Election, internet, blocking and our rights - just want your opinions.

Widelats

mqandy wrote: »

As your in the library, you might be better off asking for a copy of the three parties manifestos.

You'll also have access to several titles of newspaper, from all political persuasions.

The library is not short of the information you need.

Your going on my ignore list, please read a thread in future before trolling it.

Ivory_Tinkler

Mqmandy gave good advice - the manifesto's would be available from your library. I hardly see that comment as being trolling - I don't understand why you do?

RobertoMoir

Widelats wrote: »

Well to those who did not read my post

1. Politics will be a excuse to change policies, i don't even vote.

Robert, websense blocks facebook and .gov.uk sites on a regular basis, library does allow these sites but websense is too aggressive and they keep having to phone the tech guys to unblock it, which takes them up to a week sometimes.

Websense doesn't block very much at all in and of itself - by default it blocks websites that are "malicious" or which it believes to be "illegal" and that is more or less it. It certainly doesn't block .gov.uk sites, facebook or youtube by default. I work for a college where managing our installation of websense is part of the job. We've used it for a while and I've worked with websense on improving their product for education use for some time, so I know how it works pretty well.

We block facebook but allow .gov.uk and youtube use, and have never had a problem doing that.

I'm not saying this to be pedantic, simply to make the point that if youtube and facebook keep getting blocked, it isn't because websense has become self aware and is stopping you from using the web how you want, it is because either someone running the service provided to the library wants those websites to be blocked or because the people managing the system for them don't know what they are doing. The library internet service is doubtless provided by the council and probably by using their "schools" connection service, so the former explanation is more likely than the latter..

Putting pressure on them to buy a different filter is a waste of your time and taxpayer's money; even if you succeed then the same person who wants those sites to be blocked now will still want them blocked on the new filtering system, and will set it up (or order others to set it up) so those sites are blocked. If the sites are blocked due to incompetence rather than intentional blocking then you still can't say for sure that things would be better with different filtering.

drsquirrel

RobertoMoir,

I believe webscene will have a "social network" and "streaming video" category in their lists, so possible these are included in the blocked selection.

Widelats wrote: »

Well to those who did not read my post

1. Politics will be a excuse to change policies, i don't even vote.

Robert, websense blocks facebook and .gov.uk sites on a regular basis, library does allow these sites but websense is too aggressive and they keep having to phone the tech guys to unblock it, which takes them up to a week sometimes.

I see what a load of useless time asking questions here is, except for Roberts and The what do they know link. Thanks for all being scaredy cats and accepting whatever the council and govornment throws at you.

Websense only blocks like that if you set it up to use websense's dynamic rules...

If you don't want a site blocked either...
1. Use your own rules
2. Add the sites you don't want blocked into the whitelist

Oh, and thanks for saying we're all a waste of time.

RobertoMoir

drsquirrel wrote: »

RobertoMoir,

I believe webscene will have a "social network" and "streaming video" category in their lists, so possible these are included in the blocked selection.

Yep. I think facebook falls under either a "social media" category or "personals and dating". There's various categories of streaming media and youtube is caught in those - we re-categorised that and a few other video websites we felt carried educationally beneficial material so that we could block the category as a whole but allow those websites.

drsquirrel

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Yep. I think facebook falls under either a "social media" category or "personals and dating". There's various categories of streaming media and youtube is caught in those - we re-categorised that and a few other video websites we felt carried educationally beneficial material so that we could block the category as a whole but allow those websites.

If someone(/yourselves) are going to rely on the categories(automatic websense ones) provided by Websense, why not just white list the site and leave the cats as they were?

We don't use websense any more though, utter rubbish

RobertoMoir

drsquirrel wrote: »

If someone(/yourselves) are going to rely on the categories(automatic websense ones) provided by Websense, why not just white list the site and leave the cats as they were?

We don't use websense any more though, utter rubbish

We change them around so that reporting looks right. I can either spend 5 mins once in my life re-assigning sites like youtube as "educational" or I can spend an hour each month explaining to the bosses that "even though the report in their hand categorises half our web surfing as non-productive, it's not accurate because...."

stevemLS

Darksun wrote: »

Videos are part of a collective body of knowledge, and to some extent facebook is as well. My local library holds public records to help with genealogy and tracing people, and I know facebook has been used for similar purposes. People need to realise that libraries can and thankfully are adapting to the 21st century.

Anyway, with regards to the OPs query, there may be technical reasons for blocking video sites - the library will only have limited bandwidth, which may have to be shared between a lot of users. If a few people are streaming video it may slow down everyone else.

In terms of rights, it may be tricky to argue that the content that the parties and the government on YT/social networking sites is essential, since most of it is provided in more conventional forms as well.

Potentially you could take action under the Human Rights Act, but realistically I don't think you'd have much chance. It's probably worth asking about their filtering policies, using the Freedom of Information Act if necessary, and then deciding where to go from there. Visit http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ for more information about making a FOI request.

action under the Human Rights Act?

How my heart sinks.

The Human Rights Act is a fabulous statutory recognition of our basic rights in this country, when used properly.

However, exactly which of the Convention Rights are being violated or interfered with here - none!

Equaliser123

stevemLS wrote: »

action under the Human Rights Act?

How my heart sinks.

The Human Rights Act is a fabulous statutory recognition of our basic rights in this country, when used properly.

However, exactly which of the Convention Rights are being violated or interfered with here - none!

Unfortunately, the HRA is not only a recognition of our rights but has been construed as going much, much further.

To that end, it needs severe curtailing.

Mupette

I can't see a library wanting you to blast out tunes.

And any ways every one knows the internet is for p0rn