At the Library: a Briefly Vocal Minority

Our readers from a year ago may remember the series we did examining the attempt to force censorware into Holland's libraries. (Holland, Michigan is the home of the Slashdot Geek Compound, such as it is.) In February, voters rejected that attempt. But to quote Poltergeist II, "they're ba-ack." Thanks to a new Michigan law, all of our libraries have to address the question of minors and the internet -- and blocking software is, to many, the natural solution. I went to the Holland library's open board meeting on Tuesday night; here's what's up.

By the way, if you're wondering why you should care about Holland, Michigan: this is going to happen at your local library -- and other public institutions -- soon. It probably has already happened at your local schools. The Holland area is fairly conservative, so it's been at the forefront, but the issue will work its way around the country (and in fact the world) in due time.

Before I describe what happened at the board meeting Tuesday evening, I should put the meeting itself into context.

A small but vocal minority has been pushing for library filters since late last year. At that time, the effort was begun by the American Family Association, with the Family Research Council and a local group stepping in to do the heavy lifting.

The FRC is still playing the dominant role. In fact, Tuesday night, the AFA representative actively distanced the organization from the issue, probably because it has earned its reputation as an extremist group.

Since February, the push has been for communication with the library board: "community input" has been big. Since all board meetings legally must be open to the public anyway, it's never been entirely clear to me what the problem was. The board did form a committee, which met on several occasions with filtering supporters -- the few who showed up -- and educated themselves about their options.

But the pro-filter crowd and the media have been attacking the library for not doing more to engage the community in dialogue. In one recent headline, the city's Mayor, formerly anti-filter, was described as "ripping [the library board's lack of] public input." Ouch.

In fact, the FRC representative Tuesday night apologized at length for the pressure tactics -- even though, in most of the media reports I've seen, her comments were relatively mild.

Just a week ago, she was quoted as saying she:

"...doesn't think a Sept. 12 forum will be sufficient to solicit public input, with attendance limited to 200 people and less than two hours set aside for public comment.

"She said those restrictions will limit the amount of input the board can receive."

That's been the concern all these months; that's what's been keeping the library board awake worrying. Every board meeting has been completely open to the public, and the only issue was how many people the fire marshal would allow in, and how long the community would be allowed to outpour its concerns.

In fact, when the meeting started -- the one and only meeting that's been publicized as a forum for the airing of Holland's views -- fewer than 45 people showed.

Some more trickled in, some trickled back out later after less than two hours of public comment. A total of just over 60 people showed up, about half of whom spoke (excluding the boardmembers and the media, including the toddlers, not that the toddlers did much of the speaking).

The Family Research Council's representative saved her statements for late in the meeting, telling her group's supporters how important it was that they came out, and to hang in there because they were only at the halfway point. Her closing comments were encouragement to those supporters: "we're getting closer and closer, glory God, we will not quit until we get this thing right ... c'mon you people, there's two more hours, get up here and talk for yourselves."

As if that was the signal to wind things down, only a few more people stood to speak. There was a period of questions, which took a while because the lawyer fielded most of them, and then the meeting adjourned almost an hour ahead of schedule.

Three thousand people in the Holland area get the FRC's newsletters; roughly 1% bothered to come.

Why the lack of interest?

Part of the reason, to be sure, is that Holland is sick of the issue; they went through a long campaign early this year.

But another part is that blocking software is not nearly as popular as the vocal minority would have us believe. An AP article "Most parents shun net filters" suggests that just one parent in three uses censorware.

And even that seems large, to some. The latest issue of the American Family Association Journal has an article titled "Low percentage of Christians using Internet filtering shows ignorance of the dangers." They claim that "Seven out of 10 Christians have Internet access -- but only one out of 10 has filtered Internet access."

(Keep in mind, too, that when the AFA says "Christians," they mean conservative Christians, presumably more likely to use censorware.)

Parents simply have better choices when it comes to protecting their children. Education and communication are the most effective tools (the only effective ones, I would argue, in many cases). And they're cheaper too: at least, a library in Hudsonville, near Holland, recently spent $20,000 on card-based censorware (not including maintenance fees) for four computers. The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, just voted to spend $85,000.

And it takes a sneaky kid about ten seconds to completely bypass the $20,000 system. I know; I did it myself, and spent a while browsing a completely unfiltered internet.

But it's political pressure that installs such systems, not necessarily actual demand. Holland's library has taken a great deal of heat for not holding meetings which only a tiny fraction of the community seems interested in. Of course it's easy to use hindsight, but it's my guess that holding the meetings earlier and more often would have taken the lid off the child-size pressure cooker; everyone would have felt better. That's something to consider for the next community faced with this issue.

And speaking of demand, only about 100 patrons at Hudsonville have signed up for the internet cards. The system was installed under pressure from local conservative organizations; others, like that in Grand Rapids, will be installed thanks to a new Michigan law.

That law, Public Act 212, takes effect in our fair state on October1 and in effect, according to the Holland library's lawyer, makes it illegal for minors to use the internet. It demands that terminals for those 17 and under be "restricted from receiving" material "harmful to minors" (that's the underage equivalent of illegal obscenity). No software can guarantee such a restriction, of course, unless it executes the shutdown command.

In fact, it was recommended that the adults' terminals be not only shielded for privacy, but placed so that no minor might walk by and catch a glimpse of something harmful.

So the line seems pretty clearly drawn. How it will play out in reality remains to be seen.

You've probably figured out by now that I'm opposed to blocking software. Before the end of the month, I'll look at what alternatives a library might adopt -- too late for Michigan libraries, but perhaps not too late for yours. There are many choices to be made between the simplistic extremes of "filters" and "nofilters," some of which protect our right to free expression more than others.

Unfortunately, you won't see such alternatives in the traditional media. When filter supporter Tish Fackler pulled out her air filters, she gave a little laugh and said "looks like I'm going to be on TV tonight." Then she held up her meaningless props and delivered the soundbite that was on TV that night. I'll try to keep it a little more real than that.

Comments

*sigh* Parents these days...

[goliard]

When I was a child, there was this idea that if your parents didn't want you to read X, they told you "You're forbidden to read X", or "I don't want to catch you reading any of that skanky X, you hear me?", or "Our kind of people don't read X" or whatever.

Now putting aside the issue of whether or not these things are effective, there was this idea that parents were responsible for their kids.

Everyone keeps acting like this whole internet filtering thing is about protecting children from being inadvertantly exposed to, er, whatever it is that would be so dreadful for them to be exposed to. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's about keeping kids from seeing what their parents don't want them to see. It's about making libraries, schools, the government and general passers-by on the streets responsible for enforcing some parents' rules for their kids.

Quite aside from the very legitimate and excellent first amendment concerns, I'm getting pretty cheesed off about me and my tax money being expected to contribute to raising some slacker's brat, just because the loser is such a tinhat dictator they've lost all respect of their spawn.

Look, 'rents: it's not the public library's job to enforce your bloody rules. Instilling moral behavior in your kids is your job, and either you feel you've done a sufficiently good job that you can trust them to surf the net alone, or you don't. If you don't, then don't let them go to the library.
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Re:Non-draconian filtering

[goliard]

Ah, the embarrassment argument. It hinges on the premise that kids wouldn't be embarrassed to ask some random authority-figure adult for permission to legitimate topics. However legitimate topic include information about birth control, abortion, or sexually transmitted disease.

If you came up against a block, you could simply call up someone (or call a library aid in the room or something), and say you needed to look at the URL. Give your name and the reason.

Oh, yeah, right. I can just see some 13yr-old junior high school student telling his librarian "I need to check out this site on gonorrhea, 'cause, um, I have this itch...."

Or, for that matter, a 14yr-old telling a librarian's aid "I need to access this site about Ecstacy side effects, because I think I had this weird reaction."

Or, for that matter, a 15yr-old telling a librarian "I want to access this site which is a support network for homosexuals because I think I might be gay."

The problem is that the people who want to keep kids from certain information also want to keep certain information from kids. It's not just that they don't want kids to accidentally see naked ladies. It's that they don't want their kids to know about sex, drugs, and differing religions/moralities/etc.

The moment you start allowing some filtering, those parents will demand that you start filtering to keep information from kids -- demand that you do their dirty work for them. The only way not to get stuck with that job is to refuse to do any filtering for them at all.
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Re:Can't be helped...

[Coward, Anonymous]

Without a good faith attempt at filtering, the library system could be open to lawsuits from irate parents.

Libraries have had books and magazines with nudity in them and books and magazines with violent pictures in them, many parents have complained, a few have sued, I don't know of anybody who has won a lawsuit (the library is, afterall, not a babysitting service, though some parents treat it as such).

The Library Bill of Rights, created by the American Library Association states in part:
Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

Why bother with software?

[mblase]

There's a ridiculously easy way to keep kids from using library Internet terminals to browse pornography. In simple step-by-step format:

1. Turn all computer monitors toward a librarian's desk.
2. Keep the desk staffed.

Problem solved, and nobody's spending any additional money at all for the effort.