I don’t like Internet filters

I don’t like Internet filters, and not just because many folks can’t read my blog (thanks, Mark!).

I don’t like them because they impede political awareness (see, e.g., Andy Carvin’s fantastic post on this).

I don’t like them because in order to exercise one’s right to free speech one also must have access to speech:

[T]he Constitution protects the right to receive information

and ideas. This right is an inherent corollary of the rights of free

speech and press that are explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution. . . . The dissemination of ideas can accomplish

nothing if otherwise willing addressees are not free to receive

and consider them. It would be a barren marketplace of ideas that

had only sellers and no buyers. . . .

More importantly, the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate

to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech,

press, and political freedom.

[Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School Dist. v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982)]

And I don’t like them because of the message they send to students: in an information economy, we don’t trust you with information.