While scrolling through Tim Berner Lee's blog, I came across an article titled "city of Boston censoring municipal WiFi". The article points out that the city of Boston has mandatory content filtering on its free municipal WiFi service. The subject of content filtering and censorship is a highly debated issue, especially when concerning government funded internet service. It seems ovbious that public internet that is funded by the government should be censored in some sort of way. But at what point is censorship too much? The article states that many sites that are not even close to being illegal or porn related are being blocked. This creates an interesting question in that what guidelines are being used to decide which sites need to be blocked. Another interesting point the article mentions is that if the municipality can arbitarily choose which sites that are to be blocked, what stops them from blocking any content they dont agree with. The article mentions in particular the blocking of opposing political parties and the yankees website(haha).
I think the issue with cencorship is really the defintion of the fine line that seperates appropriate content and illegal or harmful material that should not be seen. I feel that more specific guidelines should be drafted to ensure that the correct material is censored. I know that deciding on the exact guidelines is sure to lead to a larger debate, but it seems that is the only way to ensure material is not censored on a relatively arbitrary basis.
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