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…

Stop looking at me!

For providing a definitive answer to this dilemma. :)

The Site: http://www.dailykos.com/

is categorized as:

Web Page Hosting/Free Pages

The site you submitted resides on a Web page hosting server that provides Web page hosting for their users such as homepages that share a common domain. These sites include those provided by ISPs, University/education servers, free Web page hosts, etc. Although many of these Web page providers post rules and regulations for content, they do not always adequately monitor this content. Users often abuse Web page services by posting offensive content under multiple pseudonyms.

Because this category contains hundreds of millions of pages, it is not practical to assign more granular categorization to individual pages. However, any page can be added to your local block and allow list, enabling access to specific content even if the category has been selected to be blocked. Local block or allow lists are maintained at the discretion of your local network administration. You can reach your network administration by contacting those that provide our filtering for you, whether that be your school, Internet Service Provider, or place of employment.

——————————

List Current Categorization Suggest Change

V4

Politics/Opinion, Personal Pages

3.x Premier

Personal, Politics/Religion

By the way, I don’t support either form of censorship.

I didn’t mean to offend – I just couldn’t believe that the “data” on which your posts rely are anecdotal reports that stuff is blocked.

Also, if this “stuff” is happening, it is because rules aren’t being administered properly, and not – as rush would have you believe, because the law allows schools to selectively block material.

Again, I think you have to be careful when you distinguish between blocks and filters. If Rush is filtered but Moveon.org isn’t, it’s presumably because of content and not viewpoint. Whether the filters are viewpoint discriminatory is hard to say as a matter of law, but it is pretty easy to look at their algorithms and see whether they are engineered beforehand to nail rush – almost every person that I’ve ever heard look at these algorithms (I used to write consumer profiling algorithms in my previous professional incarnation) has laughed off any such political inflection.

Of course I’m assuming you don’t have a computer connection at your local high school that will block this info along with Rushlimbaugh.com and Foxnews.com. (smile)

Says the “Dog”

I’m not sure how this gives you the right to insist that my child should be exposed to Christianity in public school. In fact, it sort of suggests the opposite,

I don’t recall stating this or advocating it. If you can show me where I did say this, I’ll be happy to withdraw it.

There was another poster that commented that Christianity, its beliefs, and its institutions are interwoven in ours and Europe’s history and literature and it is impossible to properly teach some of these subjects without covering those aspects of Christianity, its beliefs, language, and institutions that give context to and explain the events of history and literature. I would certainly support this rather obvious observation. That however is not advocating that any child be forced to study religious dogma in a devotional sense.

Says the “Dog”

I, and (I’m reasonably sure, most) other regulars at VC, come here for the high level of commentary, analysis, and discourse (and, occasionally, the recipes). This is why it would be a travesty of education for this site to be filtered from our high school computers.

I completely agree. There are so many lucid and knowledgable posters here of every persuassion that I often just read some threads without comment myself.

Says the “Dog”

Is CIPA applicable to computers in the local high school computer lab? Is CIPA applicable to computers in the internal high school library? Is CIPA applicable to computers or internet connection provided to students inside classrooms and labs?

The discussion, if you’ve read all my posts you should know this, was about access to certain conservative political websites being blocked/or filtered out so that high school students couldn’t view foxnews.com or rushlimbaugh.com or boortz.com but could view from that same connection CNN.com, moveon.org, Josh Marshall’s site, and a whole host of liberal political websites.

Did I say a court had ruled this kind of game playing was legal? No I didn’t. We were discussing whether this kind of game playing was HAPPENING.

It DOES happen. When it does happen its almost entirely to foxnews and not CNN. Almost entirely to Rush and not moveon.org.

If CIPA does apply to computers and internet connections inside classrooms at public high schools then it isn’t working very well.

If it doesn’t, it wasn’t I posting messages about things I knew very little. Next time read the messages for greater comprehension before replying. I did like your meta and meta meta conspiracy jokes. I meant to reply with a grin, but was overwhelmed with the other messages.

I still like you, just didn’t care for the tone of your last sentence.

Says the “Dog”

All one has to do is visit Daily Kos, Liberty Forum, or watch C-SPAN’S Washington Journal, to understand the vast spectrum of individuals who have very passionate opinions, but lack any breath or depth to their knowledge, or skill at analytical thinking.

I, and (I’m reasonably sure, most) other regulars at VC, come here for the high level of commentary, analysis, and discourse (and, occasionally, the recipes). This is why it would be a travesty of education for this site to be filtered from our high school computers.

Yes, the do. I’ve worked with Secure Computing’s filters for years now.

Kyle

Yes, I was not using the term blocked in a strict definitional sense…very loose. Just wanted to point out some possibilities for why Volokh might be being blocked.

Under Bess, Volokh.com is catagorized as “Web Page Hosting/Free Pages.” A catagory frequently blocked in Junior libraries and at schools.

Under Smartfilter, Volokh.com is catagorized as “Politics/Opinion, Personal Pages” (ver 4), and “Personal, Politics/Religion” (ver 3.X Premier)

I have a feeling that you’re not the one I need to be addressing this too, but I think it’s best if everybody keeps the difference between blocking and filtering straight.

Under blocking, some dude says, “this terminal is not allowed to retrieve that URL.”

Under filtering, a piece of software runs an algorithm on the website’s code to determine whether it possesses content sufficient to restrict access to it.

Filtering is obviously still capable of being manipulated to present a particular viewpoint, but given that the restricting agent is an algorithm rather than a dude, it is far less suspect than a block.

http://database.n2h2.com/cgi-perl/catrpt.pl

and http://www.securecomputing.com/index.cfm?skey=234

Volokh.com is categorized by both, which doesn’t mean that you’re being blocked by any given site using this product. It does mean you CAN be blocked by these products.

Yes, that was my point, perhaps to softly made. I was attempting to suggest that reliance on machine technology to filter “harmful” stuff by definition is going to generate both false negatives and false positives, and that is before people start arguing about what “harmful” means.

No doubt Limbaugh continues to ensure he will stay on blacklists through references to “Hitlary” and “feminazis”. How should a poor software agent tell the difference between that and something like stormfront.org?

I’m not sure how this gives you the right to insist that my child should be exposed to Christianity in public school. In fact, it sort of suggests the opposite, “the Dog.”

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that the word “pussy” is often used at cat sites, thereby leading Bess to block them.

Praise God we have Big Besser to protect our children from the evil cat sites!!

I’ve read all your posts and I’m inferring that you don’t know too terribly much about what public libraries are and are not allowed to do in terms of filtering, beyond anecdotes that you’ve heard on the radio.

(1) For starters, under the CIPA, most libraries are required to use either filtering or blocking software.

(2) There is a difference between filtering and blocking devices. A filtering device prohibits access based on content (obscenity, pornography, etc.) wheras a blocking device prohibits based on URL.

(3) Filtering and blocking software is imperfect, and sweeps up a lot of protected speech even when operating effectively to exclude speech excludable under CIPA. That’s why courts pay a lot of attention to as-applied challenges under that law.

(4) Public libraries must allow access to anythihng to anybody that can verify their status as an adult.

(5) Public libraries are nonetheless subject to first amendment restrictions, and cannot viewpoint discriminate through their filtering/blocking software. So if the content-based restriction filters are programmed to exclude pornographic material, those filters might naturally capture all sites that talk a lot about pornography, but it is not targeting a viewpoint about pornography. If a library implements a block (as opposed to a filter), and that block is based on viewpoint, it is quite plainly unconstitutional. I absolutely defy and challenge you to identify a single instance where a library has restricted access to material based on viewpoint and a court has upheld it. You won’t be able to find one. Instead you will come back with anecdotes about this or that you heard on Rush, etc.

It was cute for awhile, and I generally find your antics and conspiracy theories pretty entertaining, but you really don’t know what you’re talking about here.

I should have been more specific. I doubt the problem exists to a large extent for conservative website any more than liberal ones.

I’m sure you could probably find liberals complaining that all the software is developed my conservatives who purposely have it block website that talk about contraception and abortion. Do you want your teenage daughter accessing a site about reproduction rights? Those types of callers are not likely watching the Rush Limbaugh show in the any where near the same numbers as conservatives.

No, in fact, you’re ignoring the example that contradicts your point so that you can concentrate on calling the other not applicable.

As for Christianity, it’s kind of hard to teach history or literature without teaching Christian content. The bulk of the best literature taught in schools relies on Christian imagery throughout, and students ignorant of what that means haven’t been taught the material. You can’t teach 16th century European history without dealing with the controversies between Catholics and Protestants, and teaching the early settlement of the Americas without at least some content on what the Puritans believe would be a real travesty. This does take place, of course. It’s just immoral and doesn’t accomplish the purpose of teaching history to begin with. I see nothing comparable to this with teaching kids vulgar language or showing them porn.

However I seriously doubt that the liberal conspiracy you perceive really exists.

It may well not be a conspiracy in the traditional sense of knowing concerted action among a group of individuals. It may well be like minded left wingers all acting individually on their own to protect the children from being exposed to ideas and thoughts they consider wrong and dangerous. It just so happens that those ideas are always the conservative ones because of the domination of left wing thought in schools of education and the kinds of personalities who choose to become teachers instead of business majors or science majors, etc.

While it was quite a long time ago that I was in college, at the major university I attended the male students who were education majors were always the pot heads, long haired losers who couldn’t cut it in any other program, and social worker types who didn’t want to actually do social work. Not exactly the kind of crowd expected to be Reagan Republicans.

The above paragraph reminded me of this true story. A few years back I was at dinner with the local president of a local bank. He told me his daughter was getting ready to attend the University of Georgia and that she told her father she was going to major in social work. He told her she wasn’t going to go to U of G on his nickle and major in social work. He told her she could go to work at the local Krystals and work with the exact same people and make the same amount of money. All without spending anything for a college education.

Funny and true.

Says the “Dog”

Says the “Dog”

Yes there may be many things wrong with the term “libertarian Fascists”, but it is a term posted to me just today on a left wing blog by a leftwinger who asked me to return the Volokh Conspiracy where all “the other Federalist Society libertarian fascists hang out”.

I was merely pointing out that while many, such as myself, do not consider Volokh Conspiracy to be a conservative site, the loonies of the left do.

Says the “Dog”

…And you’re completely ignoring one half of my examples. I think I’m done here.

I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion, but not the premise. Of course they shouldn’t be blocking political content. However I seriously doubt that the liberal conspiracy you perceive really exists.

Yes public libraries NOT part of a local SCHOOL may have as expansive a filtering policy as they can get away with. They are however not library’s and computers within the computer lab or local public school. Its the high school computer lab computers, high school internet access, and inside the high school library computers that are the subject of the discussion as I understand it.

Says the “Dog”