WWW: Beyond the Basics

5. Freedom of Speech

5.8. Achieving Restrictions on the Net

It has been stated that the hardest issue to resolve for preserving freedom of expression on the Internet is how to feasibly restrict content. This is not an insignificant issue. For all the rhetorical discussion on the right to free speech and the need to implement restrictions to certain materials, the actual difficulties of imposing these restrictions are now becoming known.

The crudest approach is to simply eliminate vast sections of the Internet from individual access, which was seen in many of the previous approaches being used around the world. Other relatively simple approaches filter email, web pages, and other Internet content based on key word searches and pattern matching algorithms. This broad based censorship is non-discriminating and generally eliminates far more information than is necessary. Keyword searches have been implemented with search engines by several concerned organizations. In an over-simplification, for every "sex" site found that includes dirty pictures and graphic text, there is one that is about education or science.

Some other novel approaches include monitoring web sites for content and providing a list of "kid" approved zones for Internet content. Several large corporations have adopted this approach. One "kid" approved service provider, as of this writing, included nearly 200,000 different web pages in its portfolio. This is a labor intensive effort however, and the limitations are quite clear. Eventually a sniffer, like search engines use, might be tailored to sniff sites for "decent" content.

The careful reader may have noticed in the world attitude section that the UK is attempting to self-regulate the Net without any explicit government involvement. This is the method that freedom of expression proponents are touting as the answer. It satisfies the legal "good faith" effort to prevent undesirable ("indecent") sites from children and it meets the "least restrictive means possible" clause without needlessly treading on "decent" sites. The development of self-rating system is most refined in PICS, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium.

[PREV][NEXT][UP][HOME][VT CS]

Copyright © 1996 Mike McGee, All Rights Reserved

Mike McGee <mmcgee@vt.edu>
Last modified: Thu Nov 27 13:13:33 1996