CensorWear Chronicles, Chap 5:
SerenityFlame Review

By: The Sceptic | 15Dec2000

AbsoSafe: A Little Too 'Safe' or Altogether Unsafe? Hazel Bennetton, hazel@serenityflame.org in consultation with Wallace Jonthan, wj@moralexhibitionist.org 08/11/2002 Methodology We purchased AbsoSafe Glasses from a shop in a local mall, and fit it with two small, high-quality digital cameras. One was within the right lens, above and to the right of the wearer's eye; the other outside on the frame of the goggles in an aproximately adjacent position. Both cameras operated simultaneously. We did our research in teams of two, one wearing the goggles and one bare-eyed, each describing to the other what was in their field of vision. If there appeared to be a significant difference, the cameras were triggered to record the differences. The AbsoSafe CleanLens settings were left in their default positions. Obscenity Test A person might stumbled over the first test. This is the image as seen through the AbsoSafe Glasses: And this is why the AbsoSafe Glasses wearer was lucky to have them. Our best guess was that a wetbrain not needed at his seasonal department store job, decided to get a little sun. So AbsoSafe seemed to pass the the initial obscenity test, but did it overcensor non-obscene images? We're not sure why the CleanLens system decided it was necessary to remove anything from this scene, but that's what it did. As you see from the uncensored version, there's actually a baby in the scene. We aren't why there was a baby sitting there all alone. Where was his mother? Nevertheless, it's definately not obscene, just sad and lonely. Illicit Drug Test AbsoSafe literature promises that the product will remove unlicensed drug dealers and illegal substances from the view of wearers of the goggles. We decided to verify this claim. We visited a comrade who was likely to have such things on hand. We told him we had raging headaches and asked what he might have to take care of it. Here's what he suggested. Nothing? But without the goggles, a person would have seen crack cocaine and a bottle of Tylenol. Yeah, that might work on a headache. Legal or illegal, 'drugs is drugs' to the AbsoSafe Glasses and it filtered out both the crack and the Tylenol. You can decide whether to give AbsoSafe a passing grade on that software decision. Threat and Violence Test The biggest alleged benefit of wearing AbsoSafe Glasses is that violence is hidden from the viewer. While walking along a pier, we were able to put this to the test. People were pointing out to the water. Wearing the goggles, there was nothing to see. But outside the artificial realm of the AbsoSafe Glasses... ...the CleanLens system had determined that a killer whale might be a threat, so it filtered it from view, a clear case of overcensoring. But we figured that might not be a fair test. After all, I might have been in the water, and -- assuming a killer whale was real hungry -- he might be a threat. According to AbsoSafe, I'd be safer if I didn't see the animal. Hmm... However, even with land-based animals of a possibly threatening nature, the operation of the CleanLens system seemed to be disjointed. In this view, sans goggles, we see two dogs, one a puppy (probably not a threat) and the other, full-grown and potentially threatening, or at least more threatening than the puppy. If the AbsoSafe Glasses were to hide one of these from us on the basis of being dangerous, which would it chose? Masking out the puppy and leaving the larger dog is actually safer, but it doesn't follow AbsoSafe's logic. As every city dweller knows, the most dangerous animals are the two-legged kind. No danger showed up here with the AbsoSafe glasses. What was it censoring? A hockey player. I guess they're dangerous...to other hockey players. We didn't think to ask why he was in full gear on the street. In an clear case of overcensoring, we ran across this scene while crossing a street. Nothing much to see to a person wearing the goggles. But without AbsoSafe, two women greeting each other appear. And in the background, a man shooting another man at close range. To AbsoSafe, women shaking hands and a man killing another are equally disturbing events, worthy of censorship. Conclusions The above is just a sampling of several days of field tests with the AbsoSafe Glasses. Out of approximately 1000 different scenes, we found 51 that were censored, 42 of which were errors or partial errors. Of the errors, there were many more non-offensive, non-threatening, perfectly legal objects or situations being filtered than of offensive, threatening or illegal scenes being unfiltered. Before publishing this report, we reported our findings to AbsoSafe. We told them precisely where we went, what we viewed, and what errors we saw. Two weeks later, we retraced our steps and, in most cases, the errors had been corrected -- however in a similar test in a different city, we found approximately the same problems that had not been corrected. Obviously, AbsoSafe used our report to correct the problems we reported, but nothing more. According to AbsoSafe, every scene is "individually verified by...AbsoSafe technicians" to ensure that it belongs in the database of scenes to censor. Considering the infinite number of objects and situations which may or may not contain something that someone will find offensive, threatening or distasteful, that claim has to either be an absurd lie, or AbsoSafe goggles aren't filtering all that their ads claim. Our own findings confirm this conclusion. As to whether wearing 'rose-colored glasses' is safe...whether it would be better to recognize threats or dangers in ones environment, than to have them hidden from view, refer to Zaphod BeebleBrox and his Peril Sensitive Sunglasses.