ACLU Report Indicates Libraries Don't Know What They Are Blocking

I briefly reported on the ACLU Report Reader's Block: Internet Censorship in Rhode Island Public Libraries Ed: broken link removed 2011. Now I've read it more closely and have a bit more to say about it. Today I'll just comment on Section V of the report, Filter Settings.

The report explains that members of Rhode Island's Cooperating Libraries Automated Network (CLAN) were given the oppoportunity to use Websense for their filtering needs. Each participating library was allowed to use the CLAN's default "block" categories or to choose their own categories. The default categories were Sex, Adult Content and Nudity.

In surveys conducted by the ACLU, library directors were asked which categories they had chosen to block. The report states that many of the survey respondents did not list real Websense categories in their responses. Instead, it sounds as if they responded with a description of what they HOPED they were blocking: "porno", "graphic sexual content", "languages and images deemed obscene as defined in Section 1460...." Many of these library directors reported that they felt they were blocking the minimum required for CIPA compliance.

Wrong.

If you really want to block the minimum necessary, you can't include Websense's Nudity as one of your categories which is described (by Websense) as follows:

Sites that offer depictions of nude or semi-nude human forms, singly or in groups, not overtly sexual in intent or effect.

In addition, you must modify the filter's block list to eliminate the sites that are sex-related but not obscene. Websense won't do that for you. See Mary Minow's explanation Ed: broken link removed 2011 for a definition of "obscenity", "child pornography" and "harmful to minors."

And finally, you must also monitor what your filter is blocking to correct Websense errors (my personal belief is that you can assume they are wrong 15% of the time) and to make sure your know what your filter is REALLY doing.