"AOL's 'youth filters' protect kids from Democrats" by Brian Livingston

This article basically is a review of AOL’s “youth filters” which were designed by AOL in an attempt to protect youth from viewing sites on the internet that are considered to be inappropriate. The article basically lists of several discrepancies that make this youth filtering software slightly unstable and may result in parents being misled. For example, conservative party sites are viewable with the software turned on, while liberal sites are often blocked as a result of being inappropriate. I found this article quite interesting. In the first place, I don’t necessarily know if the filters that AOL currently uses are the same as the ones that they used in 2002 when the article was written; however, I do believe that there are still issues that are similar to these in current software packages that target online safety for children. I am sure that AOL has definitely developed a better system by which to screen sites that are appropriate for children viewers. The system that they used in the article was a “whitelist” that included sites that have been deemed appropriate for children. In compiling our web-site for social context my partner and I had the opportunity to look into several such “kid-filters” and found that the amount of products out there is quite overwhelming. Although I am sure that they have improved over the years, many of the issues that are present in this article are still taking place today. It is not necessarily a deliberate ploy by the company to ensure that youth follow a conservative government; however, as a result of human/computer error, there are bound to be issues that arise. I believe that this entire issue needs to be approached differently. As opposed to relying heavily on software to keep your children safe online, ensure that you are teaching them proper safety at home and school. I agree with a comment in the article that stated how software such as AOL’s youth filtering is really eliminating the scope of experience that kids have access to. I would be quite upset if I had a child who was unable to see differing political viewpoints as a result of a glitchy piece of software. I believe that we must educate kids on sites that are inappropriate and other online safety issues. No matter how technologically advanced our society comes there will always be “glitches” and other issues that will bring about negative consequences and possibly this increase in safety will come at the cost of broadening our youths horizons.