Q&A

What's your take on Internet-filtering software? I think there's a great deal of sham attached to the idea that filtering and blocking software can make children safe or moral. It's just a ludicrous and even nearly insane idea.

Why do you say that? What [filters] really are is censorship technology. And they're indiscriminate: people have no idea of what's being blocked, or why. They don't really teach children how to be moral or safe. They simply take the decision making away from people.... It's the responsibility of adults--you know, teachers, librarians, parents--to supervise the moral education of their children, up to the point where hopefully [the kids] can do it themselves.

When you were hanging out with teens, what's the most surprising thing you learned about their online behavior? You could see that they were educating themselves. They were freer than people in any other part of the culture.

Freer? They say what they want. They can talk about religion. They can talk about sex. They can express all kinds of political opinions. They just have an amazing amount of freedom.... This is essentially an unsupervised generation. They're out pretty much by themselves, because nobody in charge of them understands what they're doing.... That's very troublesome for librarians or teachers or parents: How do you educate people who know a lot more than you?

If librarians are online savvy, will kids listen to them? Oh, absolutely. I think if [librarians are], first, online savvy and, secondly, not so judgmental. For kids, games, for example, are a part of culture. So librarians ought to be helping kids to get to interesting and creative games--as opposed to banning games from libraries. Librarians have always been advocates and guides.... And they've always [guided] children to the right kind of information that they need. I think that role is even more urgent right now.