Media I Don’t Know, Curt. What Do You Think About Web Censorship?
posted by on March 7 at 12:39 PM
Denver International Airport started offering free Wi-Fi back in November—all airports should have free Wi-Fi— but they’re using software to block “provocative” sites. Why? To protect the kiddies, of course, from all that evil pornography zooming through the Internets’ many tubes. Reporter Curt Milton has a post up about it at one of the PI’s 46,835 blogs.
And what kinds of sites are they worried about? Vanity Fair, perezhilton.com and boingboing.net are among the many. Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit photos? No dice, even though the magazine is prominently available in the gift shops at the airport.
Milton quotes a Denver Post report: DIA is using, “the same kinds of software filters employed by the repressive regimes of Sudan and Kuwait.” That can’t be good, right? To make sure no kiddies catch a glimpse of tits or ass—or gossip or swimsuits—on some stranger’s laptop (or daddy’s laptop), DIA is censoring what adults can read on the web, and using the same programs beloved by dictators and religious thought police in places like Sudan and Kuwait and China to do it.
More from the Denver Post:
DIA blocks anything displaying partial nudity or even provocative underwear ads. That cancels everything from major magazines to non-prurient sex-education sites. It does not block Wikipedia’s illustrated entries for “pornography” or “erotica.” It blocks the barely-clothed supermodels of Victoria’s Secret, but not the aggressive profanity of a humor site like The Onion.
We can all agree that this is a bad thing, right? This censorship crap? Certainly anyone that works as a writer, editor, artist, or blogger would think what DIA is doing is a bad thing. Don’t all professional writers and bloggers believe that adults should be free to read—in print, online—whatever they like? If everything that would be inappropriate for a child to read or see has to be blocked in any environment frequented by children—places like airports, schools, our own homes—then adults wouldn’t be able to watch anything but Barney or read much besides Highlights for Children. Because, you see, children are pretty much everywhere.
So Curt Milton—a daily paper employee, a blogger, presumably a fan of the 1st Amendment—would naturally come out against DIA’s creepy, censorious web policies. Right?
Ah, no. You see since Milton writes a blog for a daily newspaper, Milton’s not apparently not allowed to have opinions. So he ends his post with this:
Are Denver airport officials overreacting? Is restricting Web access in a public place a good idea? Or, as critics contend, should people be trusted to do the right thing?
Thank God for all those contentious critics out there contending that people should be trusted to “do the right thing,” by which Milton means, I guess, that adults can be trusted not to read anything at the airport that couldn’t be read aloud to a child at bedtime. If it weren’t for those contentious critics no one would be pointing out how idiotic DIA’s policy is. Certainly not Curt Milton. Because Curt Milton blogs for a daily paper. And bloggers that work at daily papers aren’t allowed to have opinions—not even, it seems, about censoring the web.
I’m not sure if daily papers really understand blogging. Blogs are all about opinions. Blogs are opinion-delivery systems. Just tossing crap up and linking to it and saying “gee, readers, what do you think?” isn’t blogging. It’s regurgitating. Blogs without opinions are like a restaurants without food or porn without tits—what’s the fucking point?
David Postman at the Seattle Times manages to do a lively, readable blog without opinions—you do get the impression reading Postman that he actually has opinions, though, and if you read him closely enough you can spot one from time to time—but Postman’s blog is the exception. But dailies want to capture the excitement, eyeballs, and immediacy of blogging, and they’re ordering their staffs to blog their little hearts out, but they’re unwilling to let their staffs have and share their opinions. They can’t even put up a blog post that risks having an opinion about web censorship, for crying out loud.
So let me answer Milton’s questions: Denver airport officials are overreacting. Restricting web access in public places is a bad idea, particularly for the reasons citied by DIA, and it sets a bad precedent. And while most adults can be trusted to do the right thing, adults should be able to read whatever they like, wherever they like, even if someone else thinks it’s the “wrong thing.”
Sometimes I wish I was still in Seattle, especially times like this, but Denver never did any "holiday tree" crap so I guess it evens out somewhat.
If you come back to Seattle, I'll let you fuck me.
The Onion's "aggressive profanity"? Zuh?
Bloggers need opinions to be worth reading, but you can overdo it. You know, by picking pointless fights (ECB). Or pulling opinions straight out of your ass (Feit). Or by scouring the web every day to regurgitate only a carefully chosen kind of story that supports your narrow agenda (that guy who does the youth pastors and the pit bulls).
But yeah, the PI has been getting bad advice from their interweb market research.
Whoa whoa whoa, elenchos. ECB and Dan Savage are the main reasons to come to Slog save Adrian! and Schmader.
But yeah, Feit...pfft.
Did Dan just give David Postman a reach-around?
Eli doesn't have opinions and always solicits readers for theirs -- so what's the big deal?
Boing Boing is lucky David Byrne had their site blocked. Celebrities are the only ones who can save us.
Ha, Mr. Poe, don't be silly. If that were true, then I'd be nothing but a biter, always letting them make me see red with their simple bait. I couldn't possibly be that gullible.
“the same kinds of software filters employed by the repressive regimes of Sudan and Kuwait.”
Do these repressive regimes use MS Office too?!
I'm against censorship but I think a reasonable argument can be made for placing restrictions on a free service that one might otherwise be willing to pay for - so long as there are still unrestricted pay-for-service hot-spots at DIA.
Who reads daily newspaper blogs, again?
They don't want travelers reading about all the conspiracy theories surrounding DIA...
What about Google image searches?
Just adjust your preferences on Google's site and you can get everything that is good!
Yeah, well, if you don't want to play by their rules, you don't have to use their FREE wi-fi service. Pay for your own service and you can go to amy website you want. It's hardly censorship.
Umvue, you obviously haven't been to DIA - there are no unrestricted hot spots; it's in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere. But you can still access the net through your Verizon or AT&T card, albeit on your own dime.
I got really nervous going to the Onion in an airport and then watching a video entitled, "Reporters Expose Security Lapses by Blowing Up Plane." Considering you can't say the "b" word, I don't know how I would explain myself...
1.6k, you obviously make some unfounded assumptions. DIA is in the middle of KS but they have technology. It's been an eternity but I've used Boingo to get AT&T wifi there.
According to T-mobile and AT&T websites (and probably others) they still provide wifi at DIA that you can pay for and I'll bet you can use 'em to look at nekkid pitchers too.
Well, duh, that's exactly what I said. (Excuse me, but is there an echo in here?)
As long as they don't block speedojunkie.blogspot.com, I'm pretty much fine with it.
oh my gosh, people, who cares? this is the AIRPORT. if people really need to be surfing for porn at the airport, they're in big trouble. this is NOT anyone's main access to the internet, it's a (generous) free service that the airport is providing to people so they can check their email while they're waiting for a plane--something not all airports are willing to do. So calm the fuck down and look at the swimsuit ads when you get home.
They're not just censoring porn sites. How much do you want to bet that you can't get on Slog at that airport? There are places where you can't get on Americablog, for crying out loud, because some adult content filter things "lesbian" and "gay" are pornographic terms.
Yes, it's a free service but that doesn't excuse the censorship. It's ridiculous and besides it won't stop an adult who is bent on looking at porn at the airport (they probably have it saved to thier hard drive anyhow). And if the problem is kids having unfettered internet access then the problem really lies with the parents - don't ask the laptop to entertain your kids and then leave them alone in an airport (because really what kid is going to surf for porn while sitting next to mom?)
You're one to talk, Dan, when you have a profanity blocker built right into Slog.
Look, there it is, bottom right corner of the page. Watch what happens when you click it!
Use a VPN service like HotSpotVPN. Using public wifi is notoriously insecure, this basically makes an encrypted tunnel that no one, INCLUDING THE DIA, can tell porn from cookie recipes. All they see is "Wireless Client number 2 is connected to HotspotVPN".
We should all be using it anyway since it blocks anyone from snooping in on your email/im/website, whether someone is trying to block content unfairly or not.
I have no problem with a blog that solicits other opinions. Far better than the majority of bloggers who just spew unsupported blather based on a cursory reading of somebody else's opinion of a brief story on a TV website rewritten from an AP rehash of a newspaper story.
Not that anyone here should take any offense...
"Blogs without opinions are like a restaurants without food or porn without tits—what’s the fucking point?"
DAN? You don't watch porn without tits? So confused ...
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).