Chess Censorship

All Things Chess
1

In the middle of the last decade while living in Hendersonville, NC, which is in Henderson county, I stopped in a library in Asheville, only twenty miles north, located in Buncombe county. I was given a guest pass to log onto the internet via the computer. I checked my mail and then surfed on over to the website of the USCF. I was denied permission and the site was blocked. Thinking there must be some mistake, I tried again and got the same result. I tried another chess site, Chess Cafe, and was blocked from entering that site as well. I asked the librarian why I was prevented from going to any chess website and was told that, “Chess is a game.” Well, duh, I’m thinking, tell me something I do not know. When I tell her that I should not be prevented from going to a game website, she tells me that they have had all kind of problems with children playing games on the computers so they decided to block all game sites, with ‘chess’ being one of the operative words.

   Being the recalcitrant type, I refused to take 'no' for an answer. I asked to speak with the head librarian. When she appeared I told her it was not my intention to play chess on the computer, but to go to a website that was an internet magazine with articles about the Royal game, as I intended on making copies of some of the articles. She said that in that case she would make an exception and used her authority to override the blockage and allow me to go to a chess site. I made my copies and then surfed on over to the USCF site, but was, once again, blocked from doing so. I complained again and the head librarian came over and used her authority again which allowed me to go to any 'chess' site I wished. This time she was not as friendly, I'm sad to report. While visiting one site I noticed an interesting game played recently that I wanted to play over. As I was sitting there doing just that, the librarian passed by and noticed what I was doing. "You said you would NOT play chess on the computer!" she exclaimed, loudly. I explained to her that I was not playing chess, but replaying a game that had been played a few days ago. "It's the same thing," she said,"I must ask you to stop playing a GAME immediately!" I tried to reason with the woman, to no avail. Since my time was coming to an end, I ended my session early, paid for my copies and left. I never went to another library in Asheville during the time I was in the mountains of the Great state of NC.

   I feel strongly that it was wrong for the library pooh-bahs of Buncombe sounty, in their wisdom, to censor me from going to a chess website simply because they did not want children playing games on the computers belonging to Buncombe county. I believe it is wrong for any organization to censor what an adult does in the guise of preventing a child from doing it; that is the responsibility of the parent. What say you?
2

Sounds like buncombe to me.

3

I used to live in upstate New York and I would use the Middleburgh library to check email and chess websites etc. The library had a 30 minute limit on the computers. I never thought about it, but that does restrict game playing. When I moved to New York City, the limit was 15 minutes! I never saw anyone playing blitz on ICC, but I did see the ICCF correspondence webserver a few times. The North Carolina library seems a little heavy handed.

Arthur Holmer

4

Libraries are not the only ones that may have such blocking. I did a tournament at a school and their internet access prevented access to uschess.org because of being a game site. Somebody else used an internet capable phone to check on new/renewed memberships and I submitted the tournament after I got home. Most schools do not have such blocking, but that one did.

5

I’ve noted in threads in USCF Issues forums that one of the primary functions a national organization can perform is to take part in seminars, meetings, articles, etc. such as those dealing with libraries, or college associations etc. and to give them presentations on chess, to help them to better understand various aspects of chess.

Here is yet another example of how USCF could help in that purpose.

6

It is currently true that you cannot play a game of chess on uschess.org, though you can play THROUGH a game of chess, which many people may not see as being different.

However, that may not continue to be the case, depending on exactly how the USCF’s online chess server is set up, when it becomes available.

7

This is one of many reasons why content filters are stupid with a capital U, and attempting to use content filters as a low-rent substitute for thoughtful supervision is doubly so.