Seattle Library Upholds Man’s Right To Watch Porn On Its Computers

Where not to raise your children……check.

Libraries should not be in the business of censorship. 

I think this is wonderful, but if it were my library, I’d at least make an 18+ computer area

OR, conversely, a kid-friendly computer area

Accessibility vs. censorship, and I’d say accessibility ought to have it. 

The library is lying and endangering the community.  It should be sued.  The Seattle Council is allowing the library to act outside the law, so it too may be culpable.  The American Library Association created the rules that the library follows, even publicly lauded the library, and it too may be culpable.  The victim?  The child?  Does anyone care any more?  Did anyone get the seriousness of what happened to her?  You want to let the library explain it away?  I will be writing more about this soon, on my blog, and I will explain the above in clear language.  More children will be victimized unless someone finally shows people, in a court of law, how the ALA is responsible.

nor should you assume that refusal to allow you to perform a specific act at a *specific* location is *censorship*.

I agree.  I love my porn – very much so – but I do it at home.

If you are not allowed to perform an act in public, you should not be allowed to view it (in a way that others will see) in public.  If you are not allowed to show something to children, you should not be allowed to freely allowed children to see it in a public place, even through negligence.  

I hate when people drag the constitution into something that is not about the constitution.  I can’t publicly urinate on a table in the library – that doesn’t mean that the library is violating my constitutional right to urination (pursuit of life = continuation of bodily functions?).  It’s tax and contribution dollars that are being used to buy the computers and keep the lights on and my guess is that the people who are viewing porn in a public library are NOT contributors.

Again, I like my porn, but it really shouldn’t be a public thing.

Any material that has a restricted rating does not belong in an environment where there are children.  A library is supposed to be a safe place for children.  Allowing a patron to watch porn where the screen can be seen by children should be a violation.

A library is not a bar or an adult entertainment venue.  No one should be able to watch porn where minors would be exposed to it.  The library, in my opinion is protecting the wrong person’s right.

If they want to protect rights then there should be a section roped off and just like a bar, you should be carded to enter that area.

What would they do if they caught a 10 year old watching porn?  Just let it go?  After all, its censorship right?

A library is NOT “supposed to be safe for children”. While I understand the desire to keep it such, here is a news flash: there is a lot of content that is not safe for children in libraries. Not limited to just boobs, there are books on the holocaust with graphic pictures. Chemistry books that shouldn’t be in kids’ hands. Most library systems have at least a single copy of Mein Kampf. None of those things should be exposed to children. But it is not the library’s job to keep them out of kids’ hands. It is parents’ jobs to keep their kids access appropriate.

The library is performing its job: storing and providing information for access by citizens.

The mother was not doing her job. She wasn’t watching her own kid, and they followed her to a different area, where there weren’t kids, where they proceeded to see the porn, by her own admission. 

The original dude, when confronted by the woman, very likely looked around, saw no kids, and presumed she was just a busybody, until she brought her kids around. Is that is his fault? No. 

And on your last point, a 10 year old watching porn is committing a crime. An adult watching porn is not. See the difference?

I’m not entirely against keeping adult materials out of the reach of children. But when you say “they were protecting the wrong person’s rights” you are flat-out wrong. 

Perhaps you should look up the definition of the word. It very much is. Information is being expurgated; that is the definition of censorship. Or, to use the definition from Google: “The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.” Which is exactly what web censorship software does.

The library would be “censoring” its internet, in the same way as if they blacked out every swear in the books on the stacks. They wouldn’t be doing it to every book everywhere, just their stacks. It would nonetheless still be censorship. 

But in your view, the parents aren’t? Even the mother admits that the only reason the kids saw anything inappropriate was because she was so busy trying to harass the guy that she wasn’t paying attention to her kids.

And, again, it isn’t your business. I’ve never used a library to look up porn. If I did, I might expect someone to shame me into stopping, which I wouldn’t have a problem with. But when a library makes a point to limit access to information, it is doing the exact opposite of its purpose. 

You have no idea whether the dude had a legitimate reason to be looking at what the mom claims was porn, all we know is that she’s a crappy mother who’s too busy being a busybody to pay attention to what her kids are doing.