San Jose Mercury Editorial

[Filtering Facts]

Today I got my first editorial published in the San Jose Mercury.
http://www.mercurycenter.com/opinion/docs/profilter.htm


Filters keep smut away from kids

 BY DAVID BURT

 THE Internet is an incredibly rich source of information and entertainment. We
 librarians have come to rely on the Internet as a vital information tool.
Teachers and
 parents find the Internet to be a fantastic resource for the education and
 enlightenment of children. 

 But the Internet has its dark side: Pornography. A search for ``sex'' in
the Alta
 Vista search engine retrieves 1,270,540 documents. 

 A child using an unrestricted Internet terminal in a public library is only
a few
 keystrokes away from being exposed to some of the sickest and most graphic
 pornography imaginable. Photographs of bestiality, sadomasochism, and other
 perversions are easily found. Alta Vista records 8,440 matches for
``bestiality'' and
 58,620 matches for ``bondage.'' 

 Across the country, public libraries report horror stories about children
accessing
 pornography. In the King County, Wash., library, groups of junior high
school boys
 printed pornographic pictures, and sold them to younger children. 

 Yet the King County library was able to find a solution to this problem:
filtering
 software. Filtering software programs, such as SurfWatch, Bess, X-Stop, Web
 Sense and Cyber Patrol, block access to Internet sites which are pornographic,
 contain hate speech or bomb-making information or allow on-line gambling. 

 These filters restrict access in two basic ways, either by filtering out
offensive
 words, such as ``breasts,'' or through ``stop lists'' of known pornography
sites
 selected by employees of the filtering company. 

 Word blocking causes problems for libraries, because it can block out sites
about
 ``breast cancer.'' That's why public libraries that use filters turn off
the word
 blocking and rely on the stop lists of pre-screened sites. 

 Public libraries around the country are using these filtering programs, and
finding
 them very effective at blocking out pornography, and only pornography. 

 The filters are not without problems. The Austin public library installed Cyber
 Patrol, and accidentally left the non-pornographic categories blocked, such as
 extremist groups and sex education. The library was flooded with
complaints, and
 the blocking was changed to only the pornography categories.

 Librarians have discovered that the better quality filters, when configured
correctly,
 are able to distinguish between art that contains nudity, sex education
information
 and pornographic sites. 

 When the filters are set to screen out only pornography, questions of what
sites are
 appropriate for different ages of children disappear, since pornography is not
 appropriate for minors of any age. 

 Sometimes, through over-zealousness or human error, an innocent site is
blocked.
 However, most filters allow the librarian to override the filter at the
request of the
 patron. 

 Since the Internet is so big and changes so fast, it is impossible for a
filter to be 100
 percent effective. Libraries that filter warn parents that although the
library takes
 measures to shield children from pornography, there is a chance children may be
 exposed anyway. 

 Many librarians fear that if they give in to blocking pornography, they
will be asked
 next to block sites on homosexuality, abortion and other controversial topics.

 These librarians can look to their bookshelves for guidance: If a subject is so
 offensive they would not buy a book about it, they should have no qualms about
 filtering it. Filtering means making a library's on-line collection more
consistent with
 the minimum deference to community standards reflected in its print collection.

 In other words, filtering is a rejection of free speech absolutism, and a
deference to
 common sense.


 David Burt, information technology librarian at the Lake Oswego, Ore.,
 Public Library, is the founder of Filtering Facts, a group that promotes
 filtering in libraries. The Filtering Facts website is available at
 http://www.filteringfacts.org. His e-mail is David_Burt at filteringfacts.org .

 Published Thursday, September 25, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News

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David Burt, Filtering Facts, HTTP://WWW.FILTERINGFACTS.ORG
David_Burt at filteringfacts.org