As the U.S. Congress considers legislation to mandate Internet content filters, a leading Internet human rights group warned that the proposal is deeply flawed.
Most Internet filtering software relies on machine-driven algorithms to block Web sites.
Free speech activists have found such filters to be extremely inaccurate. Furthermore, no maker of filtering software has sufficient resources to cover the rapidly changing Web. No one would buy a car with a track record as poor as censorware's blocking record. It blocks what it shouldn't and lets through what it doesn't intend to. If filtering of the kind Congress is considering were applied to the books in schools and libraries instead of the Internet, the shelves would be empty.