Mandated library porn filters could affect Internet access gap

A pregnant teenager who uses the computers at her library to get onto the Internet might find some sites that discuss abortion blocked.

Or a student researching gay rights for a high school assignment might some find gaps in the information he finds online at his school or the library.

Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling endorsing anti-porn filters for computers at public libraries could hurt efforts to equalize access to the Internet among Americans, advocates say.

They say minorities and poor people, who are more likely to log on solely at libraries, could be hindered by filters that block out material on abortion, gay rights and a host of other topics besides porn.

"It is yet another obstacle for low-income Americans to having the same kind of access and the same kind of information resources and awareness that their more well-to-do peers have," said Andy Carvin, senior associate at the Benton Foundation, a Washington organization that studies Internet access.

Under the law, libraries must block pornography or else lose certain federal technology grants. But the available software filters make mistakes and often block legitimate sites.

Many librarians plan to reject federal funding to keep unfiltered access, but poorer communities cannot afford to do so, said Judith Klug of the American Library Association. And those communities, she said, are where Americans most depend on libraries for Internet access.

10 percent through library

According to the Commerce Department, 10 percent of Internet users get access through a library. Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites and Asians to be in that group.

Thirteen percent of white users of library computers have no Internet access at home, work or school, compared with 16 percent of Hispanics and 19 percent of blacks. And the lower the household income, the more likely a person is to depend on the library for Internet access.

Klug said the filtering law puts librarians in "a position of punishing people who are poor."

Vendors of filtering software acknowledge the flaws but say librarians can unblock filters upon a user's request.

David Miller, a spokesman for Family Friendly Libraries in Cincinnati, said Internet searches typically return "more material than any one person can read," so there is no harm if an occasional site gets mistakenly blocked.

A study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research organization on health care, found that at the least-aggressive levels, filtering software blocked only 1 percent of health sites surveyed and 9 percent of sites specifically on sexual health.

Some library patrons say they do not mind asking a librarian to unblock sites when mistakes are made.

Library officials say unblocking sites would be labor-intensive and divert their computing staffs from such tasks as teaching senior citizens how to get online and children how to research.