Citing time constraints, pro-filtering advocate David Burt has announced that he was closing his Filtering Facts operation and had converted its Web site to an archive. “I can no longer keep up with the now daily phone calls from parents fighting the American Library Association, maintain Filtering Facts, work a full-time job, and be a 20-hours-a-week stay-at-home Dad,” he wrote in a November 5 online press release.
Filtering Facts, launched in July 1997, recently sent freedom-of-information-act requests to public libraries nationwide seeking documentation of “patron and staff complaints . . . about patrons accessing pornographic or sexually explicit material on public Internet terminals.” Burt said he would release “our big report of library incident reports” based on those requests in December.
He also promised to send “really good stuff” to Kathy Valente of Citizens for Community Values in Lansing, Illinois, since she will continue Burt’s weekly online newsletter. CCV picketed Chicago Public Library September 18 to protest its unfiltered Internet service.
Posted November 15, 1999.