Symantec Replies RE: Pro Gun Censorship

BattleFlag

[BattleFlag]

As my Norton Antivirus protection is expiring soon, I wanted to get the latest with regard to the fact that their "net nanny" internet "security" software by default screens out pro 2nd Amendment, Pro Gun webites while leaving anti gun sites alone.

I went to their website looking for an email address to write to but all they have is a web form so I don't have the original message I sent.

But here is their reply;

Hello Mr. BattleFlag,

The Parental Control feature in Norton Internet Security is a tool that parents can use to make choices about the Web sites their children visit. We do not tell parents which websites their children should or should not view. Rather, we offer parents a tool to make that choice for themselves. The Parental Control feature includes a number of categories of websites that parents can decide to allow or filter. These categories include a wide range of topics including pornography, news, gambling, travel, illegal drugs, and humor. One of the categories is weapons. Any websites that promote the use of weapons are included in this category. Websites that do not promote the use of weapons are not included in the category.

Let me explain how our Parental Control feature works. The Parental Control feature does not automatically get installed on a user's system when they first install Norton Internet Security. Rather, the parent must make a conscious choice to install this feature. Once Parental Control is installed, it is turned off by default. Again, the parent must choose to turn on this option.

After the feature is installed and turned on, the parent can create separate accounts for members of the family. The parent then configures these accounts by selecting which categories of websites should be filtered and which ones can be permitted. Norton Internet Security allows each account to have its own unique category list because some sites may be appropriate for teenagers but not appropriate for small children. If a child tries to access a blocked site, he or she receives a message explaining that the site is not permitted for viewing. If the parent wishes, he or she is able to allow that website to be viewed by one or all of the accounts. Also, the parent, operating in the Supervisor account, is allowed unfettered access to the Internet.

While many people advocate the possession and use of firearms, some do not. The Parental Control feature in Norton Internet Security serves as a tool that parents can use to help regulate their children's access to the Internet. The feature provides parents with complete flexibility to decide which sites are appropriate for their children and which ones they feel should be filtered. The process for adding and subtracting sites to individual filter lists is fast and easy, so parents have total control over how the feature is used.

Thank you, and if you have any further questions on this issue, please feel free to email me at PCSSymantec@symantec.com

Martha Miller
Product Communications
Global Consumer Services
Symantec Corporation
mmiller@symantec.com

Here is my reply;

Ms. Miller,

Your rationalizations are disingenuous at best. It seems that for you and your leftist ilk there are never enough ways to hide your true agenda and that is the total prohibition of the means Americans use literally millions of times per year to defend themselves and their families.

In your rhetoric you the phrase "promote the use of weapons" as though pro 2nd Amendment, pro self-defense website's only mission is to see to it that everyone has a weapon and uses it. What about "promoting the responsible, use of weapons?", what about "promoting the safe use of weapons?", what about "promoting awareness by children of what to do when they encounter weapons, specifically firearms"? Are these concepts that you believe your users should be shielded from? And please, don't say its about weapons, for you, its about guns. You start your reply by referring to "weapons" but in the last paragraph you reveal the true subject of your censorship, "...advocate the possession and use of firearms".

It is an insult to the hardworking, upstanding, law abiding Americans who choose to embrace the safe, responsible use of firearms as a means to do for themselves and their families what no one else can do, provide protection from those deadly predators and criminals who specialize in victimizing the weak that you equate the "use of weapons" with pornography, gambling and illegal drugs.

How much information about the safe and responsible use of firearms will not be seen because of your companies choices?

It is not enough for you that parents make the choice to filter pro gun websites from their family's internet experience if they see fit to do it, much the the gun owning experience itself, you believe it is your place to make that choice for them.

I am just one person but nonetheless one person whose money Symantec Corporation will never see again.

Pack Sand Symantec!

[BattleFlag]

None taken, and you can use it too if you'd like.

[fiscally_right]

Um, no I'm pretty much straight-on. That's a rediculous analogy because with this software the parent can set whatever options they want before the child even gets on the computer. I don't really see a comparison at all.

[longtermmemmory]

no gun sites would probably block handguncontrol inc too.

[Question_Assumptions]

I disagree completely. What about discrimination against those of us who still believe in the constitution??

TURN OFF THE FEATURE. If you go over to the Dummy Underground, I'm sure you'll find people who complain about some of the other sites that Symantec blocks in categories that you consider desirable to block. If you want a filter that complies only with conservative sensibilties, then license or market one and sell it. If there is a market for it, people will buy it. But Symantec has a generic filter. That means that it will include things that you like and things that you don't. While you may eat, sleep, and drink Second Amendment issues, I doubt that most Americans who use the filter will even notice those sites are blocked. I cannot imagine most children are just dying to visit the NRA's web site or even have the first clue about the Constitution, nevermind the Second Amendment.

Why aren't sites run by "living constitution" anti-righters that might offend me, blocked?

If you can make a case that the content is harmful to children without sounding like a candidate for the tinfoil hat club, why don't you sent Symantec a nice letter and ask for a category? Of course I also doubt that most children are dying to read up on the latest progressive Constitutional theories, either.

Just who do you think this product is targetted at and just what do you think most parents expect to do?

[Bubba_Leroy]

I wouldn't have a problem if the would also include a categories to filter out websites that promote gun control and other leftist ideology.

[fiscally_right]

Because, no offense intended, if you search for "guns" or "gun rights" you're more likely to find sites promoting violence than if you search for "gun control" or "waiting periods" or "trigger locks" or "bullet fingerprinting."

[Question_Assumptions]

Why doesn't Norton provide a product that blocks out pro-abortion web sites? There's an agenda here.

Can you visit, say, Planned Parenthood or NARAL with the sex filters turned on?

[Puppage]

It was a weak analogy, I grant you that. However, just because a parent CAN control it after the fact does that make their anti gun bias any less palatable? Why allow for one view (i.e. the Brady Ctr) and not the other? I think, if something upsets you, you have a right to call them on it, and NOT give them a "pass" by saying the parents will fix it. That is unacceptable to me.

[longtermmemmory]

perhaps nobody has asked for it to be included.

Norton would probably block all sites related to "abortion" yea and nay.

[fiscally_right]

Because I think everyone's missing the point of this software entirely. The point of this software isn't to block any political ideology that a parent doesn't want their kid exposed to. They don't market "Leftist-Blocker!" to conservatives or "Right-wing fanatic Blocker!" to liberals. The point is to keep kids from accessing sites that might be DANGEROUS. You might oppose liberal sites, but they aren't going to cause Columbine 2 [i can feel the flames already.]

In case you kept reading beyond the last sentence, I'm pro-gun-rights and I certainly don't think that all sites in favor of responsible gun ownership promote violence.. But I'm sure that this filter blocks alot of sites that do promote violence.

[Question_Assumptions]

I think the thing that has us all riled is that the software's default policy on gun sites is different from its policy on anti-freedom sites.

"Anti-freedom" is a touchy thing to identify with automatic filters. Suppose, for example, an NRA site quotes an anti-gun site with some key words in it. That site may be blocked to. Picking up words like "gun", "rifle", etc. is easy. Picking up sites that advocate surrendering sovereignty to the United Nations, for example, or violating second amendment rights are much harder to identify. Of course demand plays a role, too. If you can create a demand for a category that blocks left-wing propaganda, Symantec or some other company will eventually fill that demand.

By making one choice the default on one side of an argument and the opposite choice the default on the other side of the argument, it seems they are either intentionally taking a position, or revealing their unconscious prejudices.

For better or worse (worse, I think), the media has convinced people that children can't handle weapons or infomation about them. Soccer moms buy these filters and don't want little Nichole and Jason looking at guns. If you don't like that, Symantec is a symptom of the problem, not the cause.

[longtermmemmory]

Does the program block GLSEN? Aids from sexual experimentation can kill just a redily as a bullet.

[Egon]

Before everyone starts flaming me, I'm pro-gun.

That said, it seems to me you're looking for a fight where none exists. There is no way that Symantec can do what you're asking them to do. They're giving parents the ability to shut down access to sites in two ways: a one-click approach for commonly held negative sites (of which pro-2nd Ammendment sites, unfortunately, would fall under), but they also offer the second option which is more difficult to use but still available. Parents can customize the sites that their kids are blocked from.

I don't see this as an issue. Your argument stating that the responder is first discussing weapons, then calling them "firearms" is just bantying semantics (no pun intended), in my opinion. I've mixed the two terms myself on occasion.

I think if we attack everything that we can possibly spin to be against something we believe in, we quite possibly do harm to the cause we're trying to support.

Bring it on-- I'm wearing my suit!

[Puppage]

but they aren't going to cause Columbine 2

And, a GUN SITE IS? The NRA.ORG site is?Yeah, like spoons made Rosie fat.

In case you kept reading beyond the last sentence

Ah, there ya go....start in with the bashing. How very fashionable of you. I think I will spend my time debating issues with someone who (in my opinion) is not a gun owner, and can't seem to form a rebuttal without defamation.

Have a good evening

[fiscally_right]

Well see there's a difference.. I can look up on the internet to buy a Desert Eagle .45, and use that to kill people. I can't buy AIDS. The question is whether you think your child is stable, responsible, or whatever enough to be trustworthy. Again, I'm not saying pro-gun sites promote violence, i'm saying that this filter probably blocks lots of 'violent' sites and inadvertantly batches some pro-gun sites in with the violent ones. That doesn't mean there's an agenda afoot over at Norton.

[bicycle thug]

Symantec is a company local to me in nearby Springfield, Oregon. They are loathed as well by many in Eugene for forty large trees being cut next to their old site in downtown Eugene to build a parking garage largely for them.

If they were as radically leftie as you frame them, they do a poor job of it by pushing through their building plans that precipitated the 1997 Eugene Tree Riot and by getting disgusted with the Politically Correct People's Republic of Eugene and moving to blue collar, conservative and logging oriented Springfield next door.

Just wanted to give you some thoughts that immediately come to mind when I read this thread.

One more observation; seeing how cutting edge, spacious and beautiful their new digs are, I would say business is very robust for them right now and it would take a major effort to hurt their bottom line with a boycott.

[MEGoody]

If you want your kids to go to weapons sites, just don't choose that filter option. It's not a big deal. Sheesh.

[fiscally_right]

How is that defamation or bashing? I figured I'd say that to get people's attention since it happens quite often. People stop reading at one sentence that particularly provokes them and then reply without reading the rest. Anyway I am not a gun owner, but I will be in the future when I have my own home to protect (I'm a student, living in an apartment).

[Gorjus]

Why doesn't Norton provide a product that blocks out pro-abortion web sites? There's an agenda here.

That's really the issue. One can make the case that some sites should be blockable, and that others are probably not worth the complication of tailored controls. They key is: Where do you draw the line?

Based on Dr. Lott's findings, anti-gun laws get people killed and raped and robbed. How is it responsible for them to create blockers to sites that can save lives, while not providing blockers to sites that advocate policies that (net effect) get people killed?

Answer: Because it's not really about parental rights or risks as an absolute, theoretical consideration. It's about supporting a socialist/statist agenda on which things are risks, and in what order of concern.