BLOGSPOT AND FILTERING IN THE LIBRARY

Re: Blogspot and filtering in the library
From:
"liam murphy"
To:
"Harrison, Paul" [Add]
Date:
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:27 PM (< 1 min ago)
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Thankyou Paul,

You're very welcome to look at my blogs: I don't write material that is generally thought to be : " obscene, racist, defamatory or otherwise unlawful;
or causes harassment or gross offence to others;"


Since i have not broken the terms and conditions and since the actual 'quotas' are not made clear, I remain angry at the loss of my work.

How does the library justify such an intrusion? You can satisfy yourself about the nature of my writing by visiting:


http://consumeamonkey.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-02-04T11:54:00-08:00&max-results=7

(I would also like to reserve the right to cause offence when I feel the subject warrants it - but apparently I cannot when in the library!)

My point:

Article 8 ECHR:

Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Two questions:
Can I ask whether the library interferes with private email correspondence and which of the above Article 8 caveats do you feel I have invoked?

Two further questions:
If you cannot say - how can the library mitigate against being responsible for potential losses/legal infringements? I assume the most likely justification is on grounds of protection of morals and the rights of others..? However, should the burden of proof be required - in this case for instance - how might the library justify it's contravention of Article 8?

----

Paul,

What would satisfy me to the point of being utterly placated would be to receive an accurate list of those words/phrases/combinations and frequencies thereof which the library uses to invoke Article 8's (arguably justifiable) contravention.

Many thanks for your time.

Liam Murphy.


On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:39 +0000, "Harrison, Paul" wrote:
Dear Mr Murphy

I understand that you have had a problem uploading a response to a website blog. I am afraid that I have only partial details as to the sequence of events but as I understand you spent a period of time composing a submission to this blog and after you had submitted it, you got some sort of error message. I do not have the details of the wordingof this error message, but I am assuming from t he nature of the conversation that you had with my colleague is that it was one of the messages displayed when the filtering software has kicked in.

The filtering software works in a number of ways, one of which is to monitor the usage of certain words. Each of these words is given a weighting, which is then multiplied by the frequency of occurrence of these words. If this figure exceeds the threshold score we have set, then the remainder of that web page will be blocked from display.

I have confirmed with my colleagues who administer our networks that the filter will be applied to text that is submitted to websites usign web-based forms such as those used on blogging sites. Furthermore, they have told me that the threshold on such outgoing text is set at a lower limit to that for incoming, on the grounds that the user has control over the text that is being submitted. According to the terms of conditions of use of our PCs the user agrees that they will not:

" create … material that
o is obscene, racist, defamatory or otherwise unlawful;
or
o causes harassment or gross offence to others;"
And one of the ways we try and ensure this is by setting such threshold scores for filtering.

As I understand it, you were asking for an explanation of how the filtering works, so I hope the above clarifies that to your satisfaction. However, if there are other aspects to your query, I will be happy to answer them as well.

Thank you for using Norfolk Library Services Online

Regards


Paul Harrison
Electronic Services Manager
Norfolk Library & Information Service
LG045, County Hall , Martineau Lane, Norwich NR1 2UA
01603 222580
0781 846 4985
paul.harrison@norfolk.gov.uk

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