Posted by mikezillion at March 23rd, 2007

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I didn’t like the wording of the Child Online Protection Act one little bit, but I did support the objectives. Now an 84-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed in Philadelphia has decreed the proposed law unconstitutional for two key reasons: the wording was sufficiently over-broad to have a chilling effect on free speech, and the approach was not the least restrictive and most effective method available.

I have to agree. Any law banning all speech which is considered “harmful to minors” in a given medium leaves much too much room for interpretation. On the other hand, kids just aren’t mature enough to be exposed to some of the adult themes in legitimate pornography. That is a concern we all need to take into consideration when we make any information public. The judge in this case recommends use of modern filtering technology as a more appropriate technique. While flawed at best, filtering technology does allow publishers to use their good will and best judgment to tag information. What the filtering companies do with the tags is another issue….