Wireless: you might not have to pay for it, but it won't be free, says FCC

Earlier this month, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission released a report , addressing their efforts to build broadband access. So far, recent efforts have centered around auctioning off portions of the wireless spectrum, and some with the requirement that the spectrum be used to offer free wireless connectivity. Don't get too excited yet. Free (as in you don't pay for it) wouldn't quite be free. Provisions to require companies offering free wireless to block pornography - "content harmful to minors". This could require the blocking of many hard-to-monitor uses of the Net, such as encrypted messaging and VOIP.

Wendy Seltzer points out:

To block naked pictures among the 1s and 0s of Internet data, you need first to know that a given 11010110 is part of a picture, not a voice conversation or text document. So to have any hope of filtering effectively, you have to constrain network traffic to protocols you know, and know how to filter. Web browsing OK, peer-to-peer browsing out. You’d have to block anything you didn’t understand: new protocols, encrypted traffic, even texts in other languages. (The kids might learn French to read “L’Histoire d’O,” quelle horreur!) “Should any commercially-available network filters installed not be capable of reviewing certain types of communications, such as peer-to-peer file sharing, the licensee may use other means, such as limiting access to those types of communications as part of the AWS-3 free broadband service, to ensure that inappropriate content … not be accessible as part of the service.”

We often write about how ineffective filtering is at blocking access to content, and how difficult it is to be accurate -- blocking only what is unlawful, no more, no less. This case brings up several disturbing points. First, pornography (with the exception of child pornography) is not illegal in the United States. It is only illegal to provide it to minors. Internet service providers cannot determine who is a minor and who is not, creating a situation of blatant overblocking for any user over the age of 18 (even if they get the block list right in the first place). Second, to block access to technologies, simply because they could carry porn is not even close to an option under the first amendment. It may, instead, be up to all of us to come up with better ways to carry out age verification and the like. The FCC is stretching uncomfortably into content control territory, from which precedent and common sense advise staying away.

See also Scott Bradner, David Weinberger, and Persephone Miel