CYBERsitter: Where Do We Not Want You To Go Today?

1996-97

CYBERsitter: Where Do We Not Want You To Go Today?

Article in Wired, 12/10/96: CYBERsitter's threats against Peacefire and our service provider, Media3, for hosting this page.

CYBERsitter is advertised by its manufacturer, Solid Oak Software, as a product that blocks access to "objectionable material on the Internet". In reality, CYBERsitter's internal list of banned sites includes a number of socially valuable resources on the Web, such as information on feminism, gay/lesbian rights, and progressive political causes. Even Peacefire.org is blocked by CYBERsitter as a result of our publishing this page. But the list of "bad sites" that comes with CYBERsitter is stored in an encrypted format so that the user cannot find out what is blocked except by trial and error.

CYBERsitter also filters words and phrases such as "homosexual", "gay rights" and "safe sex" from Web pages and e-mail messages.

CYBERsitter is marketed, in part by the far-right organization Focus on the Family, not only to parents but also to publicly funded schools and libraries, where the banning of such material has been held unconstitutional.

Some sites that are blocked by CYBERsitter:

The National Organization for Women
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
Yahoo web search for "gay rights"
This web server, http://www.peacefire.org

We are indebted to the authors of the following articles for originally calling attention to the blocking practices of CYBERsitter:

Keys to the Kingdom, from the CyberWire Dispatch. By Brock Meeks and Declan McCullagh.
Who Will Watch the Watchmen? from Internet World. By Eric Berlin and Andrew Kantor.

Letters that other people have written to Solid Oak Software in response to their practices, as well as replies from the company's executives.
More web sites blocked by CYBERsitter -- see for yourself what is being filtered and decide whether you would let your local school board install this program on their machines.
CYBERsitter humor. Until such time as rec.humor.solid-oak is created on USENET (and subsequently banned by CYBERsitter).
Articles in the news about the CYBERsitter/Peacefire controversy, including pieces in Wired News, MSNBC, the New York Times online, and the CyberWire Dispatch.

You can contact Brian Milburn, the CEO of Solid Oak Software, at bmilburn@solidoak.com or support@solidoak.com. Do not put the word "Peacefire", "Haselton" or "Ethical Spectacle" in the body of the message as their mail server has been instructed to delete all messages containing those words. (The Ethical Spectacle is an e-zine at http://www.spectacle.org that was blocked by CYBERsitter for setting up a mirror of our CYBERsitter page.) Use P--cef-re or Eth*c*l Sp*ct*cle in the message body instead.

See some of the letters that members and supporters of Peacefire have sent to Brian Milburn.

Download a graphic from our Rogue CYBERsitter graphics gallery to display in protest against CYBERsitter's actions.

If you know of a school or library that is using or thinking about purchasing CYBERsitter, please let us know immediately. Find out if any censorship software is being used in your school district.