[8904] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: What Will It Take To Educate TV About the Net?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brad Cox @ GMU/PSOL)
Sat Dec 11 09:34:32 1993
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 09:38:20 -0500
To: com-priv@psi.com (compriv)
From: bcox@gmu.edu (Brad Cox @ GMU/PSOL)
dave@oldcolo.com (Dave Hughes) wrote
> (I have a basic solution - for parents and educators which can go a
>long way to 'solve' the problem of child access to net pornography - which
>is simply to push BBS's or user-configerable client machines as 'front
>ends' to the Internet, with well developed tools to empower the parent or
>teachers to selectively block access to WHATEVER they don't want to
>see/read.
I'd put a small (but hardly negligible) spin on that suggestion. Enable
*people* to play a role with respect to this (perceived or real) problem.
Make the machines.responsible for supporting this role, not supplanting it.
Small (or large) entrepreneurs, analogous to publishers or newsletter
writers, might establish businesses to supply carefullyl filtered
information targeted to special audiences such as kids. They do this for
the same reasons people do anything; some do it for charity, most do it for
a fee.
The machine now has a role that machines know how to play well. Instead of
having to filter the bitstream for "objectionable" material, they merely
restrict access to only "approved" sources.
--
Brad Cox; bcox@gmu.edu; 703 968 8229 Voice 703 968 8798 Fax
George Mason Program on Social and Organizational Learning
