San Jose, Californoa- It means “fudge” in Spanish, but in the electronic Babylon that is the Internet, “panocha” apparently implies something else as well.
So when San Jose City Councilman Pete Constant gamely typed the term into a search engine Friday while demonstrating an anti-porn filter’s prowess for the doubting public, up popped a picture on four large screens of a young lady’s thong-clad backside.
“There are some image results,” Constant said flatly, blushing just a bit as someone among the two dozen who dropped by for the demo at City Hall shouted for him to click on the image to make it bigger. He did.
All told, skeptics submitted 23 search suggestions on 3-by-5 comment cards for Constant to test whether the WebSense filter would allow non-pornographic information about things like gay sex or testicular cancer while blocking racy images. The city council next month will consider Constant’s request to install filtering technology at public libraries, but critics have charged such software is unreliable – and could infringe on free speech.
A search for “art nudes” allowed some fully naked ladies to the big screens but blocked out many others.
On a search for “whore,” the filter blocked out a raunchy site for porn videos but also nixed www.theclothingwhore.com, a site on Gothic robes. It did allow a site about a 1991 film by that name.
Constant also revisited a list of legitimate sites that San Jose’s library director previously reported the filter had improperly blocked. Constant said the software was improperly set up in those tests. Using the program as he said it is configured for Phoenix’s library, he showed Friday those sites came through unimpeded.
Most of those in attendance seemed to already have made up their minds. Filter fans, like former councilman and Values Advocacy Council President Larry Pegram, deemed the demo a smashing success, proving that filters don’t block legitimate information.
“Images that were not pornographic or obscene were not blocked,” Pegram said. “There’s a lot of misinformation and fear.”
Critics like Skyler Porras, San Jose director of the American Civil Liberties Union, remained unimpressed and suggested Constant’s demo was rigged.
“We don’t want to comment on what we don’t consider to be a scientific test,” Porras said. She noted that research cited by the city’s head librarian in a report that gave a dim assessment of filtering technology “took weeks and weeks.”
A handful of other skeptics who showed up were equally unimpressed.
“This is censorship, Mr. Constant,” said resident David Breithaupt.
Constant said afterward the demo went “as I expected.”
While the demonstration may not have swayed any critics, Constant noted that several council member aides were in the room quietly observing.
“Those are the ones that count,” he said.