Wait until naysayer Alito gets ahold of this at the Supreme Court and strikes a blow for pr0n freedom for all State Senators!

(lol)

Yeah, this is wrong wrong wrong. But come on, anyone who's using the library (or their employer's computer, for that matter) to look at this junk is even more fucked-up.

"Animated by the understanding that freedom to say what might annoy or offend others comes with the corollary cost that others may say what might annoy or offend you, the founders chose risk as the price of freedom"

not bad - not quite NYT v Sullivan but not bad - too bad he was on the losing side here

I'm pretty much always on the side of free speech (no, I don't think of the children!), but I can understand this ruling.

Can an adult go to a librarian to have them put a specific hole in the firewall to a site that might otherwise be blocked? I know that's asking a lot of someone who's job description doesn't include managing the library firewall, but theoretically, if a library patron can't ask a librarian to (even temporarily) allow access to a site that contains useful information which they'd like to access, then they should be doing it at home or somewhere else.

I know we don't really want a bunch of creepy guys jacking off in public libraries, but the content filter goes beyond just porn to a point I would consider a violation of free speech (I'm not a lawyer etc). I'm fine with the filter there as an option, but adults should have the option of turning it off.

I don't want to go to the library and see a guy getting a boner looking at naked people on the Net -- like the guy that was there last week, sitting directly in front of me -- but you know, I don't think that everybody has to be corralled into stupidity to keep my prudish ass from being offended. Those screen filters keep other people from seeing what you're browsing for, unless you're directly in line with them, and if they're not rubbing one out on the library rug, why get upset?

I'll be very glad not to see any more elderly men looking up craigslist ads with titles such as "Need some to suck my cock, NOW!1!" when my gaze happens to slide across a bank of monitors in the library. There are lots of places with wifi, there are lots of places with pay-to-use computers: do it somewhere where you won't squick folk out while they're innocently browsing.

This was a big topic of controversy back when I worked at Seattle Public Library. There are patrons who, just to stir up shit and disturb people, will bring up images of graphic porn and either print them and then leave the printouts in plain view, or will leave the images on the screen and walk away. But the general consensus there was that no adult-use computer should have web filtering enabled, and any parent who permitted their children to use the adult computers (there were filtered computers available specifically for children) was giving implicit permission for their children to have uncensored Internet access.

I have to agree with Chambers. Yeah, there are squicky nasty bastard people who WANT others to see the gross shit they're looking at, or who WANT to display their pitiful little boners, but the filtering software parameters are too broad.

I don't object in concept to the idea. Libraries shouldn't be obligated to provide porn to visitors.

The big problem is implementation. Most off-the-shelf filtering programs will filter sites like SLOG, Towleroad, sites that deal with homosexuality, breast cancer, birth control, abortion, and other controversial subjects. They almost have to. If you promote your software as protecting kids, then you open yourself up to being sued if any objectionable sites get through their filters.

What sounds like a good idea becomes a quagmire, with the path of least resistance being to over-filter.

It seems like the only way to protect children is to treat everyone like a child.

Well, that's the way humanity has been handling the issue for thousands of years. Don't expect that to change overnight.

It's worth noting a couple things.

First that what works for Seattle Public Library isn't necessarily what works for North Central Regional Library; NCRL is the largest (geographic) library system in WA, and in a much more rural and conservative area than Seattle. For the most part these are very, very small libraries, with small budgets, where you can't separate your young computer users from your adult computer users as you can in the larger (read: metropolitan) systems. In a larger sense, libraries need to reflect the values of their communities, and it's important to recognize that urban communities tend to have different values than smaller, more rural communities.

Second, I understand that NCRL will make exceptions to their filters on a case-by-case basis, so if someone asks to have a legitimate site unblocked for research purposes (or some other legitimate use), library staff will unblock the site. So the filtering is not absolute and, at least in theory, everyone can get what they want, if they don't mind asking for it.

On a side note, I think the word "rejoiced" is a bit strong, considering the carefully considered statement Jan Walsh gave.