Joe Moore wrote:
>I don't believe in censorship for *adults*, but I do have some
>concerns about our kids (yes, I have 2--one 2 and one 8 months).  I
>still believe we have the responsibility to provide some shelter--
>starting out with a lot and gradually getting less and less until
>the SHELTER component almost disappears in late high school.
 
You're right - we have responsibilities.  "We," of course, refers
to parents.  I put "Internet porn" in the same classification as
"Nintendo/Sega game violence" and "TV violence/sex."  It is not
the place of the service provider to censor.  My site, for example,
includes every faith, race, gender, and sexual orientation you can
envision; can/should I even try to find some common ground that
*cannot* be offensive to *someone*?  No, I can/should not; once
begun, that path leads to either chaos or silence.
 
Sure, some parents are going to be upset with little Jimmy finds
alt.sex.bondage/alt.sex.pictures.erotica, or when sexware.com dumps
one of its "Adult CD-ROM" junk-email ads into his mailbox; this is
inevitable.  However, *none* of us are in a position to either
demand or enforce any sort of censorship on an individual level.
 
If you look at the relative technical issues, the problem should
become apparent.  This site, servicing 2100+ users, generates over
800 email messages each day; how on earth should we filter that?
This campus receives *90-100 Mbytes* of Usenet traffic each day,
and sends 10-30 Mbytes into the net; how do we handle that?  For
that matter, how do you expect us to know if [log in to unmask] is
12 years old, 18, or 60?
 
Technically, it won't work without killing discussions; the time
required to handle the screening will slow a site of any signi-
ficant size to a crawl.  Ethically, we (as admins/technical folk)
are in no position to determine what is "right" for our users;
their diversity (cultural, social, and chronological alike) renders
that approach an impossibility.
 
The answer to the angry parents (I have a 1-year-old and twins on
the way, who will undoubtedly grow up on the 'information super-
highway') is "Go *parent* - it *can* be a verb."  That answer isn't
very popular in these times, when the TV/Nintendo/Sega/computer is
being used as a babysitter, but it's the only appropriate answer.
 
These decisions should be left where they belong - within each family.
I may wear a dozen hats on this job, but I do *not* wear a judge's robes.
 
--Wes