Filtering: beyond porn (was:Re: CDA

[Charles P. Hobbs]

On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Mark Wilden wrote:

> One issue that the whole filtering debate seems to ignore is that kids have always found ways of
> seeing pornography if they want to. I think it's a pretty natural impulse, frankly. The goal of
> "protecting" children from pornography is chimerical at best.
> 
I've been following this "filtering" thread, in all of its permutations,
over the past few months.

Most of it concerns whether children (minors) should be able to access
"porn" on Internet websites at a public library. This is really part of
a greater debate: whether "porn", in any medium (Internet, video, print,
etc.) is "good" or "bad" for children.

Rather than try to answer that debate, I'd like to take this opportunity
to bring up a couple of related issues regarding children's access to
certain Internet resources in the public library.

1. There's been some concern about certain companies targeting Internet
advertising to children. These are (usually) ads for things that interest
children, such as candy, toys, cereal, etc. As with similar ads on
television, some parts of society believe that these ads are harmful to
children. Should these be filtered in the public library?

2. There are various entities interested in providing on-line gambling
services on the Internet. Of course, they'll say "18 and over only", but
there's really no way to verify age over the Internet, as far as I know.
Even if a credit card number is required to use the gambling site, kids
have been known to steal credit cards. 

Again, is this something that the public library should be concerned
about?