Article Categories    •   Classroom Teaching    •   Teaching With Technology

Kids' Browsers: To Block or not to Block?

Blacklists?

Some programs use a blacklist of forbidden sites that gets regularly updated, others screen requested pages for words and certain types of images (though this feature seems to work marginally at best).

Some let parents opt-in or opt-out of specific sites, and most use a kid-oriented search engine or directory, like Yahooligans. A new entrant, Internet Safari, uses artificial intelligence and "advanced image detection and analysis" on every requested Web page, and sports a catchy jungle theme.

Whatever comfort I had previously felt quickly left as I demo'd these various programs. They were clunky and slow on the whole, but especially troublesome was the fact that they didn't seem to adequately censor the porn sites I was worried about, but did censor some sites that I thought shouldn't be.

And that's really the problem with censorship after all, isn't it? One man's trash is another's treasure, and all that.

It started hitting home for me then: this wasn't going to be the best approach to monitoring my kid's Internet use. I began suspecting what I think I knew all along, that this was going to take frank discussions, hands-on supervision, and some amount of trust.

Then I stumbled upon the Peacefire.org site and got my eyes opened even more. This group was started by kids to raise awareness about censoring software and free speech and has some serious perspectives to offer on the censorship debate. Plus, you've got to love a group that has the slogan, "It's not a crime to be smarter than your parents."

Not surprisingly, the site is chock full of food for thought. For instance, a report called "Amnesty Intercepted: Global human-rights groups blocked by Web censoring software," lists 30 human-rights advocacy websites, including Amnesty International and its affiliates, that are currently blocked by Cyber Patrol, Bess, Cybersitter, and SurfWatch. Another article highlights the websites of U.S. political candidates that are censored in one way or another by these types of programs.

And don't try getting to the Peacefire site from any of these programs, because you will certainly be blocked there as well. Since they offer advice and tools for disabling censorware, I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. But the National Organization for Women and Amnesty International? This wasn't quite what I was hoping to protect my son from.

It becomes pretty clear that the decisions on which sites should be blocked can be a bit arbitrary, are prone to errors, and may not be made with the criteria I would approve of. To be fair, some of these programs do allow you as the parent to completely specify whatever sites you do or do not want accessible to your child. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I don't have the time to carve out a morally and politically correct subset of the Web for my kids.

I know there's a lot of questionable stuff out there on the Web, but the reality is we're not going to make it go away anytime soon. We can try to pretend it isn't there by using blocking and filtering software, but those kind of solutions only last as long as you have total control over your children's computing experiences.

It reminds me of the dilemma of censoring TV viewing in a household. A common outcome is that children become overly interested in the banned material, and go out of their way to see it in other settings, like a friend's house.

Today, friends have computers and Internet connections, too. So after much hand wringing and seedy Web surfing, I've decided not to use any kind of blocking or filtering software in our house. I'm not going to take the easy way out and hope a computer program will deal with the difficulties of raising children in a society where explicit sexual and violent imagery is more readily available than ever.

I'd even like it if my children do turn out smarter than me.

  Bruce Stewart is a telecommunications consultant and technical writer. His articles have appeared here on Webtools as well as on Web Review, ZDNet, and the Industry Standard. Contact Bruce with thoughts on his column at bruces@sonic.net or through the Webtools editor.

For more of Bruce's Columns, visit the Browser Bytes Index Page.