Filtering Software: Can Technology Provide a Viable Alternative to Internet Regulation?

Abstract

Existing research demonstrates that filters are not the cure-all for child online protection that software companies and even the Supreme Court suggest. Filtering packages have several noteworthy pitfalls, as noted in Section One of this thesis. Case law on adults' First Amendment privilege to speak and children's privilege to access speech does leave the door open to limited forms of legislatively mandated filtering in the home, public school and public library, as discussed in Section Two, but Sections Three and Four point out how little success lawmakers have achieved in this arena. As discussed in Section Six, filtering in all three fora is ethically sound under certain conditions. In conclusion, although filtering may eventually prove the most efficacious method for protecting children from the Internet's "red light district," the technology in its current form is most effective when combined with other measures, as Section Five notes. [From Conclusion]