Librarians to argue that blocking online porn is censorship

Associated Press ^ | March 25, 2002 | A/P Staff

[NC_Libertarian]

Those dang LIBERALarians. :p

[MeekOneGOP]

LOL! May I "borrow" that picture?...........

[RAT Patrol]

It is equal to the government saying "keep your clothers on in public". That's all.

Where are these people when our political speech is being restricted? It isn't about the Constitution for them. It's about a liberal political agenda.

[Semper Paratus]

It's censorship, but I have to wonder what kind of person looks at porn in the library.

To increase library attendance but up banners ALL NUDE XXX NOTHING LEFT OUT, PRIVATE BOOTHS.

[MeekOneGOP]

Their stand is hypocritical. Librarians and library boards constantly make censorship decisions. When was the last time you saw the latest copy of Hustler on the reading rack of your Public Library?

Yes. The bottom line is, they want the Federal money, it's pretty simple IMO........

[hoosierham]

This is why the libraries don't have books? like Playboy and American Rifleman-they don't want boys playing with their guns.

[colorado tanker]

"What kind of person looks at porn in the library?"

Here, "homeless" men hang out in the library downtown and surf the porn sites in front of other patrons during the time they must be out of the shelters and they're not drinking/drugging. One recently assaulted a patron.

Of course, the libs claim it's their constitutional right to do all of the above. Meanwhile, lots of taxpaying citizens just won't go there.

[My2Cents]

True. Libertarians are opposed to public libraries.

On topic, how many libraries that won't filter out porn, are willing to filter out "hate speech" sites?

[MeekOneGOP]

Be my guest - nice one isn't it?

Yes it is. Thanks!

[gfactor]

while blocking porn may not be censorship, it always involves blocking things that aren't porn -- which is. either that or it doesn't effectively block porn. THATS the issue at hand.

[The Old Hoosier]

When I saw the title, I thought at first it said "libertarians." :)

[My2Cents]

Our local library tolerates a peeper who leers at young girls. (My wife works there, so I hear all the junk that goes on.) They also allow boistrious teenager to meet and distrupt people who actually to the library to read and study. The librarian calls the library a "community meeting place," not a resource for information and study.

[Dakmar]

I would guess that public libraries are about the same as public schools in that regard - filled with pencil brained liberal education major leftwing whiny socialist democrat activist PETA nico-nazi do gooders. Did I leave anything out?

[Cachelot]

Library officials and free-speech advocates say the filtering technology used to block Internet porn is imperfect and can also inadvertently block important information on health, sexuality and social issues.

They may be right, in a way. Because internet porn is a running battle between blockers and porn purveyors. Typically, porn outlets will metatag their stuff to show up in all kinds of unrelated searches, such as for the stuff mentioned above but also in other niches. Often these niches are targetted towards young people. And then there's the spoofed site-names (white-house.com anyone?), and legitimate domain names that the porners collect on a regular basis when they lapse.

Bottom line is the internet porn tries actively to get in even where it's not wanted. Personally, I'd like to see this practice defined as a cyberattack and punished under the various malicious computer usage laws already on the books.

[Aquinasfan]

It always amuses me when librarians scream about censorship. What do they think they're doing when they decide what books to acquire... or NOT to acquire... for their libraries?

Yes, yes, a thousand times, YES!

Good luck trying to persuade anyone though. You'll probably have as much luck as I've had trying to convince my wife that her employer doesn't pay half of her Social Security tax.

[Dimensio]

People are looking and arguing this based on a "right" to view pornography, which is missing the point of the real issue.

There is no filtering software available that functions perfectly to block out all "pornographic" material while allowing anything that is not "pornographic" to pass through it. Any filtering software used will, as a consequence, restrict access to legitimate information on the internet because of some tripped keyword. The issue isn't about viewing porn so much as throwing up a big barrier for information because someone might go in to look at naughty pictures.

[colorado tanker]

The way the libs have wrecked the libraries kinda mirrors they way they've wrecked the public schools, doesn't it?

[07055]

Library officials and free-speech advocates say the filtering technology used to block Internet porn is imperfect and can also inadvertently block important information on health, sexuality and social issues.

This is no different than the problem with Playboy magazine.

If you ban Playboy, you are also banning the Playboy interview and other non-pornographic stuff in the magazine.

To which the answer is: Tough.

[BikerNYC]

The NY Times reports that the list of plaintiffs includes "Jeffrey L. Pollock, a Republican Congressional candidate who favored mandatory filtering until he discovered that his own campaign's Web site was blocked by one of the most popular filtering programs."

The report does not indicate where Mr. Pollack is running or what in his Web site might have set off those bells and whistles. Anyone know?