Comments on: Why internet filters don’t work and why libraries who filter are wrong

By: PORN IN THE LIBRARY! | Point of Contact

PORN IN THE LIBRARY! | Point of Contact — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:50:10 +0000

[...] The problem with filters is that they, at best, have a 60-70% success rate meaning 30-40% of the time the filter is actually blocking legitimate content or possibly letting questionable content through. The filters rely on proprietary algorithms through an expensive vendor that may or may not actually filter out the material the library wish to be filtered. These filters are also horrible at multimedia (images, video, feeds, Facebook, YouTube, Vimio, DeviantArt, whatever) so in order for them to work they need to blanket ban the entire site or a particular group of tags. Either way, legitimate material will get blocked while porn will still get through… [source] [...]

By: Cameron Stone

Cameron Stone — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 00:40:58 +0000

The entire argument about library filters is based on one presumption….that porn is harmful. It isn’t. It isn’t immoral, illegal or unethical. If an individual does agree with or approve of adult material then don’t look at it. But it’s not the place of ANYONE to force personal beliefs on anyone else. Putting library computers behind a screen is NOT expensive and a one-time cost as opposed to the continual costs of filtering and new technology purchases.

By: Tim Murtaugh

Tim Murtaugh — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:32:16 +0000

I was glad to find this. I’m SO frustrated by the filters on this very computer I’m using. They had one incident, ONE, and decided to go back to the filters. They’re insane! Okay I can understand maybe, filtering out XX rated material but gambling? All, or they think all of it is disallowed when the fact is, our govt. not only condones but encourages gambling….lotteries, casinos, etc. So how bad can that be?
This isn’t the 1600s. Times change. I’ve had times were there was one word about gambling in the online Chicago newspaper and as a result, that was then made inaccessible. Another time, there was a short article about Playboy’s profits….no photos or X rated content. Yet the whole newspaper site was shut down.
I’ve worked at a public library and talked about this with the head librarian. He agreed that filters don’t work and as long as he was in charge, they didn’t use them.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:04:27 +0000

Does anyone know any web-browser based filters (example: Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox/Google Chrome)?
I have to do a presentation for one of my courses this semester, and I’ve decided to talk about censorship.
I wanted to give them the experience of living in a world where the internet is censored.

At first I was planning to use the China Channel add-on, but, unfortunately, it is not compatible with the Mozilla Firefox browser
that is currently installed on the computers in our lecture hall.

If you know any add-ons or plug-ins please let me know immediately!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:14:25 +0000

The website changed. So you can find the documents now on this page: http://sjpl.org/commissionagendas2008 Take a look at the two documents listed under the June 11, 2008 meeting.

By: Aimee

Aimee — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:16:10 +0000

I would like to review the report mentioned in your article, however the link is broken. Could you provide a new link?

“… we embarked upon an extensive study about the effectiveness of filters, which you can find at: http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/sjpl/commission/agen0208_report.pdf …”

Thanks!

By: Internet Filtering Software is Not Collection Development | Information in Social Context

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 06:53:35 +0000

[...] Filters filter more than what we tell them to. The Librarian in Black lays out in her blog post, Why internet filters don’t work and why libraries who filter are wrong, all the various studies ab… comparing various studies of filtering. Bennett Haselton’s Report on Accuracy Rate of [...]

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 15:19:49 +0000

There’s a problem with your logic–and with your case studies. First of all, you have sampled only four of the hundreds of filtering services–only two of each kind (and not necessarily the best of them). When considering the question of whether filters can and do work, wouldn’t it be most logical to sample only the best models on the market? Either way, with such a small sampling, your margin of error is likely to be much higher than 5%.

Second, even if the four services you selected represent a fair sampling of the entire filtering market, why would you average their failures together, unless it is to intentionally lower the overall appearance of their performance? If I was shopping for a home security system, I wouldn’t care what the average of the best and the worst models on the market was. If, say, the cheapest home security model only prevents break-ins 48% of the time, while the best model prevents it 99% of the time, I wouldn’t average them and conclude that any model of security system I buy will therefore only work 73% of the time. I would obviously choose the model that achieves the best performance. Neither would I conclude that since the best model might conceivably allow one thief in 100 to break in, that it is therefore not worth the investment.

To say that filtering systems are at best 78% accurate, especially using an average of such a small sampling, is misleading in the extreme. Some of your case studies cite accuracy as high as 98% blocking for trigger sites and 99% for allowing for non-trigger sites. It seems obvious to me that the argument that filters “just don’t work” is fabricated (or at least, exaggerated) in order to give a fact-based facade to your opinion that filters are “hellspawn.” If you morally object to filters, fine. But saying that “filters don’t work” in order to justify your objections is dishonest.

By: Jim Wallace is just plain wrong « Welcome to my reality.net

Jim Wallace is just plain wrong « Welcome to my reality.net — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:37:38 +0000

[...] be clear FILTERS DON”T WORK. They only ‘Hide’ problems they don’t remove them, and the content the government [...]

By: Top Ten Links Week 19 | Librarian by Day

Top Ten Links Week 19 | Librarian by Day — Mon, 17 May 2010 01:29:36 +0000

[...] New long post/rant on LiB: “Why internet filters don’t work and why libraries who filter are wrong“: via @TheLiB – Sarah might call this a rant but it has more facts and statistics [...]