"Child-safety" and Content Control

[John Richard Moser]

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On the IdeaPool (https://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/IdeaPool) it was
suggested to create "A child-friendly option on Ubuntu so parents can
turn on/off functionlity + browsing web" by LouiseMcCancePrice.  I have
added a number of suggestions backing OFF from completely disabling Web
browsing which would make Ubuntu attractive to parents, schools,
libraries, and businesses as a gateway and possibly as a host.

I have added to the CommunityCouncilAgenda
(https://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/CommunityCouncilAgenda) cursory
details on what direction to take in implementing this and what
responsibilities a team dedicated to this task should expect to take up.
~ This is as far as I'm going with this.

I believe that the formation of a ContentControl team to enhance
Ubuntu's ability to filter HTTP content may be appropriate if the
community is interested in this.  This should be discussed here to
determine if there is general support of this as an optional feature.
If it seems to be something the community may be interested in, it
sholud be discussed in #ubuntu-meeting on January 11, as part of the
Community Council Agenda.  If appropriate, a team should be formed.

I would like to say here that I approach this problem in an unbiased
manner and believe that it is an appropriate and positive endeavor for
Ubuntu.  The changes necessary could be made modularly; they would be an
option to activate on an Ubuntu system and would not need to be enabled
by default.  Thus, no censoring would be enabled by default.

I am strictly opposed to forcing these options on.  I believe people
having reached at least 15 have figured it all out by then, and that
pornography on the Internet is pretty much on the level with the
pornography their minds generate.  I believe that violence and racism
are not things we should be covering up and hiding, and that we should
face reality and understand that the world is not perfect.

That being said, it is still a policy decision.  It may indeed be
detrimental for younger children to encounter pornography.  It may be
influencial for them to encounter excessive graphical violence and
racist advocacy.  It may very well be a good thing for parents to shut
this away from their children until they're old enough to not be majorly
affected by such encounters.

In business, in schools, in government institutions, it is dangerous to
allow unfiltered content in general public access.  Public institutions
such as schools and libraries can be sued for damages easily if certain
content reaches their terminals.  Businesses can also be sued, mostly by
asinine employees who "are distraught and emotionally damaged" by what
was on a coworker's monitor.  Although I believe that the latter cases
are retarded, I do see the need for the filtering in these cases.

Supplying a fast, easy, and effective filtering method would thus be a
great benefit to the users of Ubuntu who need it, and would have at the
very worst a null impact (although potentially virus/worm/malware
filtering is interesting) on users who do not care for it.

- --
All content of all messages exchanged herein are left in the
Public Domain, unless otherwise explicitly stated.

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