[thechat] Censorship

Isaac Forman isaac at bigtrip.org
Mon Oct 13 09:38:56 CDT 2003



The solution, IMO, involves peer-supervision (spot someone browsing
porn, report them, have them kicked out?).

In my current day to day surfing (reading news, looking for travel
information, looking for design inspiration and code help) I never
really "accidentally" come across porn that might offend someone should
I be doing the same thing in a public library.

I'd be more likely to support a solution that warned users that they
might be about to browse offensive material: "If you are sure that the
page you are trying to access does not contravene acceptable use of this
public terminal, click onwards." Something like that.


Riders like the one Ron's mentioned are fucking the planet. Martin lent
me a great book by Greg Palast (The Best Democracy Money Can Buy) that
details how the IMF, WTO and World Bank are using more extensive riders
to fuck over country after country. "You can have a loan to get your
country out of its current debt, but only if you allow our mega-corps to
buy out your government, lower minimum wages, destroy unions that
protect workers, etc".



> 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.



More information about the thechat mailing list