Librarians To Sue Over Mandatory Censoring

JasonMaggini writes: "ZDNet reports the American Library Association is planning to sue over the new federal law that is putting Web filters on public school and library computers. Great article title, too: 'Filter THIS!'"

Re:The way to fight this thing....

Gosh, you're right. I retract everything I've said.

I've also drafted a letter to Ralph Nader, explaining to him that he really was wasting his time crusading against the Corvair - I mean, they worked so poorly, why on earth did he get so worked up about them?

Thanks for pointing out the flaw in my logic.

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The way to fight this thing....

Unfortunately, I think the best way to fight this is to point out how POORLY the filtering works. Paint it as a huge waste of money.

Sure, you can argue all day long about infringing rights, etc, and a lot of people will just figure you want to see porn.

But show Joe Sixpack that he can't get any information on Superbowl XXX at his local library when this goes into effect, and you might get some grass roots support.

The evening news might pick stuff like that up - they won't give a rat's ass about cyber-rights.

Sad, but true, I think.

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Re:Why do the _Librarians_ care?

Because they want to protect freedom of speech. They didn't become librarians because they wanted to hit people with rulers. Librarians probably mostly love knowledge and freedom of thought. Not because they wanted to sit behind desks and peer over their half-rims.

No, you read it wrong

It's Libertarians, not Librarians.

They've *always* had an anti-censoring stance.

:)

-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...

Re:Its a public Library - so what?

Forgive me for feeding a troll, but these two inanities are so trivially put down, I figured it was worth the bandwidth.

The simple fact is that public institutions have a right, nay, a duty to censor material. Do you want your 5 year old child to be able to see goatse.cx at school? I wouldn't. A public institution should confirm to public tastes and decencies. Anything else would be scandalous.

Bunk. In fact, it is settled law that it is unconstitutional for a public library to censor material. The only subtle issue in the cases is what types of conduct constitutes censorship.

Its not as though they are censoring useful information anyway. Everything they censor is useless porn. The only people who want to see that stuff are libertarians and perverts, who are both the same in many respects anyway.

Bunk. Thanks to the affirmative efforts of folks like Seth Finkelstein, it is also well-established that much substantive information is routinely censored by commercial filtering programs.

If filtering actually worked....

If filtering actually worked, I wouldn't mind it. If filtering banned what a majority of people called smut. But allowed anything that was gray to go through, then I wouldn't mind it so much.

Stuff which is obviously smut with no value. (pictures, stories, etc) doesn't have a place in libraries.. But, say, an educational site on masturbation (with pictures) is not something I'd call smut and should be allowed to go through. Now, some people feel that anything touching on sex should be blocked, and they would use filtering as an excuse for these excessive blocks.

The problem is that the filtering is ineffective. Automatic filtering cannot and does not make the above distinction. Human-based filtering suffers from a lack of manpower (of about 5 orders of magnitude). Thus, there is no way to do the ideal. There's no way to even approach the ideal.

As peacefire showed, a noticable fraction of the yahoo porn listings were let through by these 'filters'. Similarily, every few seconds, a child is blocked from a legitimate site.

So, in independent tests, filtering let's half of the outright porn through, and bans a lot of legitimate material.. To me, this is like indiscriminate shooting. Let's go into a bad neighborhood and shoot people at random. We might hit some guilty people by chance, but we'll hurt a lot of innocents.

If you can't see the peacefire web site, try turning off of your filters. Most filtering programs have the site classified as everything from porn, to nazi's, to military, to gambling.

If an only if you can show me filtering that does it's job, will I ever accept it. Blocking 90% of the million porn sites leaves 100,000 left; why bother? Using filtering as a way to censor knowledge from your children is bad. (Masturbation, alternate religions) And no filtering program must be allowed to block any educational site, whether that site deals with sexuality, learning about hate-groups, military strategy, guns. For the gains, 100,000 porn sites instead of a whole million, the cost is too much.

Since such a program cannot and does not exist, the most the libraries can do is to put the responsibility on the parent. No one under 18 is allowed internet access. A parent can permit access by their children and can choose among the options:

1. No access allowed.
2. Access allowed only if with an adult. Parent can later review visited websites.
3. Access allowed, parent has the ability to review visited websites. (With an optional time-limit for number of hours)
4. Access allowed, parent does not have the ability to review visited websites. (with an optional time-limit for number of hours)

All access is full access. If a child is with a parent, they get access through their parent's card. No one is allowed to sit in front of the computers without a card. (So a stranger cannot offer a a child access unsupervised.) The parent gets the flexibility for what level of monitoring, if any, their children get. It's also open; the child knows whether or not what they visit will be reviewed by their parents.

Heh.. With some GUI-ified TCL scripts and a squid proxy, this kind of system would be pretty trivial to set up.

Re:Google...

Interestingly enough, the censorware program [n2h2.com] at my school [Pomona High School in Arvada, Colorado] blocks URLs in the address bar. Therefore, if the url shows up anywhere in the bar, as in

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:slashdot.org/ +slashdot&hl=en

the censorware proxy blocks it. Luckily, however, it doesn't block the ip address converting system proudly displayed in this season's issue of 2600. >:) Keep freedom of speech in schools alive. Please.

Government Database

I think we should just have a huge government database, freely accessible to all, that contains and catalogues all the porn on the internet. That way we can go there and check to see if what we're seeing on the internet is porn or not. Then we'd have a government approved seal stating that "This Image is Pornography." That way I could browse the database and know how to identify porn when I unwittingly stumble across it while surfing. I can arm myself in advance, lest I be taken unawares. I imagine I would check this database every day, just to see if any new porn has gotten on to the net, so I would be prepared with the most up-to-date information.

-Vercingetorix

I've been there

At my highschool we have a filter. The thing that I like about it is that it tries to clean up the pages. For instance, if a page has "sheit" on it (like many posts on /.) it would place ---- instead and let the page go through. And it has blocked nasty pages (we teens are very nasty) that I even don't like. More times than not the proxy has not got in the way of research. If I couldn't do it from school, then I'll do it from home. As long as there is a way of getting non-filtered material.

The nature of the ALA

The American Library Association is a professional organization, akin to IEEE. My parents are both librarians, and they usually send money to the ALA (they'll be sending more since I sent them the link to this article) and they particpate heavily in the state-level library association. There are also county level library associations. The strength of these organizations often determines how good library service is in a given area, especially with things like interlibrary loan.

The best filter

The best "filtering" method I have seen is simple, easy to administer, and free: turn the computer so that the screen faces a public area. Eliminates porn pretty well.

The library in the town my family lives in has an internet policy something like this:
Kids under 12 must be accompanied by a parent/guardian or relative over 18.
Kids 12-18 must either be accompanied or have a form on file signed by a parent/guardian stating that the parent understands that there may be material on the internet that they do not approve of, and that the child has permission to use the internet alone.
Everyone 18+ must have a signed form on file stating that they understand that viewing of pornography is against library policy, punishable by revoking of internet privileges.

Having a policy like this (and enforcing it) has pretty much killed any talk of filtering there.

Re:Fsck Government Funding

First off, for the record, I do agree - based on avialable data (never used filters myself) - that modern filtering software sux. But we need to find a better solution to the problem of pr0n in the libraries, instead of saying "this solution sucks so there's no problem".

That is the whole point of the issue. I - and zillion other people like me - have no beef with "advanced", "politically incorrect", etc... art, speach, whatever. The beef is, we don't want it to be paid for by our tax dollars.
For example, the now-infamous NYC fight between Rudy Guliani and the museum wasn't over the museum's right to display the stupid painting (and kill me if I consider that piece of s**t - pun intended - art), like all the librul noismakers made it sound. It was over the fact that said painting was displayed with PUBLIC FUNDS. They wanna do it in private museum - sure, i have no problem with that (other than wondering about sanity of the artist, critics and viewers). But I don't want my tax money used for it. This has NOTHING to do with First Amendement which deals with laws restricting speach - merely with not having to pay for it. Ditto NEA issue.

Arts should be like science - if you want to fund whatever you want, you either make it worth the money and submit a proposal to NSF, or seek private funding.

-DVK

P.S. Now let's see how far down this gets moderated in the name of freedom of speech ;)

One way to kill this

Implement, and give away, a proxy that filters only images from known porno sites and known banner ad sites. This will get the advertising industry allied with the freedom of expression people.

Public libraries should not be dissemninating advertising at taxpayer expense, right?

Re:Back to trusting... humans.

Why would you hate to say that we have to go back to trusting humans? I doubt any level of sophisticated software could match the regulatory power of a big, scary teacher over a student's shoulders.

I mean come on, which are you going to fear more, filtering software that gives you a nice, pretty "That page is unviewable" message, or a pissed off teacher yelling "Billy! What are you looking at! Go to the principal's office..."?

MyopicProwls

Re:Fsck Government Funding

Except that you'll also hear people complaining about things like the MAPS Realtime Blackhole List because it's going way too far. I'd say that the overall opinion on the matter was very strongly leaning toward the "blocking whole blocks is evil" side, not the "it's OK" side.

Ultimately, though, you're missing an important point. Spam blocking is about me controlling what I see by filtering out unwanted messages. Filtering is about other people controlling what I see by deciding which content is OK. MAPS RBL got blasted because its policy changed from the desirable (letting me block messages from known spammers) to the undesirable (blocking messages for the political reason that their originator was associated, however distantly, with spammers). If you can't see the difference, you're blind.

Re:Fsck Government Funding

That is the whole point of the issue. I - and zillion other people like me - have no beef with "advanced", "politically incorrect", etc... art, speach, whatever. The beef is, we don't want it to be paid for by our tax dollars.

This just isn't as good an argument as it sounds at first. The big problem is that by restricting public funds to art that doesn't offend anyone, you inherently reduce it to the most boring, insipid of the lot. A substantial role of art is to provoke thought and controversy, so by preventing funding of controversial art you eviscerate the purpose of funding it in the first place.

Arts should be like science - if you want to fund whatever you want, you either make it worth the money and submit a proposal to NSF, or seek private funding.

But if you truly follow the NSF/NIH model, you're not going to prevent funding of offensive art. Why? Because NSF and NIH fund projects based heavily on peer review, and depend on the informed opinions of top people in the field about what areas of science are most worth investingating. If you translate that into the NEA, you'll wind up with funding for art projects being doled out on the advice of other top notch artists, most of whom won't share your opinion about the undesirability of controversial artworks.

Just so this doesn't seem completely academic, the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC is a great example of what I'm talking about. The Memorial Wall was the winner as judged by a panel of artists, but the politicians didn't like it because it inherently presents the decisions about the war in a negative light. They wanted to kill the proposal in favor of a conventional monument with a statue of a group of Nam era soldiers that wasn't going to offend anyone, but wound up compromising by building both. Today, everyone knows about the Wall, and it's one of the most popular monuments to visit in DC and just about nobody knows or cares about the other half. If you base your decisions on the principle of not offending anyone, you're going to get the half that's ignored, not the half that's considered the greatest war monument in the world.

Re:Its a public Library - so what?

I notice that your email address is @americanwicca.com, so I am going to gamble that you are wiccan or at least interested in & supportive of wicca...

Do you believe that people should be able to look up sites like americanwicca.com using public computers? I assure you that most censorship solutions will try to block everything to do with wicca...

Google...

God bless the Google [google.com] cache.

Back to trusting... humans.

For now, the filters simply don't work. Some sites fool children to go to adult sites by inserting words like "Pokemon", while as stated in the article, health articles with the word "sex" in it are filtered.

At least in school, the computer lab "teacher" can somewhat look over the kids' shoulders, but that sure leaves libraries in a bind. Hate to say it, but we really don't have much else of a choice but to go back to trusting humans.

Unwhackable...

Just out of interest, why would anyone view porn in a Library anyway... It's not like you could do anything with it.

The existing laws against public indecency should surely suffice.

Re:The best filter

Frankly I don't see what the big deal is. I applaud those who will look at porn while others can see the screen. More power to them. Sex is so taboo, I don't understand how our species survives.

Re:The best filter

The best "filtering" method I have seen is simple, easy to administer, and free: turn the computer so that the screen faces a public area. Eliminates porn pretty well.

It also eliminates a young person's access to sites with information about venereal disease and birth control. Women with breast cancer are also unlikely to spend time with relevent web sites up on the screen. Men suffering from impotence are not going to visit sites that provide information. The list just goes on.

The answer is simple: Parents need to quit using the library as a daycare center and librarians as baby sitters. If you can't trust your little smut-monger with Internet access, he does not belong unsupervised in a public library.

I am amazed that people get this hung up about kids having access to porn. It's not like it's forced on them by Netscape. The Disney web site doesn't suddenly redirect them to www.shemalesxxx.com. If they go to a porn site, they almost always do it by choice. If it is by accident, they can hit the "back" button. I doubt that glancing at porn long enough to recognize it as such is going to emotionally scar some kid.

Fsck Government Funding

You heard me right.

I am definitely for government addressing inequities in resource distribution, opportunity, and the restrictions of democratic rights. I am not for a government using its federal funds to control workplace activity to the point where the first amendment is either broached completely, or the interpretation of the first amendment is put into the hands of commercial surf-protection software concerns.

The only hope here is resistance by anyone who has a principled stand on freedom of speech, i.e. the people. The librarians here are of course an example of such resistance. They are using the judicial system to challenge a (constitutionally) unfair regulatory infringement on their civil rights.

However, the government will eventually push this far enough that it is better to seek funding from alternative sources. Eventually, the government will not be a viable source of funding for the best artists and social programs- the ones that are decidedly politically incorrect.

This can lead to a degradation of those agencies that receive such funding, but I hope that private and charitable sources can step in, without restricting the freedoms of those who they presume to help.

They're censoring computers in the library..right?

Well, now look what porn has gone and done!
Here is what I think. These computers that are receiving the filterings are at the libraries. So, if you are looking for something on the computer, and it brings up a "questionable material" page...then go check out a book in the library on the subject...shut up! I know this really sucks...but hey, your at the LIBRARY. Usually when I am at the library I read actual books, not go online and burn my eye's out worse than they are already.

Did I mention this really sucks? Some of the reasons this sucks; some libraries won't have the material the internet does. Some people don't have computers at their disposal, hence the library (free information) has them. Whatever book your looking for could be checked out. And filtering, censoring just plain sucks. If someone wants to look at a particular subject matter or material, I think that person has a right to read/see/research whatever he/she is looking for.

If I have missed anything...please list more suckiness below. Who is this really hurting? Who is this really helping? I think this is going to prove malicious to the human mind. Whenever you censor or "prohibit" things, people tend to get upset. And usually tend to rebel in some sort of way. I hope the sys admins at libraries are ready for an assault on the censory systems, and even the network. I totally disagree with this plan.

Filtering does no good

When I was still in high school a few years ago, my school implemented a filter to block internet sites they found objectionable. No one really minded until it started affecting research in the library. For one of my classes I had to look up something (I don't remember what it was now), but the best sites were blocked for some strange reason. I asked the librarian if there was a way of turning the filter off for those sites, and he said the filter was controlled by the board of education. Being as stubborn as I am, I wouldn't accept their "This site has been blocked" message, and was determined to find a way past it. The result? I discovered that by going to altavista.com's web page translator, typing the URL of the site in, and telling it to translate from another language to English, the site would load perfectly (although a little slowly) because it was being re-directed through a site which was not blocked. So in conclusion, filtering does not prevent students from accessing sites they shouldnt, it only prevents students with low technical skills from accessing information they need for reports.
Please also note that I believe filtering the internet in public schools is an attempt to restrict freedom of speech, especially when "contraverisal" topics such as abortion are filtered to "protect the students". That was the reasoning behind the filtering at my school.