Censorship or Filtering?

Last updated: 12/7/97
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In striking down the Communications Decency Act, the Supreme Court described the Internet as "the most mass participatory medium yet invented." Virtually anyone can put up a Web Site and distribute their own information, worldwide. The next version of Windows, Windows98, is scheduled to come with a Web Server built in, making the worldwide distribution of information by individuals even easier and less expensive. Points of view that used to be confined to the underground are now going public. This raises the stakes for free speech. Also, the nature of Internet technology makes automatic software possible to screen information based on content. It is pretty clear after the Supreme Court decision that governments are going to be restricted in censoring unwanted Internet information. But:

• Private firms are offering filtering software for parents
• Civil Rights organizations are beginning to offer filtered Web Pages for subscribers and supporters
• There is even a possibility that the basic Web technology could screen out certain content, since the Web is run by private organizations, not by government.

There are many technical difficulties with filtering software. Installing such software on a family computer seems to be beyond the technical capacities of most parents. Even if properly installed and configured, it is currently impossible to cleanly separate out a given category of content on the basis of a general description of the content, such as "child pornography." We may know it when we see it, but that does not mean that a computer program can make the distinction. For example, one parent's program was found to be unwittingly filtering out information from the Boy Scouts. Currently, filtering software does not identify the Web Sites it is blocking; this information could enable children to identify "forbidden" sites and make them more attractive. Would we all agree on what is or is not child pornography? Hardly likely. Should we err on the side of restricting content, or on the side of allowing content? Is there some point at which filtering becomes censorship, even if done privately?

Some of the categories of information that are being discussed as candidates for filtering are:

• Child pornography
• Pornography of any type accessible to children
• Hate speech
• "Spam", or Internet commercial junk mail

The group HateWatch monitors hate groups on the Internet. The Internet has enabled people with special interests to find each other and form groups. This includes hate groups. Hate groups are using new PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption to scramble their computer communications. Only those entrusted by the encryptors with an electronic "key" can read such communications; even if the communications are intercepted, without the key they are gibberish. The Internet is also used by hate groups to publicize or market their views, although, of course, communications for marketing purposes are not scrambled! Hate Watch identifies Web Sites of hate groups, maintains links to their Web Sites, publishes interviews with their members, publishes interviews with their critics, and generally tries to "expose them to the light of day" as fringe groups. The HateWatch Web Site is http://www.hatewatch.org.

So, this Internet issue of filtering Vs censorship is likely to be on the public agenda for some time to come.