P.C. Shannon

As soon-to-be parents, Caroline and I are worried about protecting our kid(s) from the ugly parts of the Internet. At the same time, I’m not convinced that this problem is best solved with legislation, so I was glad when the Child Online Protection Act was struck down recently by the Supreme Court. I found Lawrence Lessig’s comments on the COPA and his ideas for protecting kids from harmful content particularly interesting.

Lessig has a problem with private filters like NetNanny, but it’s not really clear from his post or the ACLU press release to which he links what exactly the problem is. I think I figured it out. Private filters don’t tell their users what is being blocked, nor do they provide a mechanism for blocked sites to appeal their status. This gives them a lot of power that can easily be abused. I agree that that’s a big problem, but I’m not convinced on his other point—that we need a law to address “harmful to minors” content.

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