Censorware and CYA

Over at Boing Boing, Cory has thrown his toys out of the pram because internet author David Weinberger was unable to access Boing Boing from BA's computer terminals in the business class lounge at Heathrow (actually, for toys read 'platinum card'). Thus ensues the predictable us-vs-them, type-before-you-think conspiracy in the comments from the kind who fall over themselves in the rush to express their knee-jerk disapproval of BA and censorware in general. They forget that an easy target is not always the right target: as one comment succinctly points out, "Wait... it's the Company's internet connection? It's the Company's computer system? It's the Company that gets sued if the wrong stuff comes up?" Weinberger is surely smart enough to figure that if he used his laptop's wi-fi connection instead, he could probably have looked at whatever he wanted and not compromise the premises he is using.

A BA lounge at Heathrow is not in and of itself Burma or China or Saudi Arabia, so any reasonably computer-literate person could surely see that the type of thinking behind this is not censorship-driven, it's CYA-driven. Hell, I can't even look at Flickr or MySpace at my local Coffee Republic because their censorware says those entire sites are unsuitable for public viewing on their computers. Annoying, yes, but a fact of online life to be dealt with, though I would prefer to see simple front-page reminders on public computers that encourage sensitivity to other customers when considering which websites to view instead of blanket bans on entire sites that carry both safe and risky material. Such a reminder might even have saved this sick bastard from a jail term, though I have to say he deserves it.