Project Uncensored
WANNA USE THE internet at the library? Guess what-you're censored. Except you're not.
But adults can turn the filter off. Since July 1, Brooklyn and the other two city library systems (New York and Queens) have been practicing this crazy-quilt Comstockery. Don't blame them. If they want federal funds for discount internet access, they gotta censor-or at least pretend to. Blame Congress and the Supreme Court decision that upheld CIPA, albeit with a huge loophole.
As most web users know, searches for "girls" or "toys" can turn up porn. But filters, aimed at business and home use, can't work as promised, so critics call them "censorware." Filter-makers use algorithms to scan the web and hire entry-level surfers to classify sites. It's impossible to check every URL, so filters often block at the domain level. Several studies have shown that filters both underblock (miss sites they seek) and overblock (e.g., classifying sex-ed sites as porn).
Filter categories run the gamut, including "cults," "job search" and "personals/dating." The Brooklyn and Queens libraries, using a filter from the cutesily named 8e6 Technologies, block only "child pornography," "pornography" and "obscene/tasteless." New York Public Library, using Websense, blocks "adult content," "nudity" and "sex" (there's no "child pornography" category).
For those under 17, libraries must also block material "harmful to minors," defined as appealing "to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion"-or much of adolescence. Curiously, only Queens makes a distinction: The library blocks in the "obscene/tasteless" category only for minors. Example: Rotten.com, with its axe-murder photos and Jacko mugshots.
Can a filter enforce the law? Legally, the terms "obscene" and "harmful to minors" must be weighed against community standards, and computer programs aren't able to judge. And Playboy.com-blocked as "pornography" by 8e6-surely doesn't meet CIPA's obscenity requirement. (8e6, by the way, missed the adults-only art-porn site TerryRichardson.com.) YetBut the Supreme Court let CIPA slide.
Given the situation, New York's libraries have tried to act sensibly. Brooklyn staffers tested some 100 sites that might be wrongly blocked-concerning sex-ed or art-on eight filters before choosing 8e6. Indeed, libraries in New York don't block afraidtoask.com, which offers graphic pictures of medical problems, including sexual ones, nor Go Ask Alice, the Columbia University site that answers questions on everything from alcohol to sex.
Still, like nearly all filters, 8e6's "block list" remains a trade secret. Nor does the company let users plug in a URL to learn how a site is categorized. (Websense offers the latter option.)
How do librarians feel about entrusting decisions to a black box?
"I'm not crazy about it," says Brooklyn library director Ginnie Cooper, who would not have recommended compliance with CIPA had the Supreme Court not allowed adults the uncensored net.
A few years back, Cooper could be a purist. When she headed Portland, OR's Multnomah County Library, she testified against CIPA in court. But federal money-some $2 million for Brooklyn this year-crucially helps democratize internet access.
Before the Supreme Court last year, library challengers stressed the flaws in filters. So, during oral argument, Solicitor General Ted Olson managed to reinterpret the law. CIPA said filters could be disabled only for "bona fide research or other lawful purposes," which could pose a huge headache for librarians. (Didn't Pete Townsend claim "research" after his child-porn bust?) Olson told the justices that adults could just ask for the filters to be turned off, and the court majority bought it. (If filters really could blocked just child porn alone, you shouldn't be able to turn them off.)
Not all libraries comply with CIPA. Wealthy suburbs don't need the federal bucks, and some cities-notably San Francisco-have objected on philosophical grounds.
Some conservative areas have embraced the law's censorious spirit, making patrons wait days to hear about their unblocking request. And, after a local man claimed he downloaded child porn at the library, the Phoenix City Council decided to enforce filtering for all-an invitation to a court challenge.
Most net surfers do email, homework or other research, and libraries rely on codes of conduct to keep them from misbehaving. Many use privacy screens, which not only protect passers-by but also aim to give users the same privacy they deserve when looking at a book.
Many libraries that don't follow CIPA still deploy filters. At Multnomah, Cooper's old library, the proposed policy for kids 12 and younger is filtered access unless a parent/guardian says otherwise. Teens from 13 to 16 years old can choose either filtered or unfiltered access, unless a parent/guardian designates filtered access. Computers in the kids' areas will be filtered.
As that nuanced policy suggests, the real losers in CIPA-especially where filtering is hamhanded-are teens, who may wonder whether they're gay, pregnant or going blind from masturbation. Under the law, teens can request that specific sites be unblocked. That might work if they're doing homework, but those fearing they have an STD might just be afraid to ask.
Before internet usage went public, libraries held the moral high ground against would-be censors. If a prosecutor called the movie The Tin Drum child pornography or the local Christian Right fought Heather Has Two Mommies, librarians could say they'd chosen them after considering community interest and favorable reviews.
But librarians don't choose the internet the way they choose books-it's just a pipeline, leaving them to maneuver longstanding anticensorship policies, including an American Library Association dictum that minors shouldn't be barred from accessing any library materials. That was easier to defend when materials got no racier than Portnoy's Complaint.
Such policies date from when library collections were limited by space and funds. No public library could mimic the ancient Library of Alexandria, said to have collected every known book, so librarians could plausibly assert they were practicing selection, not censorship. Now they have the internet, and the deselection decision is made in the dark.
No one's sure about filters. The Supreme Court this year upheld an injunction blocking the Child Online Protection Act, which would require website providers to use age verification (e.g., via credit card) to bar minors from sites "harmful to minors." The American Civil Liberties Union, which had denounced filters in the CIPA case, endorsed them here as a better alternative (at least when used by parents), while the Department of Justice, which praised filters when defending CIPA, here said they weren't good enough.
What will happen as the internet becomes more ubiquitous-available via cellphone or handheld device? Filters can't be the only tactic. Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that commercial websites should have metadata indicating "harmful to minors" content-in effect a V-chip for the internet.
This entire discussion may be a sideshow. A few years back, a filter-company representative let slip that the real danger for kids wasn't dirty pictures, but rather IM and email from the wrong people. So, even a filter that bans most porn may do little to protect children.