However, as Cyber Patrol, Net Nanny, and CyberSitter (the lead censorware programs) show, it isn't just pornographic sites that are being filtered -- let's use the REAL term -- blocked (e.g., censored) -- political and social issue sites are ALSO being screened!
This is unconscionable, and reflects the very real authoritarian agenda behind our seemingly free society. This page, for example, is blocked by Cyber Patrol, so if you happened to try to access it at the Boston Public Library, you wouldn't be able to access it! You'd never know it existed!
That's exactly how censorship works -- it KILLS ideas -- thoughts -- and denies people the choice and capacity to reason. The decision is made FOR them, by the authoritarians who produce the censorware.
Where thoughts and ideas are killed, you can only have societal stagnation and decay. Clearly those in power are threatened by the idea of anarchy that they would ban pages summarily. They don't want you to think for yourself!
Imagine what will happen if EVERY public library has censorware installed! What would happen is your Web page would simply disappear -- that only those who can afford the luxury of owning a computer would be able to access pages. This censorware move means to deprive the poor of the full benefit of the Internet, hidden behind the anti-pornography drive.
Worse still, imagine if (or perhaps when) censorware is installed on the major search engines! Then you'd never even be able to find this page, or any like it. They'd be out there, but you'd never know about it, because some authoritarian didn't like the page, and decided FOR you that you shouldn't see it!
Is that what you want? Write your local politicians and tell them you oppose censorware programs; start talking to others about this issue and take direct action to keep the Internet free. We must not let thought control become entrenched in society, in public libraries of all places -- which, at least in less totalitarian cultures, are supposed to be places of learning!
Below is more about the issue. . .
"The home page of Bob Chatelle, who by sheer random coincidence also happens to be one of the most vocal critics of Mayor Menino's decision to install Cyber Patrol in the Boston Public Library; see HERE for more."
If you live in Boston, raise a big fuss about his decision to do this! This must not become the norm, or the Internet as we know it is finished!