September 8, 1998

AFA vs. CyberPatrol

The American Family Association, long time supporters of Internet filtering software, have been placed on the CyberPatrol CyberNOT list under the "intolerance" category. In the opinion of CyberPatrol, the AFA site is intolerant of homosexual behavior.

While I don't believe AFA has encouraged a boycott of CyberPatrol (arguably one of the better Internet filtering programs on the market), many of its supporters are threatening boycotts of CyberPatrol, its parent company The Learning Company, and companies like Parsons Technology which are owned by the Learning Company. These well-intentioned Christians cite CyberPatrol's "promotion of homosexuality at the expense of traditional Christian ethics" as the basis for their actions.

Let's look at some facts here.

CyberPatrol does not keep its users from accessing AFA. You must choose the "CyberNOT" control method, and further choose "Intolerance" from the list of categories you want filtered. That is, simply speaking, you must choose to block AFA.

AFA is and should be proud of their presence on the intolerance list. In a discussion with this author, an AFA spokesman agreed that inclusion on the list should be worn as a "badge of honor" by any Christian. The world can accuse us with many false charges, but being charged with intolerance of sin is something we should all strive for.

CyberPatrol is no substitute for parents or morals. If you don't know what your kids are doing on the Internet, you're not paying close enough attention. If you have to rely on secular companies to draw your moral lines, you're not spending enough time developing your relationship with God.

The real problem is that everyone is intolerant. The real problem is that "Intolerance" is a severely lame and brain-dead category to try to filter on. Let's give this some thought: CyberPatrol says intolerance is promoting one group, lifestyle, etc. over another. I would argue that everyone who posts a page on the web is intolerant of the rest of the web. That is, if I post something on the web I must think the content there can be improved by my posting. I'm saying that my content is more worthwhile than at least some of the other content on the web. That makes me intolerant by CyberPatrol's definition. One could argue that CyberPatrol is intolerant of its competitors because it tries to get you to buy its software instead of theirs. One could say that I am intolerant of the books that don't rate as well on my Recommended Reading page than others do. Intolerance is a fact of life.

If intolerance is a dumb filtering category, you should shut it off if you own CyberPatrol. If you shut it off you can get to AFA's site OK. If you can get to AFA's site there's nothing to complain about other than the fact that CyberPatrol has this stupid "intolerance" feature that's pretty much worthless out of the box. But then I don't like the way FrontPage puts boxes around my pictures, or the way Word corrects my grammar, or the way Excel won't let me copy sheets that have large cells. But rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater I work around the problem.

Rather than throwing the CyberPatrol baby out with the AFA bathwater, I suggest that people buy a copy of CyberPatrol, turn off the intolerance category, and get on with their lives. If they run into sites they think should be on the CyberNOT list, they should submit them through normal channels.

What's the big deal if a few politically-correct boneheads call a few Christians "intolerant of sin"?