Revised for clarity
While surfing the ‘Net this afternoon, I stumbled by accident into my firewall’s content filtering application, which disagreed with a site that I visited.
I use ZoneAlarm’s security software suite mainly for its firewall, but it also borrows content-filtering technology from a company called Cerberian. The filter allows me to block content by category. So, out of curiosity, I blocked "Gay and Lesbian" content and unblocked every other category, including adult and hate sites.
Here’s how various exgay sites fared:
Alan Chambers:
When I visit Alan’s blog, ZoneAlarm’s content filter thinks I am
attempting to access exgaywatch.com, and the site is blocked. As with
exgaywatch, Alan’s blog is hosted by TypePad.
David Morrison:
When I visit David’s blog, ZoneAlarm’s content filter thinks I am
attempting to access exgaywatch.com, and the site is blocked. As with
exgaywatch, David’s blog is hosted by TypePad.
Exodus: not blockedFreeToBeMe.com: blocked
Iain Miller / Tony Leno: not blocked
Love in Action: not blocked
Living Hope: not blocked
Morgan Andersen: not blocked
NARTH: blocked
Nick Nicodemus: not blocked
Randy Thomas: not blocked
Scattered Words: blockedThis Unmanageable Life: not blocked
I also tried the following post-exgay and exgay-watchdog sites:
Bill Prickett‘s book promo: not blocked
Courage UK: blocked
Evangelicals Concerned: not blocked
Ex-Gay? No Way: not blocked
Ex-Gay Watch: blocked
Family Acceptance: not blocked
GayChristian.net: blocked
Gospel Revolution: not blocked
Heartstrong: blocked
HomoNoMo.com / Peterson Toscano: blocked
Kurt Granzow: When I visit Kurt’s blog, ZoneAlarm’s content filter thinks I am
attempting to access exgaywatch.com, and the site is blocked. As with exgaywatch, Kurt’s blog is hosted by TypePad.
Finally, for the sake of comparison, I checked gay porn sites:
BadPuppy: Not blocked
Chisel: Not blocked
Colt Studio: Not blocked
Falcon Studios: Not blocked
Naked Sword: Not blocked
I would like very much to hear from readers with access to
content-filtering software. Does your software discriminate against ex-exgay and watchdog sites? Does it permit access to gay porn while blocking legitimate content relating to gays and exgays?
Addendum:
Remember: I set the sole criterion to be whether or not a site fell
under Cerberian’s "Gay and Lesbian" filtering category. Web sites
categorized as adult or hate sites, but not "Gay and Lesbian," were not blocked.
All I know is that when I’ve forgotten about the filter at work and tried to visit David Morrison’s site from there (during my lunch break), I get told I’m trying to access porn at work. Ouch, I’d never do that; that’s grounds for getting fired. So I don’t have any idea whether the filter would also stop me if I tried to look at actual porn sites.