The Commission on Online Child Protection held its third and final hearing August 3–4 in San Jose, California. The commission, which was established with the passage of the Child Online Protection Act, is charged with identifying “technological or other methods that will help reduce access by minors to material that is harmful to minors on the Internet.”
Judith Krug, director of ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, testified on a panel on “Acceptable Use Policies, Awareness Programs, and Anti-Filtering Efforts.” Detailing the shortcomings of blocking software, Krug said that when a library uses filters, it transfers judgment away from local officials and librarians to the anonymous third parties that evaluate sites for the software manufacturer.
Other panels were devoted to “Parents’ Attitudes towards the Internet,” “Marketing of Sexually Explicit Material,” “Globalization,” and “New Technology and the Future.” Witnesses included dot-com executives, representatives from monitoring-software firms, children’s advocates, and pornography publishers. The commission’s report is due to Congress on November 30.
Posted August 14, 2000.