Word: hatefully
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...Bush's remarkable denial of personal volition--the plan makes political sense. It takes what most people see as a technological dragon and promises that it will be slain by a technological St. George, filter software that can scan through the Internet and block access to anything objectionable--pornography, hate speech, bomb-making instructions, you name it. Since it's a technical issue, the computer experts will handle it, and the electorate can go back to sleep. Unfortunately, the problem isn't that simple: Filter software is beset by fundamental problems whose solution will require tough thinking, not by programmers...
...currently available Internet filtering programs block perfectly legitimate information. Error rates have ranged as high as 60 percent as filters prohibit access to information on breast cancer or sexually transmitted diseases. The American Family Association, a conservative religious group, was once blocked as as promoting anti-gay hate speech, and the American Civil Liberties Union, CNN and Time magazine have all been blocked by various filters for discussing the issue of Internet pornography. Many programs have blocked the websites of their competitors. Sometimes the blocks seem completely incomprehensible, as in the case of the Latin text of St. Augustine...
...that were public, any competitor could introduce an equally good product. As a result, the lists are fiercely guarded, meaning that there is no simple way for the purchasers of filter software to verify a manufacturer's claims--or for those whose sites are wrongly labeled as pornography or hate speech to find out and complain. Even if the programs offer some nominal degree of choice, users have no ability whatsoever to select the exact level of filtering. Filter software puts these decisions in the hands of the manufacturers, not those of the schools or the parents...
...libraries try to use such error-filled software to block materials that minors have the right to see--a practice a federal judge in Virginia compared to buying an encyclopedia and then blacking out everything deemed inappropriate. One need only remember how the American Family Association was categorized as hate speech to realize the implications of such government mandates...
...lesbian relationships. Bush got positively gleeful over sending the three men who dragged James Byrd on the back of a truck to the death chamber, when only two are going (the other got a life sentence). And contrary to what he said in the debate, he did block hate-crimes legislation...