Information is powerful. You can compare Internet access to home electricity: you want to run lights and appliances, but you don’t want to come into physical contact with the energy that makes them work.

The electrician needs access, obviously. He (or she) knows how to locate the breaker box. If your electrician were to propose that insulation is unnecessary and wire should be exposed everywhere, we’d laugh and revoke his license.

Electrical safeguards for the home are scaled for different levels of maturity. A wall switch is designed for frequent use. A light bulb socket is purposefully less inviting.

All this can be likened to safety controls for daily Internet use.

The hazards of the web can injure, figuratively; given time, they can lead to literal death. Much of our society is diseased with a predilection for hatred, debauchery, and subversion in general. Institutionalized depravity carries a heavy cost. Our recognition of this is wholly inadequate, and this partly explains why the tools for content filtering are often poorly developed and hard to deploy.

When I go to a computer tech forum with questions on filtering, the replies often begin with a self-righteous lecture about “freedom of speech” and “the dangers of censorship.” This attitude reveals contempt for freedom, contempt for people, and foolishness concerning danger.

This contempt finds countless expressions, such as this 2007 article which purportedly gives an overview of content filtering for public libraries and includes a list of “Pros and Cons”:

Pros:

Libraries and schools may find that implementing a content-filtering solution on all of their computers can benefit them financially, as this will help them comply with the CIPA and qualify for federal funding for technology-related purposes. Other types of organizations that offer public-access computers to children or youth groups might also find content filters beneficial because they can reduce liability and help cut down on phone calls or visits from distressed parents.

Another potential benefit of installing a content-filtering system is that it can help decrease the amount of malware that your patrons inadvertently install on your machines. Many content filters keep lists of sites known to install malware and prevent users from accessing them; also, if your content filter has a blacklist feature, you can manually block sites that you know install malware. Note that a content filter should never be considered a substitute for dedicated anti-malware and antivirus programs.

So we learn that content filtering is potentially helpful for

1. Increased federal dollars, due to compliance
2. Reduced legal liability
3. Fewer complaints from the public
4. Fewer virus downloads

What’s missing? Why, the basic and intended benefit of content filtering: protecting people from the traumatizing effects of pornography, overt violence and other abusive content. It’s true this purpose is presented early in the article; but the list of Cons is presented more assertively than any of the “pros” — and better supported, as there are links to documentation. Here’s a summary:

1. Perceived violation of the right to free speech
2. Erroneous blocking of acceptable sites
3. Subjective definitions for what is acceptable

Another “con” is brought up later: “backlash from your patrons” who “feel you don’t trust them.”

These objections are typical, and mostly spurious. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from making any law that limits free speech. This is now commonly misconstrued to mean that no one should be able to control what input they receive, no matter how debased the source or the content. Of course that’s ludicrous. Many lawsuits and some amount of statute law have nevertheless been based on this argument, and many people have been hoodwinked into accepting it. But the actual diversity of opinion and practice (among public libraries, for example) shows it isn’t fully entrenched.

UPDATE 5/3/2010: My daughter directs me to Gitlow Vs. New York and the “Incorporation Doctrine:” U.S. States can’t pass laws that abridge First Amendment rights. I suppose any speech limits are derived from “clear and present danger.” Where does personal discretion come in? If you don’t agree that prurience is art, do you get to make viewing choices based on that? I have a long ways to go understanding this one.

Erroneous blocking of acceptable sites is solved first through improved filtering, and second by using a policy that relaxes the filtering as required by the case. The third objection, distrust of how standards are defined and decided, has merit; it’s been the basis of many efforts to revise guidelines for acceptability. These efforts have been largely successful, and cultural norms are much weaker as a result. Unfortunately, the default alternative to standards is nothing — full passivity. This amounts to endorsing the lowest common denominator of morality for every situation. And that is ruinous.

Those who insist on the distorted version of “freedom of speech” — meaning all opinions are to be promoted to all people in every setting — are usually frauds: It doesn’t take long to discover what ideas are unacceptable to them, nor what measures they’d endorse to suppress them. Rejecting “censorship” is sometimes a thin cover for new agendas of control.

The studied reluctance of our policy-makers to examine this side of the issue is inexcusable and unforgivable. I think it’s like leaving a power transmission line loose in your back yard.