Seattle Library Lets Man Watch Porn On Computers Despite Complaints

The Lake City library is making news for their staunch position on the First Amendment, censorship, and the right to watch porn in the library. The problem started when library patron Julie Howe found a man watching some questionable material and asked him to move to another computer. The man refused and the librarian also refused to intervene when asked saying that the library doesn't censor content. "We're a library, so we facilitate access to constitutionally protected information. We don't tell people what they can view and check out," Seattle Public Library spokeswoman Andra Addison told Seattle PI. "Filters compromise freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. We're not in the business of censoring information."

Comments

I like their position

[HBI]

Unfortunately, some politician is going to smell opportunity and make them regret it.

Re:I like their position

[bonch]

They should regret it. The position is stupid. As noted in the article, librarians shush you if you talk too loudly. When obsession with unrealistic libertarian free speech ideas go so far as to reward insensitive, self-absorbed weirdos and punish normal people who are genuinely being distracted in a setting that's supposed to be quiet and conducive to research, it becomes a stupidly idealistic position with no practical applicability.

If anything goes because OMG-MY-FREE-SPEECH-RIGHTS, then I can just stroll into the library screaming "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" for three hours straight, and those prudes shouldn't be able to stop me. And as a real-world troll, I'll successfully drive away library visitors and ruin the whole purpose of the damn place. All in the name of some head-in-the-cloud ideal of freedom.

If you don't have any enforcement of civility, the jerks in society will ruin all good things. Please let's not allow weirdos to watch scat porn in the library just because you read Ayn Rand last week.

Re:I like their position

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the complaint is less about his right to view pornography and more about his lack of a right to subject others to it. If the library doesn't washer to stop him, OK but make him go some place in the library where others don't have to see it. There is plenty of precedent and common sense that makes it clear that our first amendment rights have limitations when they infringe on the rights of others. I would say it's a fair argument to say this infringes on this woman's right to use the Library in peace.

Re:I like their position

[omfgnosis]

There isn't any sound precedent I'm aware of that establishes any kind of freedom from speech. There are certainly limits on what circumstances you are entitled to subject others to your speech (you are not entitled to hold an audience hostage), but there are no "free from speech zones" in public. If a person is in a public space voluntarily, they do not have the right to operate in a bubble and be shielded from speech.

That's the principle of the law. Whether watching porn is a speech act is another question, but if it is, it is absolutely protected.

First Amendment isn't relevant here

[bonch]

The commitment to information access is admirable, but the article says that the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that libraries can filter content. Besides, I would want to make as many of my library patrons as comfortable as possible, as well as make it as family-friendly as possible, so I'd probably prohibit jerkin' it to the pr0n. Making people, potentially children, inadvertent viewers of pornography isn't something most governments are keen on supporting, and I suspect the library's policies will change after this media coverage.

This part made me laugh:

The dilemma was summed up by another library patron, Jessica Christensen, who told Seattle PI, "What I find ironic is that you can't talk too loudly at the Seattle Public Libraries or you'll be asked to keep it down so as not to distract the other patrons. You know, the patrons viewing pornography."

Re:First Amendment isn't relevant here

[Dredd13]

The library isn't choosing what content to PROVIDE when they say someone has to be quiet and orderly.

By saying "you can view this but not that", or whatever, they're making a judgement call on the actual material they provide (albeit virtually) to their patrons, and to many librarians, that's the third-rail. You DON'T censor the material you provide to the patrons. You might have to prioritize some content over others when it comes time to buy them (what books are most in demand, etc., etc.), but if there's no cost difference involved to "serve porn versus not serve porn" to the patrons, then almost every librarian I know will choose to allow access to it, rather than be the censor.

And, to be honest, I don't care "what someone wants to see". You don't have some Constitutional right to not be offended.

This is not about porn, specifically

[Anonymous Coward]

If porn is filtered for being objectionable today, tomorrow it will be sexual education sites, LGBT rights websites, Erowid, a violent kickboxing site, fringe political sites, conspiracy theorists, supposedly "racist" material, gun sites, men's mags, Fark, or who knows what else.

The problem with trying to block "offensive" content is determining who gets to set the standard for offense and who gets to interpret it. This discretion will always be abused.

Content creators will almost always be unaware of these blocks and will certainly have little financial incentive to challenge them. Patrons will evade the blocks by going somewhere else. The result is a cabal of petty tyrants whose discretion goes unchallenged because nobody has sufficient motive for doing so.

FFS

[GauteL]

If the library had a little adult section where people could go borrow their first amendment supported material, fine.

But watching porn in public with non-interested people around you is inconsiderate, off-putting and a really creepy thing to do.

I'm all for free speech, but that doesn't mean the public have to help you being an asshole. If you want to shout insults to people on the streets, then perhaps that has to be allowed, but that doesn't mean you have to buy them a box to stand on and a megaphone.

Total Logical Disconnect

[RobinEggs]

This story couldn't be more idiotic, nor could all of these responses about the bill of rights, 'thinking of the children', etc.

When the library spokeswoman says "We don't tell people what they can view and check out", you'd think someone demanded they revoke the man's library card. No one asked that the man be censured in any way; they didn't even ask that he stop watching porn. All they ever asked was that he do it at another computer.

This woman's objection is polite and respectful to a fault. She doesn't want him to stop watching porn; she doesn't pass moral judgment on it in any way whatsoever. She just doesn't want to see it herself. Does that really make her some kind of First Amendment stomping jackboot? Sheesh...

And as for your tired 'think of the children' responses, sometimes 'think of the children' is a valid concern. Not everything that can be a slippery slope fallacy or pillar of convervative moral imperialism is always such. Not every request that people show some respect for your morals amounts to demanding that the entire world bend over backwards for them. With children and libraries, it would be one thing to demand that content depicting sex, drugs, etc. not even exist in the library because you don't want your precious snookums to visit in a place containing those things, but it's quite another to simply request that people show discretion with such content, especially in publicly owned places explicitly warranted as fit for children. Is it really censorship to ask that people watching porn simply do it at a terminal which isn't in full view of the information desk? Do parents in your world have any rights at all in determining what their children should be easily exposed to?