[thechat] Censorship
Luther, Ron
ron.luther at hp.com
Mon Oct 13 08:43:19 CDT 2003
Kevin Stevens noted some interesting stuff about US libraries and
censorship:
>>I don't believe in censorship, but there are so many grey areas I thought
>>I'd open this one up to the Chat to see what your opinions are. This was
>>prompted by something I've just read about an American library that was
>>taken to court by some of its members for putting software on its computers
>>to stop anyone from using them to view porn. Fair enough, I thought, but the
>>software also prevented access to anything on breast cancer and gay &
>>lesbian rights, which is why the lawsuit was filed.
Hi Kevin,
Welcome to the democratic process. ;-)
First of all, IIRC, there is a *ton* of information available on this,
and on the library organizations attempt to fight this. In the end,
however, I believe it came down to funding. Libraries are a public
service funded by tax dollars. I believe riders were attached to the
funding requiring them to install the censorship software. I'm pretty
sure it wasn't their idea and they weren't given an option.
{Which also means being careful who to root for in the lawsuit, since
a 'win' for anti-censorship in the near term may ultimately mean shutting
down the library in the long term for lack of funding. See how much fun
this is!}
So where did the funding and the riders to the funding come from? From
our elected representatives. In a democratic society everyone has a
right to their opinion. And if their opinion happens to be "I don't
want my tax dollars spent to allow the neighbor boy to view 'big booty
on-line' at the library." and they lobby hard enough and spend enough
money ... they win.
As you've noted, there are a lot of consequences. [My stepdaughter is
a heck of an artist. If she chose to do a school paper on the art of
Robert Mapplethorpe instead of Robert Motherwell, I would certainly
support that. (Sorry - I'm not a Motherwell fan.) Unfortunately, she
probably couldn't do the research at a public library.]
Sharing the sadness,
RonL.
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