This is the second in a series of articles about censorware products. The first was The X-Stop Files. The Censorware Page contains continuing coverage of these issues and links to other sites.
Today, CyberPatrol is installed in at least two major public library systems, in Boston, Ma. and Austin, Tx. In the former, after a bitter debate, it was installed on terminals for use by people under 18 only. In the latter, it was installed on all terminals; the library is now, after many months, considering a pilot program to offer uncensored Internet access to adults, on one out of fifty terminals.
News coverage of the blocking software industry has been dominated by the antics of Brian Milburn, president of rival Solid Oak Software, distributors of Cybersitter, the product which, in pursuit of a fundamentalist agenda, blocked the National Organization for Women among numerous other sites. By contrast, Microsystems has appeared to be the most reasonable and flexible of blocking software providers. It maintains a review board which meets every two months to review its blocking policies and which includes members of the gay community. When authors of web pages have complained to Microsystems that their sites were blocked, Microsystems has frequently apologized for the error and unblocked the sites in the product's next update.
I was one of those authors. In February of this year, I was informed that CyberPatrol blocked the pages pertaining to my and Mark Mangan's book, Sex, Laws and Cyberspace (Henry Holt, 1996).
I wrote an angry letter to Microsystems and received the following reply:
"Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. This site was blocked in error. I have removed this site from the CyberNOT list. This change will take effect with the next build of the CyberNOT list, by next Tuesday. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.
Debra Greaves
Internet Research Supervisor"
At the time, the Boston Public Library had just installed CyberPatrol. Ironically, six branches of the Boston library had my book on the shelves but you couldn't get to the Web page from a terminal with CyberPatrol installed.
With a new wave of libraries considering the purchase of
blocking software, I decided to go back and take another look
at CyberPatrol. The informal methodology I used was to check
my collection of
ethical, political and legal Web sites
against the Cybernot search engine that Microsystems
maintains on its
Cybernot reported that CyberPatrol blocked twelve of my
bookmarked sites, out of a total of about 270. These included:
The
Flag Burning Page.
This site, which I regard as one of the most intelligent and
funny resources on the Web, examines the unconstitutionality
under the First Amendment of laws against burning the flag.
The Second Amendment Foundation.
This
is a large collection of resources on Second Amendment
right-to-bear-arms issues. While the blocking of this
site is questionable under any theory, it is also a nice
illustration of the inconsistency of CyberPatrol and of all
blocking software. The product does not block the
National Rifle Association, or
numerous other sites on both sides of
the gun control issue.
The Newtwatch page is
regrettably no longer on the Web, but CyberPatrol blocks it
at its former URL. Funded by the Democratic party,
Newtwatch was a combination of devastating political
reportage and satire aimed at Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich. It contained nothing that was offensive
to children by any stretch of the imagination--
unless they were Republican children with no sense
of humor.
Another vanished Web page that is still blocked is
the Dr. Bonzo web page, http://www.iglou.com/drbonzo/anathema.htm,
a series of satirical essays on religious matters. The blocking
of these two pages, long removed from the Web, raises
questions about the frequency with which the CyberPatrol
database is updated. A third blocked page which is no
longer on the Web contained nothing but a copy of
the U.S. Constitution.
Other sites contained some explicit text but did so in
the pursuit of a socially significant goal. For example,
the
Jake Baker page contains news reports and analysis of the case of the
University of Michigan student who was arrested for
distributing a rape and torture fantasy about a classmate
on Usenet. Baker's stories, which led to his arrest,
are also linked from this page.
The case broke some new legal ground, and Mark Mangan
and I used this site as a research resource in writing
Sex, Laws and Cyberspace. It is hard to imagine how we
could have written about the case without reading
Baker's horrifying stories, which are presumably
the reason why CyberPatrol blocks the entire site.
CyberPatrol also blocks
DejaNews, a Usenet search engine.
DejaNews, of course, is a
major resource for anyone searching for Usenet discussion on
any topic, and we also relied heavily on it in writing
Sex, Laws and Cyberspace. One startled user of the Austin
Public Library posted to Usenet a
few weeks ago: "As DejaNews is one of the top Internet
research tools, [this] decision transcends comprehension."
DejaNews does not relay any graphics posted to Usenet;
Microsystems apparently fears users will find explicit
text.
CyberPatrol blocked some of the bookmarked sites for
no imaginable reason. The company has admitted
to a number of errors in the past, in addition
to the blocking of the Sex, Laws and Cyberspace
page. Like other blocking software companies,
Microsystems has employees surfing the
Web, looking for sites to add to the Cybernot list--
and frequently they are not very careful. For
example, Cybernot reports that the
Society
for the Promotion of Unconditional Relationships (SPUR)
is blocked. The group describes its mission
thus: "to increase
public understanding and awareness of the nature and
benefits of Unconditional Commitment in
Relationships." The SPUR page contains articles
with names like "The Role of Faith in Relationships."
It was also hard to understand why CyberPatrol blocks the
Interactivism page.
This site specializes
in virtual activism; its top page, as I write these words,
invites you to send faxes to politicians on issues including
handgun control, freedom for Tibet, and campaign
finance reform.
Adults researching a variety of topics, notably
freedom of speech-related issues, in the Austin public
library are going to run into some significant roadblocks.
The Austin library blocks four categories, three of them
sex-related (including the categories under which
Dejanews and the Jake Baker page are blocked) and
the fourth entitled "gross depictions". Jon Lebkowsky,
an Austin-based author and activist, was involved in discussions
with library officials about their installation
of CyberPatrol. He commented: "The Austin Public
Library promised that filters would be an 'interim
measure,' but backed off from that promise,
thinking that their scaled-down
filtering was gaining acceptance....
The APL should have honored the American Library
Association's position on filters and removed the
software after the Supreme Court's CDA decision."
Microsystems acknowledges that
CyberPatrol was never meant to be used to determine what
adults can see. In March 1997, Susan Getgood
wrote in a message posted to Declan McCullagh's Fight-Censorship
list:
"The CyberNOT list was designed to be used by adults
to manage children's access to the Internet.
It is not a filter meant for adults."
A few weeks ago, at the annual New York Library
Association meeting in Syracuse, Susan Getgood
conducted a panel on blocking software. During the
Q&A afterwards, I asked her:
"Isn't it true that CyberPatrol blocks First Amendment
protected, socially valuable material?"
Susan thought for an extraordinarily long time before
answering the question. Finally, she said very carefully,
that in creating the Cybernot list, Microsystems didn't
think about whether blocked pages are constitutionally
protected or socially valuable. The company only thought
about whether the material is (by its own standards)
"inappropriate for children."
Microsystems standards for determining appropriateness
were not written by a librarian, nor meant for use in libraries.
They weren't meant to keep speech from adult eyes.
Applied to children, they draw no distinction between
eight year olds and eighteen year olds.
The latter conceivably might have a research assignment
which involves looking at the Flag Burning page, the
Jake Baker page or the Second Amendment Foundation.
"Just as the CDA tried to reduce the entire net to
something appropriate for 12-year-olds,
so CyberPatrol is trying to expand the
children's section to fill the entire library", said
Jamie McCarthy, an Internet activist and software
developer based in Michigan.
In the Boston Public Library, CyberPatrol is installed
on terminals used by people under 18, unless there is
a parental permission slip on file allowing use of an
uncensored computer. The three sex-related categories
are blocked; one of these, SexActs, is used to block
text-only sites and is one of the categories assigned
to Dejanews and the Jake Baker page. This category
has also been used to block feminist discussion groups.
The company's willingness to unblock sites is meaningless.
The Internet is growing by leaps and bounds every week,
and even as the company deletes sites like mine from the Cybernot
database, Microsystems' harried surfers will be making
fresh mistakes. Seth Finkelstein,
a Boston-based software developer who follows censorware
issues closely, commented: "No small group of
people can hope to keep up with all the
changes on the Web. Offering to correct 'mistakes',
while good from a marketing standpoint, simply
does not make up for the impossible
nature of the task. We only see the problems
which have been exposed so far; what else is lurking,
not yet uncovered in their blacklist?"
Putting a barrier between users and research sources
is not what libraries do. Mark Mangan and
I could not have written Sex, Laws and Cyberspace in
the Austin library; too many of our sources are blocked.
(Cyberpatrol also previously blocked the
Electronic
Frontier Foundation archives, and the
MIT Student
Association for Free Expression ,
two other sources we consulted in writing our book.)
I hope that there are at least some librarians in Austin
who feel ashamed that their library could not be used as
a research source for a book on freedom of speech.
CyberPatrol doesn't belong in public libraries. The company,
by its own statements, has all but admitted this. The library
which buys CyberPatrol has only itself to blame for its dereliction
of responsibility towards its users.