Talk:Child Online Protection Act

Why Does COPA Only Apply to Pornography?
Why does this apply to pornography, and not to gore and/or otherwise violent and desturbing material? It seems quite ridiculous to me...
 * American priorities are rather wacky. Ashibaka tock 03:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Answer
Actually, it doesn't just apply to pornography... if you read the statute, you will not find the word "pornography" anywhere in its content. The exact phrase is "material harmful to minors." The question now, however, is to decide what constitutes "material harmful to minors". Pornography certainly applies, but I believe that extremely violent portrayals should also apply. I, as you, would hope that we would stop equating COPA to porn and apply it to anything inappropriate for minors.

Now, how do we define that? Well, it shouldn't be too difficult. We already have ratings systems for movies, television, and video games. The techniques applied by the governing bodies of those materials should also be applied to rating internet sites. The problem, however, is that nobody could possibly rate every site that pops up on the web. However, should a potential offender be identifed, then the governing body should hear the case against the offender, decide whether the site is indeed "harmful to minors" and serve a sufficient notice for the individual to comply with the law. If he still fails to comply, then he should be held accountable in a court of law. Mll1013 20:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

lol.. or parents could watch there kids so that they don't access "harmful" sites instead of dumbing down the internet for all people.. If parents are so concerned that kids might see porn or violence.. they should take an active responsibility in limiting access or voluntarily install filtering software. the government should stay out of it and stop trying to regulate everything. the internet is not the micky mouse kids club.. the government needs to get over it and move on. the supreme court has spoken on these issues many many times. countries like ones in europe for instance do not have hang ups about naturally occuring thing called nudity and sex.. and it funny but all of europe are not sexual deviants.. go figure. actually regulating nudity or sex just leads to making it a taboo and people growing up thinking there is something inherintly wrong with it, then self guilt and so on and so on and so on. no one should push adult material on kids of course but contemporary community standards is a joke. whats ok in california may not be ok in georgia etc.. its just dumb. parents.. watch your kids. -Tracer9999 01:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Applicability to Wikipedia
To what degree (if any) does this apply to Wikipedia? (This may not be the right place to ask, but I don't know where else). AFAIK, Wikipedia does not ask for a birthdate, and it does contain information that might fall under the descriptions included. Does anyone know? -- BlindVenetian 11:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't, because it doesn't apply to anyone anymore. Hoorah! Kuronue 01:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protect?
This page has gone through a lot of vandalism recently. What does everyone else think? Is it maybe time to request semi-protection? 69.19.14.31 (talk) 20:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Continued Legality
The law was held unconstitutional in the third circuit. The S.Ct simply failed to hear the appeal, which has no legal effect. The law is still valid in all the other circuits.

71.237.90.173 (talk) 18:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

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