Stress levels dropping

[silveradept]

Allow me, if you will, to drive a point home here. If you take your child to a library, there is a chance that they will be exposed to media that is, in your opinion, inappropriate. A sixteen-year old, reading about the history of manga, finds out that there is a section devoted to adult and 18+ material in it. Now, in this situation, there are several options available to a parent that finds out about this. One is to realize that these things do happen, and talk with one's child about the material within if there are any concerns. One can certainly alert the library to the existence of that material, and let the library, if it chooses, do something about marking the book or filing the book in a different place, However, it is bad form to invoke the governmental powers and have them order the censoring and removal of the book . The statements in that article are disturbing. The library does not need, nor does it desire, any sort of "screening process" that occurs outside library staff, and it certainly does not need anyone from outside the library staff determining what is and is not appropriate for the library collection! It is tantamount to saying that you don't trust your librarian, and even more so, as I have stated many times before, the library is a dangerous place. There is a good chance that someone will find, either intentionally or accidentally, material that conflicts with their current reality-view. If you want to censor one part of it, then you agree that if someone else decides to censor your worldview, that you'll be okay with it. If you're not okay with the prospect of you being censored, then don't advocate the censoring of someone else. What goes around, comes around.

In the "Slightly odd transitions" department, there's someone who's planning on hitting a tee shot off the International Space Station. Probably will be the longest drive on record. Besides, didn't the moonwalkers hit a few shots while they were there?

Today was also goodness day, and a good day out. I'm utterly finished with one of my classes now, and it was a nice day out, enough to forego the coat, and I had good conversation and bubble-blowing. It was a really good day today. Tomorrow will hopefully be an even better day.

Comments

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

PS: what's CIPA?

[silveradept]

CIPA is the Children's Internet Protection Act. Its mandate is that any library that receives special rates for its internet access (the E-rate program) or assistance in buying technology under the Library Services and Technology Act must have "technology prevention measures" in place to protect children from obscene materials, child pr0n, and any other materials that might be considered harmful to children, on any computers that might be accessed by minors. The filter can be removed upon request of an adult user by someone authorized to do so (generally the librarian) for research or other lawful purposes.

CIPA happens to be the third try at such an act, as the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) and Child Online Protection Act (COPA) were struck down as unconstitutional. CIPA itself survived a court challenge, with a 6-3 decision in favor of its constitutionality by the Supreme Court.

Yeah, so what it does is that it requires any library that gets discounts on its Internet access (a good thing in strapped library budgets) to put some sort of blocking software on any computers that are affected. Since most people who have used blocking software know that it doesn't block all the things it should and tends to block a lot of legitimate sites. Blocking software will block sexual health sites, sites about LGBT lifestyles, and things like that - useful, vital information to teens who might be looking for research or for their own knowledge, and for one reason or another, can't do it at home - which serioiusly impairs the library's ability to provide unfettered and anonymous access. How many kids do you think will actually ask the librarian to remove the filter, one, and two, have the strength of will to say what the reason actually is for wanting it off?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

*nods* even some corporate filters are like that. Where I work, we had to disable the filter because no one was able to get any work done. (Try doing a behavioral health survey on sex when you can't access the websites with the quesions to ask!)

I can understand wanting to block children from accessing pr0n, but really - I don't think anyone would try to search for it deliberately on a public computer, and there are even some websites when you mispell them that lead to porn.

And blocking sites about sexual health and sex issues is a bad idea, because you're exactly right. No teenager is going ot walk up to the librarian and say "I'm trying to find out about abortions" or "I want to look up a website about being gay". Or if they do, they're really brave. But most teenagers would, I think, go to the library to use the internet over being at home for the simple purpose that there isn't anyone looking over their shoulder, or looking at their browser history, like a parent might do.

>.< it makes me mad when I think about how much crap the government tries to keep from us "for our own good", when in the long-run, all it does it hurt people.

And just as an example of how stupid blocking software is: I have a photo on my site from my trip to NH labled "moosexing.jog". It's a photo of a moose crossing the road. I went to show it to someone at my old job one day and we got zinged with a warning that our web activitiy was being logged and sent on to the computing center and continuing to visit websites with innapropriate content could lead to us loosing our internet access.....because the word "sex" was technically in the url. BUT, we could go to a website of a local photographer (scottchurch.com i think), who takes mostly nude/partial nude photos with no problems.

[silveradept]

There are adults who do deliberately search for pr0n from library computers. There are enough horror stories about kids who innocently click the back button to receive an eyeful of material from a user who was too lazy to close out his browser session. There's a good chance that a kid will be exposed accidentally to adult material at some point in their lives. In fact, it's almost a guarantee.

Precisely on the bit about why kids come to the library to look up sensitive topics - if their parents don't give off the impression that they're supportive, or have already indicated significant hostility to the idea, then the kid doesn't want the parent to look over their shoulder or leave any traces of their searches where a parent might find them.

And I know all about the stupidity of blocking software - it's a hobby, really, among students to figure out ways of getting around controls placed on them. Many of them are quite good at it. And the other parts that go around are the things that the software doesn't actually block. Plus, blocking software sites don't have to make their algorithms open to the public, so nobody but the company really knows how things are done there. Blocking software in general sucks.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

is there any type of "fight" against the blocking software that's going on?

I mean...can it be fought?

[silveradept]

Well, CIPA survived a constitutionality challenge, so we'll have wait for a different suit to try again.

As for filters themselves, I would guess that places like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Library Association are definitely against blocking software and want to challenge it everywhere it exists.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I think the government needs to stay out of the libraries!