I read the proposed new website labeling law and support the idea of imprisonment Web site operators who mislead visitors about sex with deceptive "words or digital images" in their source code. This requirement shouldn't interfere with American's right to free expression because this type of expression is used only for a disturbing purpose. Nobody in any country should have the right to try to lure children to inappropriate material by tricking them.
This should be an open and shut case. Unfortunately, we have people who feel that they need to defend all speech no matter how negative it is. I would like to see the penalties for such offenses at the minimum of five years as proposed, but at the same time realize that even if this is made a law and somebody breaks it, the most they would probably get is probation or less than a year. Regardless of what the penalty is going to be, it's fair for the government to step in and prevent these occurrences to happen.
I think it's funny that there are people who actually are against this because they feel it some how is going to hurt how they use the internet. I found this blog that talks about the same article, but at the very end puts in their own sarcastic take. Like protecting the children is a burdensome process for them. Now I can see how data retention can be an inconvenience for everyone. Personally, I'm against that myself, but as far the other proposed crimes, they are great ideas that should have no effect on how we use the Internet.
Another thing, if we think online child predators are a problem now, just wait ten years. If we sit, back and don't do anything they are going to be more prevalent and more successful at doing it. If we think the amount of garbage children are exposed to now is getting out of hand, just wait ten years as well. Think back to when we were kids. We weren't exposed to half of the stuff that is out there today. It's getting worse and worse, while we sit back and pretend these problems are going to take care of themselves.
I read a post that stated people are good and we should trust everyone, but the problem is it's the bad people that have the most control over what our kids are exposed to. Again, parents can't be there all the time. Take mousetrapping for example. It's a giant pain in the ass for you and I, but now imagine if a kid gets trapped in these series of popups. What the hell are they suppose to think? All because somebody wanted to putting coding into a search engine to trick the kid.
So to the person who wrote this blog. Why the renewed push to censor sex on the Internet? To protect the children, you prick.
