Should porn on a public library computer be ok?

[Dreamer]

Despite complaints about men watching porn in full view of children, some libraries still offer access to it. Now, our friends at the ACLU are suing North Central Regional Library in Washington, because they have a filter on their computers to block anything porn related.

Seriously? In what world would this be ok? What you do in your own home, your business... but watching where children can see is fine???



http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/03/10309475-aclu-sues-library-for-not-offering-online-porn



Dale

 

[LDB]

As usual, the ACLU is on the wrong side of the issue. Their defenders will be here shortly to stand up for them. They are wrong. What next? Oh, I guess they'll open the doors of the NC-17 theaters so the kids can look in through the door to watch.

 

[greg334]

Sorry but if you don't want to engage your local community on the level they understand, then you have nothing to complain about. Most people don't get the idea that the libary is a non-essential service and is governed by wants. So if they are allowing porn, then it is simply a case that the community at large start pressuring the mayor to remove the people at the libary.

Did you know that libaries were private at one time other then small lending libaries. There was some really really rich guy who gave a crap load of money away to build libraries for small towns and cities, but now our really really rich guys don't give any money away to imrpove our cities or even our schools, makes you wonder why we don't get that they should pay back the country that gave them the oppertunity for their wealth in the first place.

 

[LisaLouHoo]

Aside from the morality and decency factors, so many porn sites are rife with malware, so they really should be blocked from public computers where apps such as those can grab personal information and/or cripple a network.

Craigslist should also be locked out publicly, as their personals are akin to free porn. Yeah, I know, so what? LOL!

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[Turtle]

The ACLU suit was brought in 2006 “on behalf of a college student who was prevented from researching for a paper on youth tobacco use, an artist who couldn't look at sites of art galleries and artwork, a political group whose publication ‘Women and Guns’ was blocked, and a man who wanted to update his MySpace page."

That's the problem with filters when they are badly implemented, and what's wrong with SOPA. Unintended consequences. There's also a problem with too many people having the insatiable desire to tell others what to do. The ACLU lawsuit isn't about porn, doesn't mention porn at all.

A public library has traditionally and historically enjoyed broad discretion to select materials to add to its collection of printed materials for its patrons' use, and the same should hold true for electronic Internet material. But it gets censorship tricky when individual pages of a book, say, an encyclopedia, are torn out to prevent people from reading them. Seems like it's easy enough to set aside a few computers that are out of clear view to kids and other adult children for which porn and other deeeeply offensive material can be viewed.

The question isn't (or shouldn't be) whether someone should be able to view porn at a library, but whether they should be able to do so when it disturbs others. You can't shout in a library for the same reason, despite freedom of speech. You can't sit there in the library and read "out loud" Catcher in the Rye, and you shouldn't be able to view "out loud" porn, either where others can see it. But that doesn't mean porn should be off limits to anyone and everyone.

 

[davekc]

Sounds like private booths are coming to a library near you. Couples booths to follow.

 

[mxzane933]

Sounds like private booths are coming to a library near you. Couples booths to follow.

Wear rubber gloves before you get your net on lol

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[Dreamer]

Wear rubber gloves before you get your net on lol

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I was trying to avoid being disgusting LOL.. but yes.. we all know why guys watch porn LOL.. so.. you've got an excited guy, in the middle of your library.. ick..


I get what Turtle says too.. .you can get carried away with it.. blocking anything even close.. and I like the idea of an 'adults only' section'. Problem is, we get back to that thing about .. um.. excited guys (gonna have to censor myself here? )... and at what point does the library turn into an adult video arcade, and you have a bunch of dorks gettin nasty in the library! That's as nice as I can say it LOL


Dale

 

[cheri1122]

The biggest problem is just defining what constitutes 'porn', because some libraries have pulled Mark Twain [for the word '******'], Harry Potter [witchcraft & magic], and many mainstream books that some folks object to allowing children to read.
Filters aren't much of a solution, as the one used here proves when it censors the word '****tail', lol.
I guess the best solution is to expect adults to behave like adults [respectable ones], and if they don't, then deal with it.

 

[Ragman]

I was trying to avoid being disgusting LOL.. but yes.. we all know why guys watch porn LOL.. so.. you've got an excited guy, in the middle of your library.. ick..


I get what Turtle says too.. .you can get carried away with it.. blocking anything even close.. and I like the idea of an 'adults only' section'. Problem is, we get back to that thing about .. um.. excited guys (gonna have to censor myself here? )... and at what point does the library turn into an adult video arcade, and you have a bunch of dorks gettin nasty in the library! That's as nice as I can say it LOL


Dale

Sittting on a park bench . . .

 

[Turtle]

I get what Turtle says too.. .you can get carried away with it.. blocking anything even close.. and I like the idea of an 'adults only' section'. Problem is, we get back to that thing about .. um.. excited guys (gonna have to censor myself here? )... and at what point does the library turn into an adult video arcade, and you have a bunch of dorks gettin nasty in the library! That's as nice as I can say it LOL

Why does looking at porn automatically means dropping trou and..... I'll come back to that in a minute.

Imagine a library before the Internet, where there were only books and magazines and vinyl records in there. Some of those books and magazines and records contained sexy, erotic, even pornographic sections. No matter how feverishly you read or listened, no matter how steamy things got, you weren't allowed to read Catch-22 or Lady Chatterley's Lover and drop yer pants and Bang the Drum Slowly or Beat the Heat. You couldn't even wear baggy lounge pants and play Jack-in-the-Box. A certain amount of decorum was required in the library.

Fast forward to today, and the same decorum is still required, whether you're reading The Firm, The Andromeda Strain, Snow White Does The Seven Dwarfs, or surfing www.bazookablondes.com.


Incidentally, rather than secluded computer booths, I was thinking more along the lines of either the last row against the wall, or maybe those bookend blinders on either side of the computer screen.

 

[mxzane933]

View attachment 4078
Sittting on a park bench . . .

Lolol

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[cheri1122]

I've been a regular patron of the local library my entire adult life, without ever once having seen anything I'd consider pornographic, until I picked up the book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. The savage and sadistic violence described was much worse, IMO, than any depiction of sex, and I was appalled that it was accessible to even junior high school kids. How many parents would unthinkingly allow their kids to read such trash? [Yes, it's a satire, but how many parents, much less kids, would recognize that?]
There's as much to worry about in books as there is on the net, and it's a lot easier to go unnoticed, too.

 

[LisaLouHoo]

I've been a regular patron of the local library my entire adult life, without ever once having seen anything I'd consider pornographic, until I picked up the book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis. The savage and sadistic violence described was much worse, IMO, than any depiction of sex, and I was appalled that it was accessible to even junior high school kids. How many parents would unthinkingly allow their kids to read such trash? [Yes, it's a satire, but how many parents, much less kids, would recognize that?]
There's as much to worry about in books as there is on the net, and it's a lot easier to go unnoticed, too.

Very good point. So now when I see an adolescent reading a book as opposed to texting, I will be suspicious. And want a copy of that book!


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[mjmsprt40]

Way back when I was a boy, the local library had a children's section and an adult section. Now, the adult section didn't have anything racy, but the books were likely to be over the heads of the average second-grader so they had the separation. I wonder how much trouble it would be to have a separate section for people who want to look at Internet porn? I could understand even having those machines on a separate network, just in case a virus does get into the system it won't infect the entire library system but only the triple-x section. Then, the children who want to use computers for their homework and adults who need to use the machines for legitimate purposes won't have to deal with their more unsavory neighbors.

 

[Turtle]

Then, the children who want to use computers for their homework and adults who need to use the machines for legitimate purposes won't have to deal with their more unsavory neighbors.

Are you actually saying there are no legitimate purposes for looking at porn, none whatsoever, and those who do are therefore unsavory socially and morally objectionable characters, in every case? If so, that's an awfully, awfully tall moral high horse you're riding. Careful not to fall off.

 

[cheri1122]

I wonder if the Mom who filed the original complaint over a patron viewing what she described as 'hard core' porn would have objected to her kids seeing people assaulted, tortured, strung up by lynch mobs, etc.....
I think extreme violence is pornographic, in ways that represent a much greater threat to society than sex.

 

[davekc]

Are you actually saying there are no legitimate purposes for looking at porn, none whatsoever, and those who do are therefore unsavory socially and morally objectionable characters, in every case? If so, that's an awfully, awfully tall moral high horse you're riding. Careful not to fall off.

Don't want to get too tall on the horse or 9.4 million women will get mad.
http://familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html#anchor6

 

[cheri1122]

Don't want to get too tall on the horse or 9.4 million women will get mad.
http://familysafemedia.com/pornography_statistics.html#anchor6

The women aren't much of a threat, as MADD proves. It's the 35% of adult site visitors who earn more than $75K per annum, [26% earn $50-75K] who pose a real threat - they generally know how to win their battles.
Groups like the Parent Television Council [self appointed watchdog of public decency] who just characterized the Janet Jackson incident as a 'striptease' are only hurting themselves with the hysteria & hyperbole.
In the OP, the library says one woman complained to a librarian, who 'refused to intervene' - you suppose it might be because the librarian didn't see 'porn', where the woman did? Cause I find it real hard to believe a librarian would allow a child to be exposed to actual pornography, which makes it ONE mother's claim. And some mothers find Harry Potter objectionable, so who knows if this one is a crazed perv-in-every-shrub nutjob, right?

 

[AMonger]

When I was in HS, I had study hall in 8th hour, and it was unmonitored, so as long as we didn't kill anybody or set the school ablaze, we could do pretty much anything. So another kid & I rearranged some letters on the corkboard to our liking. Previously it said something about where to put books you were returning, but we changed it to "PLEASE WEE IN BATHROOM." Kind of lame, sure, but it was all we could come up with that used all the letters, and we had stared at it for quite a while before settling on that.

So the next day, I get to school, and the headmaster is waiting for me. He tells me that because of my actions (someone ratted me out) the librarian was thinking of quitting, and I'd better get in there and change her mind, tut suite.

So I go in there and speak with the librarian, who's about 80 or so, it seems. She lays into me about OBSCENITY, which she pronounced obscene-ity. I didn't even hear anything after that, because I was agog over her characterization of "wee" as obscene.

So, yeah, it certainly could have been "obscene-ity" in that woman's mind, but nowhere else.

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