FC: Filtering software kowtows to anti-gay conservative groups?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36621,00.html

   Filters Kowtowing to Hate?
   by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

   3:00 a.m. May. 27, 2000 PDT
   Blocking software, long criticized for mislabeling innocuous websites
   as pornographic, now has a new problem: accusations of double
   standards.

   The most popular filtering programs allow their users to freely visit
   the websites of arch-conservative groups like Focus on the Family and
   Concerned Women for America, which feature strident denunciations of
   homosexuality.

   But when those identical fulminations against lesbians and gays were
   duplicated and placed on personal Web pages, Cyberpatrol, Surfwatch,
   and four other programs quickly added the addresses to their
   off-limits blacklists.

   As a test, anti-filtering activists at Peacefire copied anti-gay
   excerpts from conservative publications to four websites on Geocities,
   Tripod, Angelfire, and TheGlobe.

   After the links were submitted to the companies, each of the four
   sites was blocked as "hate speech" or otherwise labeled as verboten.

   "I can see why it would be called be called hate speech," said George
   Jelatis, senior technical architect at Secure Computing, which sells
   Smartfilter to corporations.

   Referring to the second paragraph of Geocities' "Straight Talk on 'Gay
   Rights'", which is excerpted from a Concerned Women for America
   publication and says "the truth of the matter is that homosexuality is
   an immoral behavior that can be changed," Jelatis admitted that "there
   are people who would consider this (a) speech that would produce a
   hostile atmosphere in the workplace."

   But Jelatis couldn't explain why the original document at Concerned
   Women for America was readily available to Smartfilter users.

   "I'd have to go back and review the polices. But I think what you'd
   find that we do is that we don't necessarily take controversial sites
   where we get one request and make a very painful decision without
   discussing it. We look at is this coming in multiple times," Jelatis
   said.

   But the Geocities site was never publicized, and only one Peacefire
   member -- using a pseudonym -- complained to Secure Computing about
   it.

   The other conservative sites excerpted were the Family Research
   Council, Focus on the Family, and portions of speeches by radio talk
   show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

   One reason why some manufacturers of blocking software are hesitant to
   block powerful conservative groups is financial: They have similar
   goals and even, occasionally, marketing alliances. NetNanny, for
   instance, says it has a relationship with Focus on the Family.

   Conservative organizations have long lobbied to install the products
   in public schools and libraries. In one case in Loudoun County,
   Virginia, a federal judge ordered the public library to remove X-Stop,
   saying it banned innocuous materials.

   Another reason not to block is the strongly negative reaction from
   blockees: Nobody likes to be told their publications are "hate speech"
   and are therefore unsuitable for employees or minors to read.

   "Look, I'll say straight out that we do not promote hate. Anyone these
   days who speaks out against a homosexual lifestyle is said to be
   speaking with hate," says Wendy Wright, spokesperson for Concerned
   Women for America.

   "We're a Bible-based organization, based on the life and admonitions
   of Jesus Christ. Anybody that wants to visit our website will see that
   we do not promote hate," Wright said.

   When told that CWA materials reposted elsewhere were blocked, Wright
   said she could not respond until she "can look a little more into
   this."

   Bennett Haselton, the young founder of Peacefire, said that his
   experiment conducted over the last few months shows the companies are
   inconsistent, or even hypocritical.

   "If they don't block the original source site, that proves that
   they're applying their criteria inconsistently depending on whether
   the organization has lots of lawyers and fax machines and ability (to
   create) a high-profile backlash," Haselton said.

   "In a case where the blocking company does not block the original
   site, then we've exposed an inconsistency in their criteria that
   should get them thrown out of any public institution," he said.

   During interviews with blocking software companies, all made a similar
   point: When weighing whether something is acceptable or not, they
   consider the tenor of the site.

   That's not enough to satisfy Haselton, though, who says they're
   applying double standards.

   "They will block the home page of the Klan even though there are
   probably no objectionable quotes on the front. The David Duke home
   page doesn't have anything explicitly racist on the front page," said
   Haselton, who has spent the last three years as an anti-blocking
   software activist.

   Part of the problem in deciding what sites to block or not is that
   it's necessarily a subjective process, and the vast number of websites
   sprouting on the Internet every day makes it difficult for one company
   to sort them into reasonable categories.

   NetNanny representatives said that they would likely unblock the sites
   that their marketing coordinator, Amanda Geyer, had ruled in March and
   April to be off-limits.

   "Based on what those words were, it doesn't constitute something
   that's dangerous to kids. Amanda does not have that authority to make
   that decision. That was an error," said NetNanny Vice President Nika
   Herford.

   "A judgment call was made and I back up my employee for what we did.
   We need to make sure our process is a little more streamlined and a
   little more open," said Herford, who added that the open nature of the
   NetNanny list allows parents to review sites and delete entries.

   Geyer said, however, that her company's process is very precise, and
   noted that NetNanny's list of off-limits sites is available for
   parents to peruse.

   "We distinguish between opinion sites and hate sites. We really try to
   make sure it's very, very graphic, violent hate for us to declare it
   as violent content because we don't want to block anyone's opinion,"
   Geyer said.

   "We don't block the National Rifle Association, the Christian
   Coalition, things like that. We don't consider that hate. We consider
   that opinion. We're very free-speech oriented," said Geyer.

   Why, then, does NetNanny consider the four excerpted sites to be
   inappropriate for minors?

   "The words are clearly words that we include in our list as adult
   words. If these words are on the site, it's our job to (deem) that
   'adult,'" Geyer said.

   The site, quoting CWA, says: "The society has seen fit to withhold its
   blessing and special protection from other shared behaviors -- murder,
   theft and fraud, and sexual orientations like necrophilia, bestiality,
   and pedophilia. When people act out these behaviors, society reacts
   with revulsion and punishment."

   A spokesman for NetNanny later said he could not say if CWA's site
   would be added to the product's blacklist.

   Alexandra Salomon, director of content services for SurfWatch, said
   her company came across a similar problem with sites that excerpted
   Holocaust-related information for purposes of commentary.

   She said Surfwatch's approach is subjective by design, and a decision
   about whether or not to block a site depends on what the overarching
   theme is. "It comes to what is the overall message that's being
   communicated in the whole of the site," Salomon said.

   "We've tried to stay pretty tolerant in terms of organizations that
   exist in America, quite frankly because it's the whole marketplace of
   ideas. They're already so public on television and the Internet that
   blocking it on the Internet (doesn't do much)," she said.

   Phil Hill, a spokesman for Websense, which claims over 5 million
   corporate users, said he would have to investigate why Tripod.com is
   blocked but Focus on the Family is not.

   "I believe these two sites are categorized fairly correctly. The
   'family' site does appear to be a very positive site with a religious
   theme," Websense officials said in an email. "The (Tripod) site's
   theme seems to be fairly negative about the lifestyle of homosexuality
   with strongly written quotes explaining the author's feelings. The
   hate/racism category fits here, however, after further review, we
   believe 'activist' is more appropriate."

   When asked to explain why Websense treats smaller sites differently
   from large sites -- even if the content is excerpted -- Hill did not
   reply.

   Filtering software is also notoriously buggy. Mattel, which sells
   Cyberpatrol, did not respond to a request for comment.

   But Cyberpatrol did determine that all four of the
   conservative-quotation sites were inappropriate for its users.

   Mattel also sued two programmers who released a utility that allows
   customers to view Cyberpatrol's secret blacklist of verboten sites.

   The program revealed that Cyberpatrol doesn't just block porn: Student
   organizations at Carnegie Mellon University and Usenet discussions
   such as alt.journalism, soc.feminism, and, inexplicably, fj.rec.food,
   also were restricted.

   Nicholas Morehead contributed to this report.

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