The Galecia Group LibraryCall

Blog archive / 2004

Why I Hate Keyword Blocking

From the Galecia blog archive, 2003–2024. Posts are kept as they were published, so some details and links are out of date.

Here's a good example of what is wrong with keyword blocking. Flesh Public Library in Ohio blocked their own domain because they had keyword blocking turned on. Here's the story. They use Net Nanny which does allow for keyword blocking to be disabled and it should be....always. Keyword blocking never works. Maaaaaybe it would be acceptable with a very very very short list of words to block but even then, I don't recommend it.

The truly sad thing about this story is that the library chose to change the URL to their website instead of turning off keyword blocking! What about taking the word "flesh" out of the keyword list! Deargod, is this what libraries are doing out there?????

By the way, I picked this story up from the Travelin' Librarian's weblog.

Topics: Internet Filtering