DISCRIMINATIONS as Hate Speech?

Imagine my surprise when I first tried to check DISCRIMINATIONS at our public library this afternoon only to find that CyberPatrol had blocked it because of its “hate speech”!

The nice librarian turned it off (that’s why you’re reading this now).

I’ve never studied filtering software, nor do I have a firm opinion on filtering in libraries, etc. But I must say this experience calls the whole effort into question for me.

Say What? (5)

  1. StuartT September 20, 2003 at 5:41 pm | | Reply

    Sad but inevitable. You, sir, are but an unwitting victim of the immutable laws of “diversity” which now govern this republic. Specifically, you fell prey to Stuart’s 5th Syllogism (this named after a lightly-regarded Internet flyspeck). To wit: All opinions heretical to the “diversity” regime are “hate.” Your opinions diverge from said regime. Ergo, your site is “hate-speech.”

  2. The Bitch Girls September 21, 2003 at 1:40 pm | | Reply

    Should I Be Offended? Part II

    I am proud to announce that The Bitch Girls link to hate speech.

  3. Laura September 21, 2003 at 4:29 pm | | Reply

    I think it’s possible to filter out pornography without filtering out political or controversial texts. Maybe somebody is taking their filtering mandate to absurd extremes, in order to make a point.

  4. The internet is a scary place

    i can’t believe it. I was innocently surfing the web looking for research papers by Margaret Mead concerning her study of the sex lives of bugs when all of a sudden I ran into a website called discriminations and learned, much to my chagrin, that discr…

  5. EH September 22, 2003 at 2:19 pm | | Reply

    Most filters are just lists of URLs bought from an outfit that evaluates and categorizes them. And, believe it or not, many of the decisions about individual URLs — whether to ban or not, and how to categorize — are subjective ones made by people. Often someone’s mother, apparently. For a while the humor site theonion.com was blocked at work because of the “Holy Fucking Shit” they used to headline their 9/11 stuff (in poor taste maybe, but it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been). There’s usually an email you can use to complain about the blocking and categorization of a specific URL; I’ve gotten a few unblocked that way. And yes, in my experience I totally agree: often it is ludicrous what is blocked as “Vulgarity”, “Hate Speech”, or “Discrimination” — the most often abused categories.

Say What?