Kid-Safe Domain Created 657
Jadecristal writes "The Washington Post announces that President Bush has signed legislation to create a .kids.us domain. The legislation mandates that those with a .kids.us site not be allowed to link to any site outside the .kids.us domain." At the very least, it makes filtering easy.
This is just a whitelist (Score:4, Interesting)
Works out the same, but eliminates the cost of the domain to the website owner.
uh, gee (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, i'm just being cynical, i guess that is a pretty good idea.. a kid-safe playground that you can let your children run free on without any worry they'll run across anything "bad". I'm liking this idea the more i think about it, but i'm worried about what happens when they start deciding what is and isn't "kid-safe".. for example, what happens the first time someone puts something that really isn't kid-appropriate up on kids.us.. or what happens the first time that someone attempts to claim that something like, say, the web page for that Nickelodeon special about kids who have gay parents, and the intolerance they face (you know, the one that all the child psychologists lauded and all the religious groups tried to have nickelodeon boycotted for) declared "unsafe for kids.us"...
I wonder if the fact that actual laws have to be passed to introduce any changes in the administration of the
No international links (Score:5, Interesting)
Well hopefully the librarians at schools will keep at least one or two computers available for doing real research on sites like BBC, etc. who may not feel the need to create a special US version of their material available just for kids in the US.
Good solution (Score:5, Interesting)
No it wouldn't. That wouldn't be at all useful. Sure, you couldn't block children from going there, but you can't force everything non "kid-safe" into that one corner. This way, you can have an inclusion only filter, which is always easier to set up. I don't see a few "redundant" registrations as being a problem, they don't exactly eat up a noticible amount of money or Internet resources.
Ban advertising too (Score:5, Interesting)
What about IP addresses? (Score:2, Interesting)
It might make it easier to filter, but still far from easy. And any kid that knows how to use nslookup (oh, sorry - that's been depricated. Of course I meant dig) can bypass it.
Re:Ban advertising too (Score:5, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Interesting)
Not constitutional (Score:1, Interesting)
It is written, in the Constitution of the united States of America:
ARTICLE [I]:
Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
And further, I protest that it is written in the United States Code:
18 USC Sec. 242:
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State Teritory, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, [...] shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
And further establishes that the violator:
42 USC Sec. 1983:
[...] shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress."
Re:so? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course this raises the question: what is inappropriate content?
I'm pretty sure that goatse would be classed slightly inappropriate for small children. I mean, christ I'm over 30 and I found it traumatic enough to add an entry pointing goatse.cx->127.0.0.1 on my nameserver!
I am waiting for (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.alexchiu.
And to a much greater extent, i am waiting for http://www.jesus-is-lord.kids.us [jesus-is-lord.com] or http://www.wicca.kids.us [mothersmagic.net]. I am waiting for someone to set up some kind of racist, anticatholic, hyper-right-wing site clothed as a "christian values site for kids" and have a bunch of left-wing mothers wig out. I am waiting for someone to set up a page of basic information and activities on pagan religions for kids, and have a bunch of right-wing mothers wig out. I am waiting to see if there is really any long-term effects from either of these scenarios.
Remember, there are people out there who consider it just as offensive and criminally rediculous that you have some kind of right to tell their children to worship doormats, as they would find it offensive and rediculous that you have some kind of right to tell their children it's okay to be gay. And there are people out there who consider http://www.chick.com just as bad as your average white-supremacist hate site (there are pages on there claiming that the holocaust was orchestrated by the Roman Catholic Church, with the nazis just as a puppet government for their greater plan. Do You Want Your Children Reading That?). And there are also people in both of the above groups who consider it either vitally important that kids have access to information on alternate religions, or vitally important that kids read chick tracts and know The Truth.
Welcome to america, where thankfully we are all still divided by design.. for now, anyway..
Re:No international links (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks good to me (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea here is obviously to create a domain that kids can use unsupervised, so you would limit their machines to that domain by use of a proxy of some description. If they need access to things outside that domain, they can do so under supervision
Inability to access other content is unlikely to be a problem anyway, since it's not merely a question of whether content is suitable for kids, but whether it is targetted to kids. Pre-teen kids aren't usually much interested in content that's not designed for kids anyway.
If the content is targetted to kids, the domain owner is likely to register under that domain anyway.
The only thing I'd like to have seen is that it be .kids, rather than .kids.us, but I guess the limitation to .us is for political reasons - surprisingly, for Bush, in an effort not to appear to be acting as the President of the World.
Re:Hey, I have an idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
I know this would make the domain system even more complicated, but it could prove useful.
Re:Another sign of the US becoming a Police State (Score:2, Interesting)
THAT would be the start of a police state. This isn't. This is voluntary on both ends, and a perfectly practical solution to the problem.
If you want to set up a kiddy site, you don't have to do it on kids.us, and if you want your kids to see cnn.com, you can let 'em.
But, of course, everything to someone like you is 'another sign of the US becoming a police state.'
What about email servers on the .kid.us domain? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, a new venture as a non-free (say $5-$10 a month) email service might be a good idea. As an ISP, all you would have to do is report spammers to the USG.
Re:so? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hey, I have an idea! (Score:2, Interesting)
I have. I don't want to sit over their shoulders all the time - I want them to enjoy playing around with computers on their own as I did when I was their age.
They aren't going to actively seek out porn or hate speech - they're much to young to know or care. But they might, and have, tried to search for video game tips.
Searching for a game faq for one of my kids games, I realized just how sleazy and shitty the 'net is. Porn banners galore on video game sites.
So, I have a whitelist set up for their machines. Right now, when they hear a site mentioned on tv (like nickelodeon.com or cartoonnetwork.com) or whatever, they try it, it wont work, and they tell me, and I add it. After I search through it, make sure there's nothing they can accidentally click on.
This is just a whole TLD I can add to that whitelist. It's easier, and its a hell of a start. And it doesn't complicate the internet any more than any other TLD has.
It's either this, or real censorship. I think this is a great compromise.
So.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm awaiting next legistration to mandate that those kids are not allowed to access anything other than kids.us.
Thanks a lot, God Bless America.
spam.kids.us? ads are off site links too (Score:3, Interesting)
i would think the news would be a mess to run because they sometimes include links. it would end up being a whole new site, so i guess they could "tone it down". i guess i should have looked to see what the target age group is before overpondering.
maybe it's more thought out.. but in general it seems like a major headache.... though maybe a good idea. talking to some parents i have noticed how darn scared they are about letting their kids online (even early teenagers).....
i could see people liking it if there is someplace you could let your 6 year old romp with no fears of pr0n, or them signing up for credit cards or something.
Re:uh, gee (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously though - does Yahoo and CNN really have to show such graphic pictures? Stories about X many people being shot up or blown up are enough to make anyone cry without pictures of tormented loved ones and juicy bits everywhere.
It's not that I don't want to acknowledge that it happens. I just really don't need to see the GIBs. Doh! I'm way off topic!
I got modded down 'cause I was against this! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bad solution. (Score:2, Interesting)
Many news sites, for example, are essentially "link farms", pointing people to articles of interest. Is that not what
It would be difficult to make a valuable site in that domain without a lot of your own content.
Wonderful... a new playground, tailoring the flexibility of the Web for the needs of the large media concerns.
What happened to all those "site rating schemes" that were supposed to be built into our browsers many moons ago? You want kid business, set those flags, encourage the sites you link to to set their flags, and use the browser controls. If there's a problem with misleading flags (maliciously), consider a false-advertising claim.
Overly technical legislation (Score:3, Interesting)
In the same way, there are plenty of ways to 'link' to a site. Does this only restrict A HREF? How about setting window.location in Javascript? Or I could make a dummy form and use buttons for links. What if I put in the URL of a porn site but don't make the link clickable? What if I just mention a web site's name, as in "I bought it on the eBay site?" Also, if I own a
Re:Bad solution. (Score:3, Interesting)
.kids.us is an awful idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Specific metadata needs to be available for content which can then be filtered by policy. There's already a well defined system in place to support this: ICRA (formerly RSACi). A simple tag on each web page (or just the root for the site) tells what content the page or site contains. It can then be left up to parents to set access permissions, like no viewing of nudity except in an artistic context, or no graphic violence.
Labeling can't be mandated directly, but here's an easy way to make ICRA universal:
1. Give tax incentives to businesses that use ICRA labels, and make it a crime to misrepresent a site by placing incorrect ICRA labels in pages. There wouldn't be any legal suits (at least any with merit) over page misrepresentation as ICRA tags describe in very concrete terms what a page contains (e.g. full frontal nudity, descriptions of drug use, etc...) rather than value judgements (e.g. kid safe).
2. Wait until ICRA becomes mainstream, then ship browsers that default to blocking sites that don't rate themselves.
3. Remove the tax incentives.
Unlike creating a new
I'm not saying anything new here. This has been around for a long time.
Advertising Revenue (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:so? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet, although we are supposed to be training our children to become productive members of society, many fellow Americans feel the need to hide as much of the world as they can from their children, ultimately putting their children at a competitive disadvantage to others and forcing them to play catch-up in college and afterward. Children are smart little buggers, and by bringing them up to become responsible members of society, it's one less thing for them to worry about later down the road.
Teaching one-sided views and cramming it down childrens' throats raises really warped kids, and I'm not talking about OS/2
ThereIsNoSanta.kids.us ? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to register ThereIsNoSanta.kids.us. My target audience would be elementary school children. My goals would be to dispell the myth of Santa in a non-confrontational manner and explain the true nature of the holiday season (where friends and family matter more than the number of gifts under the tree).
The belief: if children where to spend less time wondering what Santa was bringing them and more time being thankful for what they have, perhaps this manner of thinking would be carried on as they mature.
A far-fetched idea? Maybe. But would a government-appointed agency by able to define this as inappropriate for kids?
Re:Why is this government-controlled? (Score:2, Interesting)
P.S. I quite enjoy porn, but it's really getting in the way of getting back meanful results from the net.
Re:Uhm (Score:3, Interesting)
Go try and register a