Paul said:
No, this is a policy about the library Internet connection.
At one time, the city council said "we won't filter the library
Internet connection, because that would violate some notion
of free speech". So the library didn't have a parental filter or
any other kind of filter.
But just recently, I notice someone had a change of heart,
and decided enough was enough. So now all the libraries
will have (slightly) filtered Internet content. Now, if
a student wants to read a health-related article, is there
a danger the filter could stop it ? Only time will tell.
Our libraries do stock some DVDs, but I've never bothered
to see what the titles are. I doubt it would be anything
too racy. I don't think the librarian purposely goes
looking for trouble.
Paul
Censoring is probably their pro-active elimination of legal liability
for providing a channel for porn to reach underage kids. Despite their
fascade of protecting kids, their real intent is to circumvent lawsuits.
Setting up accounts at the library regulated via adult permission as to
what can be received over the Internet connection would be more work to
setup and maintain, so they'll just use global censoring on all Internet
traffice generated by their patrons.
When several newsgroup providers decided to drop some or all binary
groups, they used the NY attorney's threat (never exercised) that
targeted just one ISP about them being a conduit for kiddie porn.
Rather than incur the risk of a lawsuit, especially an avalanche of them
should one succeed, and because they generated no revenue from providing
Usenet access along with almost no loss in revenue from users that not
only threatened to leave but actually did leave, it was a easy choice to
drop newsgroups. The libraries don't need lawsuits, frivilous or not,
about them providing a conduit for porn to underage kids. It'll also
probably reduce how many times some malware nails one of their
workstations. It's probably not just porn that will get blocked. Parked
domains, hate groups, human sexuality, and other content that parents in
general don't want their kids to see will be added.
At an old workplace, we had a guy that was downloading tons of porn.
Nobody wanted to touch his keyboard (you know why) when he was gone on
vacation or on sick leave to cover for his work tasks. His (and later
my) manager knew about this activity which was against company policy
because it can tarnish the company's image and reputation, put content
on their network and workstations that is not work-related and often
illegal, and could carry malware. I found out when this guy got fired
and I had to retrieve data off his hard disks and get past passwords on
files. We trashed his keyboard and desk chair before I worked on his
workstation (yeah, it was that bad). Not until this a-hole starting
printing out his porn using the company printer and toner and going
through many reams of company paper per night did the manager finally
fire this guy. His porn addiction was costing the company too much
money and his behavior was risky to the company. Despite he got his
work tasks completed on time, the manager decided it was time to
eliminate this gross behavior. He was the Software Librarian. Stuff
that took him 3 days, or more to complete, I'd get done in under 2 hours
along with all my other QA work.
Later that company employed Websense. Since I was in the Software QA
department and needed to do research on software used in our products or
bundled from 3rd parties, like getting help on it or to understand it to
write effective test cases against it, I'd run into some sites that were
censored. Usually it was some personal web site on a domain that got
blocked. The domain was blocked, not the help site there. Sometimes a
domain was incorrectly categorized. I'd have to issue a request through
IT to get an exclusion added on the domain (if I could show it was safe
and okay for content) or add an exclusion for myself. Never had a
problem getting the exclusions. Eventually the IT folks just gave me a
direct line to Websense to request changes to filters or rules in the
company's account.
By that point, I knew they were watching everyone's traffic, too. Once
in awhile I'd test their level of monitoring and add something in an
external communication that triggered off their keyword list and soon
after got a call from the IT folks. Heh heh, got you again. We were
friends but they were required to do these follow-up calls. I never
apologized for these trigger traps. It was a funny way to spur a phone
call and then see if they'd like to go out with our lunch crew.
