Ultimately, I think Seth nailed it:

“when everyone across a political spectrum, from civil-libertarians to censors, agrees that something is a bad idea, and its only major proponent is the organization which wants to make money off it – that’s a pretty good indication that it’s a bad idea.“

I dont understand they would still have freedom of speech (just try and take it away). This seems to me to be a form of organisation of compilation of materials rather than censorship.

In any event the porn industry is not known for compliance with legislative instruments dictating thier operations and it would be likely to fail from a practical point of view rather than a legal one.

My statements require no understanding of Kant. They do not require belief in Him or the Bible as His word. Although Wikipedia and common usage of “vice” may not agree with me, I’m not trying to prove a technicality. I’m simply saying that if someone has a destructive relationship with something, the key to the ending of destruction lay in the observer, not the observed. I’m not trying to argue a system to spell out what it means to act morally. Following any system or code of morality is destructive.

Robert said:

“I disagree with the blanket statement given by Peter Rock“

Unfortunately, I have not made myself clear. I don’t advocate blankets for any use other than keeping one warm on a cold night. I too am a parent of a very young child. Obviously, each situation must be seen for what it is and a decision made based upon circumstances. I’m not going to let a baby stick her hand in the fire because I believe in some “liberal” parenting system. However, I can honestly say that I will never bar my child from looking at pornography. But let’s make this clear from the start – this does not mean I will be bringing home a stack of explicit magazines for my child to look at nor will I be adding such bookmarks to my browser. The fact is, by the time my child is old enough to be curious about such things, my child will be old enough to engage in a discussion with me. Although I have confidence that my discussion will (either immediately or eventually) lead to my child discovering the vapidity of pornography, that is not important. What is important is to make sure the child is compassionately and thoroughly questioned yet given the ultimate decision to behave how he or she wishes. In the case of pornography, I believe a combination (conversation/restriction) is contradictory and sends the wrong message to a child.

You can read about the history of one system on The Net Labelling Delusion Saviour or Devil

Search for “CyberYES” to read about one commercial whitelist which might still exist, though not a big seller itself.

The basic problem is that all the proposals work off a model which is empirically wrong. It’s something the writer thinks *other* people should want, but they don’t. It’s very roughly:

Censor: “I want ‘X'”

Civil-Libertarian: “Here’s ‘Y’.”

“But I don’t want ‘Y’. I want ‘X'”

“According to what I view you want – or deserve – you should be happy with ‘Y'”

“I told you, I don’t want ‘Y’. I want ‘X'”

“But according to my analysis, ‘Y’ fits your needs”

“I’ll say it again: I DON’T WANT ‘Y”. I WANT ‘X'”

[Here: X == targeted material marginalized as much as possible. Y == A personal blacklist or whitelist]

Branko: Again, whitelists have been available for a long time. It’s not like the debate is going to advance from where it is now.

Another reason may be that the internet tends to be leaky. To given an example: the boss at a part-time job once asked me to rid his home computer of porn (that he had not put there), because his kids kept running into it. Turned out he had spyware on his pc, so that when their kids visited the wholesome websites that would fall inside the whitelists or outside the blacklists, they still got confronted with pornographic pop-ups. I had the difficult task of telling him that his kids might run into porn no matter how clean his pc.

(Of course I also told him about the dangers of downloading and installing stuff willy-nilly.)

Unfortunately, I did not make that argument. I wish to use the mere presence of whitelists (whether they are useful or not–and I agree that “not” is the more likely answer) as a strategic tool to ward off any attempts to limit free speech under the emotional argument of “won’t anybody think of the children”.

I don’t care whether whitelists actually get used or not. I just want to be able to say, “I’ve done my bit, now if you folks” (whether it’s parents or puritans) “don’t wish to use the tools I’ve given you, that’s your problem.”

A cynical position? Undoubtedly. We put speed bumps in the road based on the cynical position that drivers won’t adhere to the law.

Can you give (or point me to) some examples of the failures of the blacklist -> whitelist sequence (aside from .xxx) over the last decade? I’m fairly new to this debate and don’t know what you are referring to.

Also, why is it that, regarding the sandbox, “NOBODY WANTS IT”? If Kurt and Tim think it’s a good idea, and concerned parent Robert feels children’s “internet safety” is an issue that needs to be addressed, why are there no customers? Is it a defect in the marketing strategy? To extend the sandbox metaphor, are they marketing the boxed-in, sanitary features of the sandbox and not the things that make sandboxes fun, like buckets and shovels and dump trucks? Or is it a case of the public misrepresenting what they want in regards to “internet safety”?

I didn’t want to seem to be harsh on you while making the point, that the argument that concerned parents can use whitelists, hasn’t worked politically. What I mean by rarified debate is roughly this sequence:

“Proposal: – Let’s have a blacklist” (e.g. xxx domain, which is a particular poor implementation)

“Blacklists might be tools of government oppression”

“But I’m a *parent* worried about THE CHILDREN!!!”

“I’ve got a great idea – a whitelist“

“Yeah, a whitelist is a great idea”

This sequence doesn’t change. I can’t figure out how one gets the debate to incorporate the past decade’s practice with blacklists and whitelists.

If so, I fear I am not a member of that core group and don’t quite understand which argument I have raised that’s been proven not to work the past ten years.

Whitelists and blacklists are a case in point. They aren’t original ideas. They’ve been implemented in various ways almost since the start of the Net. This information just doesn’t seem to make it into the policy debate, because it’s too empirical.