c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Call it software with a conscience. Morality in a box. A tool for parents to ensure that what kids see on their computers is consistent with their values. Or a dangerous weapon in the ongoing culture war pitting anti-porn activists against proponents of free speech.

Whatever you call it, business is booming for the new technology of content control _ software that blocks access to some sites on the Internet. And now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional, ruling that government cannot censor Internet content, politicians, parents, and free speech advocates are at odds on how this new and far-from-perfect technology is to be used, especially in public libraries.

Politicians from President Clinton to members of community library boards are touting the merits of the new technology, but few acknowledge its complexities. And that, critics say, will complicate the debate as people struggle to balance community standards with the free-wheeling, anarchic culture of the Internet.”The next battle is going to be waged over software,”said Andy Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a public-interest telecommunications law firm that opposes on-line censorship.”Sophistication varies on this subject and there’s a lot of demagoguery, but politicians left, right and center are interested in finding a technological fix,”he said.”Some object to filtering software because it overdoes the job; some argue that it doesn’t do enough. Software is a flawed solution, but it may do a better job than a bad law.” The burgeoning technology of censorship is hardly a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. Consumers can choose from an array of products and services developed with widely divergent and sometimes highly subjective criteria.

Commercial filtering software with titles like NetNanny or Cyber-Sitter use keyword recognition to block access to material deemed objectionable, supplemented by teams of anonymous web-surfers who scrutinize thousands of Web sites for content.

Labeling bureaus such as SafeSurf or Net Shepherd use a new Internet protocol known as PICS (the Platform for Internet Content Selection) to rate Web sites for nudity, sex, obscenity or violence. Developed by the non-profit Recreation Software Advisory Council, originally formed under pressure from Congress to rate the content of video games, PICS standards are regarded as a more objective standard of measurement.

Working in conjunction with Internet Service Providers like America Online, Microsoft and CompuServe, labeling bureaus enable individuals or groups of computer users to set controls on their computers to suit their standards.

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Tracking devices allow parents, teachers or employers to follow computer users footprints through cyberspace, monitoring where they have been and what they have seen.

The technology of content control is so new that few coherent standards exist to guide consumers or software developers. Some makers of filtering software freely divulge their standards and practices, publish and regularly update the sites they block and allow users to calibrate their settings according to subject matter and age of the user.

Others keep their criteria to themselves, allowing no user discretion. Some interfere with the integrity of material by whiting out curse words or other objectionable material, raising questions about copyright infringement and distortion of material.

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The American Library Association, which represents the nation’s 57,000 librarians, however, is adamantly opposed to installing filtering software on library computers.”Censorship,”says ALA President Mary L. Somerville,”is the job of the parent, not the library.”The Supreme Court ruling means that Americans will enjoy the same access to information in cyberspace that we have on library and bookstore shelves,”she said.”It means parents can decide for their own children what they do and don’t want them to read.” An array of anti-porn advocacy groups see the issue differently.”To put all of the onus on the parent is unprecedented. We don’t do that with tobacco or with illegal drugs, why should we make the job of policing the Internet the sole responsibility of parents?”asks Maryam Kubasek, spokeswoman for the Religious Alliance against Pornography, a coalition of senior leaders of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Jewish faiths.

Kubasek’s group is pushing for new federal legislation to limit porn on the Internet. It also is pressuring Internet Service Providers to crack down on on-line porn and wants filtering software installed on computers in schools and public libraries.”The Internet is way cool, but that doesn’t mean anything goes,”Kubasek said.”The battle is moving to the libraries. Librarians may resist this, but the library, once a bastion of learning and literature, is shifting to be a place where porn is readily available. This is a brand new thing for us in this society. We’re going to have to face this and deal with it.” (BEGIN SECOND OPTIONAL TRIM)

Shyla Welch, spokeswoman for the Virginia-based anti-pornography group, Enough is Enough, agrees. Her group recommends a filtering software program known as X-stop, developed by Logon Data of Anaheim, Calif., whose teams of web-watchers surf the net and block any sites deemed pornographic or indecent.”Filtering software may not be perfect, but it has progressed enormously. As long as we don’t have (an on-line censorship) law in place, we need to protect children and educate parents,”Welch said, adding Enough is Enough hopes to distribute its own Internet safety kits for use in homes, schools and public libraries.

The Family Friendly Library movement, based in Springfield, Va., has chapters in all 50 states, according to Karen Jo Gounaud, the groups founder, who describes herself as a Christian family values activist. Already, she said,individual libraries in Massachusetts, Florida, Oklahoma, California and Michigan have installed a variety of filtering software as a result of community pressure.

Anti-porn activists in Ohio were unsuccessful in persuading the state legislature to install filters on computers in the states 700 public libraries. But according to Michelle Yezerski, director of Citizens for the Protection of Children in Medina, Ohio, there have been some victories.”Our local library was wired to the Internet in December, and right now there’s no way I can stop my kids from using and getting access to all kinds of obscene and indecent material,”Yezerski said.”Our library system is fully against filtering, but we have created so much public turmoil, with lots of coverage in the press and on TV that we’re beginning to make an impact.” (END SECOND OPTIONAL TRIM)

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, where the American Library Association recently conducted its annual meeting, the issue of how to deal with community pressure to install filtering software was a major topic of discussion.

To Carolyn Caywood, a librarian from Virginia Beach, Va., problems with filtering software ranges from the practical to the philosophical.

Flaws in pattern-recognition programs result in blocking useful sites on breast cancer or Mars exploration because they might detect the words breast or sex embedded in the Web site address, she said.”The ambiguity of language makes pattern recognition a wholly inadequate tool, as the number of useless matches returned by search engines ought to demonstrate,”Caywood said.”And if there is a library that filters without publicly admitting to the extent possible what is being blocked, that library has broken faith with its reason for being.” Not every librarian at the conference was convinced filtering was a bad idea.”There’s a limit to freedom, especially for children,”Ann Tran, a librarian from Norwalk, Conn., said in an on-line discussion of the issue.”I think libraries are responsible for screening what’s out there. We need some kind of government regulation, some sort of software, though not something that censors 100 percent.” But Donna Reed, a librarian from the Multnomah County Library in Portland, Ore., expressed concern that in the emotional campaigns to stamp out indecency, anti-porn advocates don’t acknowledge the larger constitutional issues of free speech and free access to information.”In the media, what’s not talked about is that you can’t ban that information,”Reed said.”Filtering is sometimes more dangerous than the material we’re trying to filter.” MJP END CONNELL