Tech Giant Agrees to Stop Blocking LGBT Sites as If They’re Porn
Maureen Shaw’s women’s rights website covers everything from motherhood and politics to crime and health, but when one of her readers tried to access sherights.com from a Boston-area Au Bon Pain in January, Shaw said the reader was blocked by an online filter deeming the website “pornography.”
“I was alarmed—and admittedly confused—and reached out to friends in other locations asking them to access the site at their local Au Bon Pains,” Shaw wrote in an email. “Every single person—from D.C. to NYC to Calif.—responded that they, too, were blocked from sherights.com.”
But Au Bon Pain was not the only culprit, and it wasn’t just Shaw’s website that was being blocked. The chain café, along with millions of other households and businesses around the world, was using Web-filtering software by Symantec, a tech giant based in Silicon Valley that produces Norton AntiVirus. Using the software prevents free Wi-Fi providers from having to police users who try to watch porn or offensive material in public places.
But Symantec’s software was blocking a gamut of websites, from GLAAD to suicide prevention site The Trevor Project, under the system’s “sexual orientation” filter.
“Blocking these types of sites sends an unacceptable—and inaccurate—message that information on women’s reproductive healthcare and rights, sexual orientation and LGBT rights is offensive,” Shaw wrote.
So just this week, Symantec announced that it would be removing this filter option from its software, and officials say it’s not just the right thing to do but a good business decision.
“Having a category in place that could be used to filter out all LGBT-oriented sites was inconsistent with Symantec’s values and the mission of our software,” Fran Rosch, executive vice president of the Norton Business Unit, said on Tuesday. “We’re taking a broader look at all of the categories in this database and will be eliminating any others that are similarly outdated.”
Symantec is not alone in its over-censoring. Finding a way to block the Internet’s never-ending supply of pornography without denying access to valuable resources has been an issue for years. In 2011, the ACLU launched the “Don’t Filter Me” campaign, aimed at public schools that are required by federal law to use Web-filtering software.
Many of the most common software programs blocked LGBT-related websites but allowed in antigay websites and information about changing one’s sexual orientation, according to the ACLU. Over the past few years, however (and a few lawsuits later), school officials have learned how to better employ available filters, and many security firms—such as Lightspeed Systems and M86 Security—have changed their content filters to be less discriminatory.
Recently, the ACLU has heard fewer complaints.
“Symantec is a little bit behind the curve on this,” ACLU attorney Joshua Block told the San Jose Mercury News. “Most of the leading Internet-filtering companies have already eliminated these sorts of filters from their own systems.”
But Internet filters continue to be a problem around the globe. In the U.K., mobile and broadband companies have come under fire for overreaching filters that prevent users from accessing an array of educational information. One study found that nearly a fifth of the country’s most popular websites were blocked by at least one Internet provider, The Guardian reports, and one woman said she was even denied access to Jezebel as she attempted to read an article about recovering from childbirth.
Back in the States, Symantec officials say LGBT-related content is now treated and categorized like all other political, entertainment, and news content. Although users will now be able to access sites such as GLAAD and sherights, Shaw is still unsure why her blog was misclassified in the first place.
“We talk openly and frankly about corporeal issues—such as sexual assault, sex education and breastfeeding—but nothing remotely resembling pornography,” Shaw wrote. “We never received any explanation.”
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• Conservative and Same-Sex Colleges to Transgender Students: Welcome
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Original article from TakePart
