Patrick Minnock, an adult, a library fan and non-MySpace user, writes a thoughtful letter to the editor of the Raleigh (NC) Chronicle about why he thinks it’s a mistake for the Wake County Public Library to have blocked MySpace from their public internet computers. According to Library Director Thomas L Moore,
“They’ve been bringing up some graphic pornographic sites on our PCs that children have inadvertently seen, and we just can’t tolerate that. It’s become an attractive nuisance.”
Minnock, however, says that “Prohibiting the use of MySpace from all of the people that use it everyday at the Wake County Public Libraries is not keeping with the history of public libraries.” He suggests that MySpace be pressured to prohibit obscene content and that parents pay very close attention to the children’s online activities.
This guy misses the point
MySpace was blocked to prevent people looking at sites that are inappropriate for viewing in the library, as well as to prevent the perverts that prey on minors through MySpace from doing so through library computers.
This genius says:Public libraries are a place where people should be able to access whatever information they want, not a place where the right to information is held back from the public.”
No it is not. Someone in the library wants to look at kiddie porn, you know it and I know it. To give them access to it is absurd. To follow this guy’s suggestion and throw the gates open wide just invites trouble.
Community standards apply and apparently Wake County finds that they don’t want kiddie porn, nor MySpace. Sure, not everyone agrees but then there are some real pinheads in the world.
Censorship Tripod
Remember, censorship is a tripod of sex, religion and politics. If you are going to censor for sex, then censorship for hate speech or hate religions won’t be far behind. After all, many minorities find racist websites more objectionable than they do websites where white teens play doctor.
Ditto for pro-teen suicide sites, anti-American sites, pro-drug sites, anti-war sites, pro-homosexual sites, anti-religion sites, pro-violence sites, etc. etc. etc.
There is a lot to censor in libraries and on the web, and sex is only one of them. The best solution is to cut out all computer access in libraries. This isn’t done, mainly because those who censor others don’t want to be seen as being anti-technology. Then they may be censored themselves, or lose control over the argument.
Besides, censorship is for “others.” I’ve never seen anyone ask to be refused access to data because it might offend them- it is always their fear that it will incite those others to go out and do nasty things.
After all, nothing needs changing so much as other people. Sigh. There is nothing worse than losing control over what other people believe or think.