The Library Threat, Part 3: Perilous Profanity
Libraries serve their communities by acting as dedicated spaces where anyone can access information freely and confidentially. While intellectual freedom is the ideal, school and public libraries must also take underage patrons and their ability to access illicit materials into consideration.
Because schools and public libraries are funded by the federal government, there have been numerous official debates over which content should be censored, by whom, and to what extent.
Initially, these arguments were targeted at printed works, as shown here in the 1952 report, Investigation of Literature Allegedly Containing Objectionable Material.
Gathings, E., & United States. Congress 1952). House. (1953). Investigation of literature allegedly containing objectionable material : Hearings before the Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Eighty-Second Congress, second session, on H. Res. nos. 596 and 597. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.
By the 1990s, the rise of the Internet has made access to content like pornography much easier, and the debates turned to issues of filtering content for minors, as seen here in the report Internet Filtering Systems.
United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science, Transportation. (1998). Internet filtering systems : Report of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on S. 1619. (United States. Congress. Senate. Report ; 105-226). Washington: U.S. G.P.O.
Today, the censorship gaze has turned to social media, which is often targeted at minors who may then be exposed to illicit materials who use it. Here, the 2018 report Facebook, Google and Twitter : Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants addresses these issues.