, and block specified sites. There are two problems with this approach:
they don鈥檛 cover enough, and they cover too much. Net Nanny鈥檚 鈥渂anned lists鈥�,
for example, claim 4500 Web addresses (some are duplicates). There are more than
a million Web sites and more than 100 million pages.
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You can set up Net Nanny (http://www.netnanny.com/, $39.95) to
lock users out of a computer if they attempt to visit a site on its banned list,
or if they type certain keywords (鈥減orn鈥� or 鈥渟ex鈥�). This may deter a curious
teenager trying obvious routes, but it wouldn鈥檛 take much searching (or talking
to mates, online and off) to find pornography that hasn鈥檛 been blocked.
Moreover, Net Nanny has concentrated largely on blocking sexual content. Plenty
of hate literature, for example, slips through its net.
Cybersitter (http://www.pow-dist.co.uk/, 拢34.95) is not very
good at blocking access, but it can be set up to record what sites were visited
and whether keywords were found on the browsed pages. CyberPatrol
(http://www.microsys.com/, 拢24.95) claims to have 4 million 鈥淚nternet
resources鈥� in its filtering database. It blocked 19 of the 20 sites I tried, a
better success rate than the other two. It offers more control鈥攜ou could
choose to block hate literature but not pornography, for example. However, once
a child has discovered an unblocked site, they can often follow links to more of
a similar character, and no one can tell afterwards whether they spent the
evening reading 快猫短视频 online or trying to get at porn.
Net Nanny and some similar programs block access to a number of gay resources
and, notoriously, to the US National Organization for Women鈥檚 web site at
http://www.now.org. Cybersitter blocked access to a gay magazine,
http://www.planetout.com/, even though I had set it not to block 鈥済ay and
lesbian activities鈥�. As far as I could determine, CyberPatrol didn鈥檛 block any
more sites than it was told to. It won鈥檛 allow you to search for 鈥淓ssex鈥� or
鈥渁sexual鈥�, though.
By far the majority of sites on any of these lists are clearly unsuitable for
children. You should still be cautious, though, about handing over control over
what your child or student can see to an unaccountable commercial organisation.
There is a Web site about this issue at
http://cgi. pathfinder.com/netly/spoofcentral/censored/.
The coming thing is definitely PICS: Microsoft and Netscape are building this
鈥渞atings鈥� system into their Web browser programs. Designed by the World Wide Web
Consortium, in principle PICS offers a flexible and open way of labelling pages
with a variety of 鈥渁ttributes鈥� and controlling access. It won鈥檛 be something you
can rely on, however, until a very large numbers of pages has been 鈥渞ated鈥�.
Commercial porn merchants are happy to rate themselves (already excluding
kids, by demanding credit-card payments for access). Those with political,
religious or plain strange axes to grind are another matter. This leaves private
companies or governments to rate their sites, again begging the question: 鈥淲ho
watches the watchers?鈥�
Last but not least is a simple, cheap and effective鈥攂ut
partial鈥攕olution. Surf Spy
(http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/esmsoftware/sspy.htm)
and Net Snitch (http://www. netsnitch.com/) are shareware that keep logs of the titles and
addresses of all Web pages viewed. They should at least give teenagers pause for
thought.
And I wouldn鈥檛 worry too much about younger children stumbling on this stuff
accidentally: it鈥檚 out there, but you do have to look for it. In the end, the
only way to get 100 per cent protection from controversial material on the Net
is to unplug your computer.