Filtering - CleanSpeak

[cbooher at kcc.com]

I realize the announcement below does not address the recent primary focus of this
thread, which has been to discuss the library's responsibility and liability in the
face of the Web's diversity.  Nevertheless, I thought it might be of general
interest  (and, specifically, perhaps to Karen's recent efforts to engage these
vendors in dialog) since it represents another vendor's attempt to be more flexible
in their censoring.


>Delphi Consulting Group, Inc.
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>NewsFlash!NewsFlash!NewsFlash!NewsFlash!NewsFlash!NewsFlash!NewsFlash!
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>
>
>Thursday, April 10, 1997
>
>No If's, And's, or Butts --
>Inso CleanSpeak Legislates Web Morality; Inso Viewers Join DEC Information
>Management Solutions
>
>Summary:
>Inso Corporation announced CleanSpeak, a mechanism for developers to implement
>Web content blocking through context sensitive linguistic filtering. Monday,
>the company announced that Digital Equipment Corporation will bundle Inso's
>multiformat viewers in DEC integrated solutions.
>
>Delphi Opinion:
>With CleanSpeak, Inso is leaping into the center of a raging Internet
>wildfire. From AOL's parental controls to Congressional bleating about saving
>our families from the Web's electronic perversions, issues of propriety and
>freedom in Web content continue to create more heat than light in the nation's
>chat rooms. 
>
>Inso's proposition utilizes state of the art context sensitive linguistic
>analysis technology -- usually viewed as an enabling technology that provides
>a means to reap knowledge from a wealth of information.  In this application,
>however, the technology is turned on its head, and is being used to restrict
>what document content is acceptable for viewing.  
>
>CleanSpeak gives publishers and developers both a multi-level series of
>ever-tightening screens to suit audience age levels or other characteristics
>and the ability to create custom semantic clusters for particular
>"objectionable" content areas. In fact, the product can be implemented to
>allow questionable material to pass through to your desk, substituting random
>characters for objectionable words in otherwise relevant content - thus
>allowing you to stay a-breast of the facts and not fall behind, without
>exposing yourself to the erection of indecent web pages and every cock and
>bull story that comes along. 
>
>Inso views CleanSpeak as the latest in their expanding set of utility products
>which enable software developers to embed world class document viewing and
>control technology in their application and platform offerings. In the heat of
>the current debate over content blocking on the Web, the company wants to
>seize the moment to replace crude, essentially manual control mechanisms with
>statistical linguistic analysis software, guided by a set of guidelines on
>content "acceptability" from RSACi (Recreational Software Advisory Council for
>the Internet). 
>
>While In theory this seems to be a wonderful application of technology, one
>cannot help but stop to think on what criteria the RSACi will base its
>decisions.  After all, as Freud pointed out sometimes a cigar is just a c*&#@.
>
>Details:
>CleanSpeak offers four levels of content filtering -- lenient, moderate,
>strict, and no filtering -- to control or restrict access to obscene material.
>Filtering levels are based upon specifications developed by the Recreational
>Software Advisory Council for the Internet (RSACi).  RSACi is a non-profit
>working group made up of individuals, the majority of whom are from outside
>the software industry.  With CleanSpeak-enabled offerings, corporations may
>establish filtering levels consistent with corporate culture, a public library
>may invoke flexible filtering levels to reflect a broad user-base, and a
>grammar school may establish a strict level of filtering.
>
>CleanSpeak identifies obscene and potentially offensive words and phrases and
>determines the context in which they are used.  With context-sensitive
>filtering, for example, terms such as "breast" would be recognized and, when
>used in an appropriate context such as "breast cancer" or "chicken breast,"
>would not be filtered.  When words are used in an obscene context,  CleanSpeak
>provides customers with the choice to either replace the offensive text with
>substitution characters or to completely block the material.  This approach
>enables CleanSpeak to filter inappropriate material "more accurately and
>comprehensively than any other
>filtering software on the market." 
>
>Contact Inso at http://www.inso.com, or 617-753-6854
>
>
>
>
>======================================================================
>Copyright 1997 - Delphi Consulting Group, Inc.
>



Sincerely,

Craig S. Booher
cbooher at kcc.com