[11671] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Filtering vs. Censorship
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joyce Latham)
Fri Sep 19 21:04:33 1997
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 15:13:46 -0500
From: Joyce Latham <jlatham@interaccess.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.95.970915174146.20905F-100000@shellx.best.com>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
We already select the appropriate sites without filtering. It's called
our homepage, and it directs our users to our recommended links. A local
reporter issued a challenge in the Trib to see who could get to a porno
site the fastest from the CPL page without using a search engine. No one
responded, or at least, the responses weren't controversial enough; they
were never published.
We prefer to stick with a true selection approach -- it's faster to select
sites to link to than develop lists to exclude.
Joyce Latham
On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Jack Kessler wrote:
>
> Joyce Latham and PACS-L,
>
> Joyce said,
>
> > There is no difference between filtering and censoring. It is not
> > user-driven, it is determined by the developer of the software and the
> > person or organization that installs it.
>
> You've described a "bad" filter here. The folks who design them
> aim for something better by figuring out what users want, even
> letting user - feedback determine it. Censors aren't interested
> in that, except pretty indirectly. The intentions are opposite.
>
> There is a lot of information out there, but then there always
> has been. Libraries -- librarianship -- could be seen as an
> enormous "filter": Umberto Eco's mumbled worries about "Who,
> what authority will decide which books to retain?" -- libraries /
> librarianship have done this for a long time, but you wouldn't
> call it "censorship".
>
>
> Jack Kessler
>
> kessler@well.sf.ca.us
>
>
>
