INTERNET FILTERING

[John M. Morris]

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Andrew J. Mutch wrote:

> For those who are following the filtering debates, here is another
> knee-jerk pro-filtering rant -- the author's e-mail is included, I would
> encourage you to respond.

I read that in a local paper, intended to fire back and forgot.  Thanks
for the reminder.  :)  Thought I'd lob a live round and include a copy
below:

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I'm the network admin for the Beauregard Parish Public Library in
Louisiana.  This town is about as deep in the bible belt as it gets;
It's a dry parish and we even have laws restricting dancing.  But
there is zero public sentiment for filtering adults and we have had
both patron access terminals AND public dialup lines in service for
close to two years.

We have been running three adult and three childrens' machines and
the children's boxes had CyberPatrol installed and running before we
allowed the first child to touch them because yes, the Internet has
vast areas that are little more than raw sewers and children should be
protected to the extent possible with the current state of the art in
filters.  That they also are blocked from many harmless sites is an
acceptable compromise.

>From day one we also established policies regarding Internet access by
minors, deciding that simply possessing a library card was not going
to be enough considering the looseness of existing filters.  What we
did was require the parents to sign a form stating that their child
would be permitted to use the terminals and whether or not they would
have to use the filtered ones or not.  For the dialup lines we have
pointed concerned parents to the various filtering packages and
recently when we pressed a custom CD-ROM with a pre-configured
Netscape+dialer we obtained permission from The Learning Company to
include CyberPatrol on that CD for easier access by parents.  This
gives the decisions to the parents so that we don't HAVE to try and
come up with a one size fits all government imposed solution that
nobody would be happy with.  If the parent of a high school student
thinks their child has a need for unrestricted access and trusts
him/her not to run straight to www.hotsex.com that's their decision,
not ours, certainly not yours and it should not be Congress' either.

Moreover, have YOU ever tried seriously accessing the Internet through
a filtering program?  I have, and so have others I know and I can
report firsthand that it is not a fulfilling experience as far too
many links are blocked with little or no reason or rhyme discernable
to the mortal mind.  Adults will not stand for such a policy and if
there is ONE thing we always keep firmly at the front of our minds it
is that happy Patrons == Voters and it is Voters who we are in the
business of serving.

John M.      http://www.dtx.net/~jmorris         This post is 100% M$ Free!
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