CDA and filtering

[Sheryl Dwinell]

>The Courts thoughts on "accidental exposure" are also interersting:
>
>>Though such material is widely available, users seldom
>>encounter such content accidentally. "A document's title
>>or a description of the document will usually appear
>>before the document itself . . . and in many cases the
>>user will receive detailed information about a site's
>>content before he or she need take the step to access the
>>document. Almost all sexually explicit images are
>>preceded by warnings as to the content."[15] For that
>>reason, the "odds are slim" that a user would enter a
>>sexually explicit site by accident.

It's nice to see that rational thought prevailed over the sort of hysteria
one finds in the media where you're led to believe that the most perverse
sexually explict material is one click away from Yahooligans. In all the
time I've surfed the Web and in the thousands of searches I've performed
I've yet to 'accidentally' come across grossly offensive material. I've yet
to click on a site that advertised itself to be one thing and found it to
be a porno site instead.  I've had nasty sites appear in a list of search
results, yet it's so obvious what they were that I ignored them.  This
isn't to say that it doesn't happen, obviously.  I tend to believe,
however, that it is far from the norm.  As was demonstrated by the feds
lawyers at the hearings in Philly last year, you have to make an effort to
find this stuff.

Sheryl Dwinell
Cataloger/Database Management Librarian
Memorial Library * Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141 * Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
414-288-3542 * dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu