Cyber Patrol & Disinformation: was Re: Filtering "edu

[CMUNSON]

     Carole Leita wrote:
>>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
     
David Burt wrote:
>But this really proves my point.  You've left out the context.  Which 
>category is this site being blocked under?  If it's "full nudity", 
>you've got a legit gripe.  If it's "controversial issues", it's a red 
>herring, since no library would choose to block that category.
     
     The context: The entire Disinformation site blocked by CyberPatrol for 
     unknown reasons, but probably for "political extremism." This is 
     pretty clear. We'd have to ask CyberPatrol for more information, which 
     I know will be difficult to get. CyberPatrol routinely blocks 
     political and controversial sites. This has been proven. I've had two 
     sites blocked by CyberPatrol, one of which has since moved to a new, 
     unblocked URL, and the other now has its own domain, but the original 
     site in the Netherlands remains blocked.
     
     Sure, a library may not "choose" to block that category, but what if 
     someone does the "choosing" for them? Take the recent case of Boston, 
     where the mayor decreed that CyberPatrol be installed in the public 
     libraries. I'm curious as to how the librarians reacted to that 
     mandate. Did the mayor stipulate which filters were to be "enabled?" 
     Did the librarians enable all of the filters, just to be safe?
     
     Chuck