My opinion on censorship has moved over the years. When I was in college, I was a "free speech all the way!" kind of guy, and I felt that ANY censorship was completely, utterly, totally wrong. If you told me any different, I would have gone totallly sixate on you.
Now, I believe that limited censorship is correct when it is protecting children or other vulnerable people from things like porn, or protecting the trading in exploitation stuff like child porn. I'm still a free speech advocate, but I'm more realistic now.
For example, in libraries, I believe the right approach is for library computers to be censored by default, but for there to be private terminals where people can access anything once they prove they are an adult.
What changed my mind? I'm a father now. Nothing like the reality of thinking about what your child is going to grow up with to make you rethink your pie-in-the-sky notions.
I'm no prude. But I also don't think it's right for young children to get exposed to hardcore porn or goatse.cx-type stuff at an early age. I plan on teaching my daughter about sex early, but I'd rather have her learn it from me and not from whitehouse.com.
![Smilie](/tfp/images/smilies/smile.gif)