Cyber Patrol & Disinformation: was Re: Filtering "education"

[Carole Leita]

Speaking of CyberPatrol and disinformation - 

I'm working on the Internet Filter Assessment Project -
http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/ - and discovered this morning that Cyber
Patrol blocks the entire Disinformation site - http://www.disinfo.com/  -
one of the better useful and contentful research resources on the Internet.
To quote the UC Berkeley Teaching Library Tutorial on Finding Information
on the Internet - "a rich, small, hand-picked, reviewed database for social
issues, politics, cultures, diversity, etc." -
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.html

Carole Leita <leita at netcom.com>

At 08:58 AM 6/11/97 -0700, Burt, David wrote:
>The trouble with "educating the public about filtering" is that such
>"education" is usually heavily one-sided and loaded with disinformation.
>
>Library patrons are told whoppers like "all filtering relies on keyword
>blocking, therefore, it is unavoidable that most information on breast
>cancer will be blocked because it contains the word breast".
>
>The blocking of politically controversial and sex education sites is
>taken outrageously out of context, as the anti-filtering crusaders
>always somehow manage to forget to mention that these sites are usually
>broken down by category, as is CyberPatrol, and that libraries don't
>seriously consider blocking those categories.
>
>Dire warnings about a library being sued because it is now a "publisher"
>if it blocks, as was CompuServe, are still passed along, despite the
>fact that the Cox/Wyden amendment to the Communications Act explicitly
>prohibits such liability which might arise from "Good Samaritan
>blocking".
>
>I would be very careful about spreading such disinformation to my
>patrons.  As people like me get more vocal and better organized, we will
>be actively countering the disinformation, and I don't think your
>patrons will appreciated being deceived very much.