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SurfWatch Censorship Against Lesbigay WWW Pages
``` [I don't know if "censorship" is the right word here, but this surfwatch thing, while preferable to the Senate's attempted repeal of the First Amendment, is surely the wrong way to control access to net content.]
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:33:48 -0700
From: Christopher A. Kryzan
This email is intended to alert you to impending censorship on the World Wide Web, against gay, lesbian, bisexual and sexually-related topics, in the form of a product called SurfWatch.
BACKGROUND
SurfWatch is a product just introduced by SurfWatch Software, Inc., of Los Altos, California. They describe the product as:
"...a breakthrough software product that helps you deal with the flood of sexually explicit material on the Internet. By helping you to be responsible for blocking what is being received at any individual computer, children and others using your computer have less change of accidentally or deliberately being exposed to unwanted material."
WHAT SURFWATCH BLOCKS
SurfWatch includes a database of newsgroups, ftp and gopher sites, and WWW pages, that contain what the company views as objectionable contents. The company says its goal is "to block sexually explicit material, particularly pictures and explicit text. WIth that in mind we used a combination of proprietary softwrae, together with input from educators and parents, to determine what we would block."
The goal has some merits, in that it allows parents to prevent their children from viewing sexually explicit material or conversations, and provides capabilities similar to the parental controls on AOL, and the censorship they may impose on their children's television viewing habits in the home.
However, the list of censored sites is determined by one organization (SurfWatch), and imposed on a national (or worldwide) basis, without regard to local community standards. And, seemingly, in a sweeping fashion that classifies queer topics as "sexually explicit."
There is significant potential for queers to be silenced on the World Wide Web, if queer-related sites are viewed as being sexually explicit by the fact that they simply talk about homosexuality, or use the words gay, lesbian or bisexual. It looks as if that may indeed be the case, because some sites which clearly do not contain sexually explicit materials, but rather provide information, education, resources and calendars of events, have been blocked by SurfWatch.
After testing approximately 30-40 queer-related sites, I found that it blocks the following:
WHAT SHOULD WE DO
I am mailing this to a very large list of lesbigay activists and organizations online, many with capabilities to disseminate information on a broad basis. If you feel that there is a legitimate concern, that it is possible or likely our visibility and existence will be trampled upon, then I urge you to investigate this further, let SurfWatch know where you stand, and let others know as you feel appropriate (please copy this message to anyone and everyone you think may benefit, or assist).
Here are some thoughts on possible courses of action:
SurfWatch Software Inc. 105 Fremont Avenue, Suite F Los Altos, CA 94022
phone: 415-948-9500 fax: 415-948-9577 email: info@surfwatch.com WWW: http://www.surfwatch.com
CONCLUSION
The World Wide Web is going to rapidly become an integral part of our everyday lives, and of our society. We will conduct our business over it, we will entertain ourselves through it, and we will educate ourselves using the vast array of resources it will contain.
We must be vigilant in ensuring that some self-proclaimed Guardians of the Internet do not impose their personal morals and values on the community at large, in effect, conducting a worldwide book-burning in this electronic library. It may be very appropriate for a parent to prevent sexually-explicit materials from entering their home, but we must not let all topics of a gay, lesbian or bisexual nature get swept up in a frenzy of censorship.
Chris Kryzan ```
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