INTERNET FILTERING

[John D. Orsborn]

  What I find interesting, is that in the interest of "protecting" our
children here is an organization that would like to put the behavior of
children, when they are using a computer, on someone other than parents.
You stated that you forwarded Sheryl's response to Mike Millen to prove
that librarians "blame parents."  Maybe I read your excerpt wrong, but to
me it sounds as if she was pointing out that this wasn't just a chance
encounter by a young man doing research on the Internet, but rather a
calculated act by the child.  I also fail to see where she blames the
parents.  
	While I agree that there can be some controls on
computers specifically identified as for children's use, the minute we
decide that someone else is responsible for how the child uses it, we are
getting away from what is really important.
  Prior to becoming a librarian, I worked for some time with young
children, as a pre-school teacher, youth counselor, etc.  I saw how
children are influenced and who has the most influence over them.  It is
the parent.  People complain that we live in an era where children spend
too much time blaming parents for what they do wrong.  People also say
that parents are unfairly blamed when their children do something
terrible.  Yet, here we are telling children, that if they look at
pornography, it is someone elses fault.  It is true that with some
innocent searches, pornography sites come up. I have seen it, and even
recently had it happen.  However, this is where it becomes a problem for
me when groups state that librarians should be preventing this.
  Rather than make librarians the scape goats for the quirks and problems
of the Internet, Pro-family people should be teaching their children, when
confronted with pornography on the web to make good choices.  
  With the advent of the Internet, our children have access to much more
information that the children before. As Bess Moffitt wrote in her
response, she makes sure she knows what her child is doing when she is on
the Internet.  A child's increased access to information, objectionable or
not does not call for state control as much as it calls for an increase
in the vigilance of parents.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John D. Orsborn
Reference Librarian                             "Please watch out for each
The University of Evansville                     other and love and
1800 Lincoln Avenue                              forgive everybody.  It's
Evansville, IN 47722                             good life, enjoy it."
						
						~~~~~~ Jim Henson ~~~~~~

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998, Filtering Facts wrote:

> Sheryl Dwinell wrote:
> 
> >The kid whose
> >mother brought the suit against the library is no innocent. He obviously
> >knew how to download material and save it to a disk that he brought to the
> >library for this express purpose. It makes you wonder what else he's hiding
> >behind mommy's back.
> >
> 
> 
> Thanks Sheryl.  My pro-family activist friends think I'm making it up
> sometimes when I tell them there are librarians who blame the parents when
> this happens. 
> So I forwarded this to all of them, including Mike Millen, the attorney
> representing the mother.
> 
> *****************************************************************************
> David Burt	President, Filtering Facts
> Website: 	http://www.filteringfacts.org
> E-Mail:  	David_Burt at filteringfacts.org
> Phone/Fax:	503 635-7048
> 
>