Posted on 11/18/2003 1:29:28 PM PST by 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
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?
Can you visit, say, Planned Parenthood or NARAL with the sex filters turned on?
"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.
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!
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
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.
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