EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the spring and summer of 2001, the Free Expression Policy Project of the National Coalition Against Censorship surveyed all of the studies and tests that it was able to locate describing the actual operation of 19 products or software programs that are commonly used to filter out World Wide Web sites and other communications on the Internet. This report summarizes the results of that survey. Its purpose is to provide a resource for policymakers and the general public as they grapple with the difficult, often hotly contested issues raised by the now-widespread use of Internet filters.
The existing studies and tests vary widely. They range from anecdotal accounts to extensive tests applying social-science methodologies. In some instances, we located only one or two test reports; in other cases—for example, Cyber Patrol, SmartFilter, and X-Stop—we found a great many. Most tests simply describe the actual sites that a particular product blocked when Web searches were conducted. Nearly every one, however, revealed massive over-blocking by filtering software.
This problem stems from the very nature of filtering, which must, because of the sheer number of Internet sites, rely to a large extent on mindless mechanical blocking through identification of key words and phrases. Where human judgment does come into play, filtering decisions are based on different companies' broad and varying concepts of offensiveness, "inappropriateness," or disagreement with the political viewpoint of the manufacturer. A few examples of over-blocking from the more than 70 studies or tests summarized in this report are:
BESS blocked the home pages of the Traditional Values Coalition and Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey. Cyber Patrol blocked MIT's League for Programming Freedom, part of the City of Hiroshima Web site, Georgia O'Keeffe and Vincent Van Gogh sites, and the monogamy-advocating Society for the Promotion of Unconditional Relationships. CYBERsitter blocked virtually all gay and lesbian sites and, after detecting the phrase "least 21," blocked a news item on the Amnesty International Web site (the offending sentence read, "Reports of shootings in Irian Jaya bring to at least 21 the number of people in Indonesia and East Timor killed or wounded"). I-Gear blocked an essay on "Indecency on the Internet: Lessons from the Art World," the United Nations report "HIV/AIDS: The Global Epidemic," and the home pages of four photography galleries. Net Nanny, SurfWatch, Cybersitter, and BESS, among other products, blocked House Majority Leader Richard "Dick" Armey's official Web site upon detecting the word "dick." SafeSurf blocked the home pages of the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union and the National Coalition Against Censorship. SmartFilter blocked the Declaration of Independence, Shakespeare's complete plays, Moby Dick, and Marijuana: Facts for Teens, a brochure published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (a division of the National Institutes of Health). SurfWatch blocked such human-rights sites as the Commissioner of the Council of the Baltic Sea States and Algeria Watch, as well as the University of Kansas's Archie R. Dykes Medical Library (upon detecting the word "dykes"). WebSENSE blocked the Jewish Teens page and the Canine Molecular Genetics Project at Michigan State University. X-Stop blocked the National Journal of Sexual Orientation Law, Carnegie Mellon University's Banned Books page, "Let's Have an Affair" catering company, and, through its "foul word" function, searches for Bastard Out of Carolina and "The Owl and the Pussy Cat."
INTRODUCTION
The still new, revolutionary medium of the Internet contains a wealth of information, images, and ideas—as the U.S. Supreme Court observed in 1997, "the content on the Internet is as diverse as human thought."1 Unsurprisingly, not all of this online expression is accurate, pleasant, or inoffensive. Virtually since the arrival of the Internet, concerns have been expressed about minors' access to online pornography, about the proliferation of Web sites advocating racial hatred, and about other online content deemed to be offensive or dangerous. Congress and the states responded in the late 1990s with censorship laws, but most of these have been struck down by the courts. Partly as a result, individual parents, employers, school districts, and other government entities have turned with increasing frequency to privately manufactured Internet rating and filtering programs.
Early Internet filtering was based on either "self-rating" by those who published online communi-cations; or "third-party rating" by filter manufacturers. Because of the Internet's explosive growth (now more than a billion Web sites, many of which change daily), and the consequent inability of filtering companies to review and evaluate even a fraction of it, third-party rating had to rely largely on mechanical blocking by key words or phrases such as "over 18," "breast," "sex," or "pussy." The results were not difficult to predict: large quantities of valuable information and literature, particularly about sexuality, feminism, gay and lesbian issues, civil rights, and other politically important subjects, were blocked.
Even where company employees did review Web sites, there arose massive problems of subjectivity. The political attitudes of the different filter manufacturers were reflected in blocking decisions, particularly with respect to such subjects as homosexuality, human rights, and criticism of filtering software. The alternative, self-rating, did not suffer these disadvantages, but it proved impossible to persuade the great majority of online speakers to self-rate their sites. Online news organizations, for example, are among those that steadfastly refused to reduce their content to decontextualized, simplistic letters or codes through self-rating.
Third-party rating and filtering systems have thus become the industry standard, at least in the United States. Private software companies actively market such products as SurfWatch and Cyber Patrol, which contain multiple categories of potentially offensive, "inappropriate," or "objectionable" material. Internet service providers such as America Online provide "parental control" options that block Web sites based on technological word or phrase identification, augmented by the company's—or its subcontractor's—judgments about age-appropriateness. Some manufacturers market products that essentially block all of the Internet, with only a few hundred or thousand preselected sites accessible (so-called whitelists). One company—later the subject of a First Amendment lawsuit—erroneously claimed that its "X-Stop" software was able to identify and block only "illegal" obscenity and child pornography: an impossible task, since legal judgments in both categories are subjective, and under the Supreme Court's three-part obscenity test, determinations of legality vary depending on different communities' standards of "prurience" and "patent offensiveness."2
The late 1990s saw political battles in many communities over the use of filtering products in public libraries. New groups such as Family Friendly Libraries attacked the American Library Association (ALA) for adhering to a no-censorship and no-filtering policy, even for minors. (The ALA and other champions of intellectual freedom objected to the over-blocking propensities of filtering software, and advocated noncensorial approaches such as privacy screens and "acceptable use" policies.) Online anti-censorship groups such as the Censorware Project and Peacefire began to publish reports documenting the blocking of numerous valuable, educational sites by different filters. In December 2000, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act ("CIPA"), mandating filters in all schools and libraries that receive federal financial assistance through the E-rate or "universal service" program, or through the Library Services and Technology Act.3 This amounted to about 60% of the nation's libraries and public schools.
Thus, although initially promoted as a voluntary alternative to coercive government censorship, Internet filtering is now embraced by government at both the federal and local levels. Reports of over-blocking, of vague and subjective standards, and of politically biased blocking decisions continue, while industry spokespersons assert that their methodologies are improving and that new software programs designed to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable material will soon be on the market. But no filtering technology, no matter how sophisticated, can make contextualized judgments about the value, offensiveness, or age-appropriateness of online expression.
Internet filtering has thus become a major public policy issue, and is likely to remain so. In the interests of advancing informed debate on this important issue, the Free Expression Policy Project has collected and summarized all of the studies and tests that it has been able to locate on the actual operation of Internet filters. The report presents this information in one place and in readily accessible form, so that the ongoing policy debate will be better informed about what Internet filters actually do, and their ultimate impact on free expression.
The report is organized by filtering product. Necessarily, there is some overlap, since many studies have sampled more than one product. A bibliography of all the studies is included, along with an appendix listing blocked sites according to subject: artistic and literary sites; sexuality education; gay and lesbian information; political topics; and sites relating to censorship itself. (Another appendix, describing the blocking categories used by different products, is available in the online version of this report.)
Where the study gives Web addresses or URLs, we have included these and checked their accuracy whenever possible. (Some Web addresses are now obsolete.) If we have not given Web addresses, it is because they were not supplied in the underlying report.
We hope that Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report will prove a useful resource for policymakers, parents, teachers, librarians, and all others concerned with the Internet, intellectual freedom, or the education of youth. Internet filtering is popular, despite its unreliability, because many parents, political leaders, and educators feel that the alternative—unfettered Internet access—is even worse. But to make these policy choices, it is necessary to have complete and accurate information about what filters actually do. Ultimately, less censorial approaches such as media literacy, sexuality education, and Internet acceptable-use training may be better policy choices than Internet filters in addressing concerns about young people's access to "inappropriate" content or disturbing ideas.
Copyright 2001 National Coalition Against Censorship Any part of this report may be reproduced without charge so long as acknowledgment is given to the Free Expression Policy Project. For additional copies, contact heins (at) ncac.org or go to www.ncac.org
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