DaniWeb IT Discussion Community

Blogs (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/)
-   Member Blogs (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/blogs.php)
-   -   Right On - What IT really is (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/blog73097.html)
-   -   -   What were these lawmakers thinking? (http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1364.html)

John A Right On - What IT really is
Mar 25th, 2007, 1:22 am
It sounds like such a good idea to have a law that ensures any pornographic content is filtered, and kept away from the minors. So good that some politicians decided to make a law about it. Well, it is an epidemic that's harming society. But that's about where the logic stops.

Did they not forget the whole purpose of the internet? The whole goal of it was that it would never be singly-controlled by one computer or server, so that if one router went down, the others could compensate and reroute traffic around. Likewise America cannot control the internet. They can try to put in filters, but I'd be amazed if they would even be able to control the adult content in America, let alone filter it from other countries.

Another thing that they seemed to have forgotten is that there are literally no laws on the internet. Sure, America can control a tiny bit, but that bit is ever-so-small. If even a few thousand porn websites refused to limit the viewers who are able to access it, the police/courts would have a tough time trying to terminate the servers, not to mention fining them. Look at it this way: pirating was never legal, yet it is very easy to do over the internet, despite the RIAA and other watchdog groups' efforts to control it. If American can't even stop something which has never been allowed, what makes them think that they can stop something which has been legal for who-knows-how many years?

Not to mention it would be a total waste of money. The US government would likely be pouring millions of dollars trying to stop what is impossible to stop, kids would still be able to look at the forbidden content, and we'd be getting nowhere. The real problem here is the parents. They simply cannot rely on the government to control what their kid views, and it's up to THEM to ensure that what they view is acceptable. No government is going to be able to control what kids do, watch, or listen to. That is, has, and always has been the parents' responsibility.

Sheesh, this reminds me of that Al-Queda plot to blow up the internet... Except that this time it would have been the government trying to do it, not a terrorist group.