My library's wifi filter blocked a fire safety PDF, and the librarian shrugged

Last Tuesday I went to the public library downtown to print out a fire escape plan for my kid's school project. The PDF was from the state fire marshal's website, plain official document, nothing weird. But the library's content filter flagged it as 'potentially dangerous' and wouldn't let me open it. I asked the guy at the front desk if he could override it, and he said they're not allowed to touch the filter settings since a policy change in 2021. He suggested I email the file to myself and use my phone's hotspot. That worked, but it made me wonder how many other everyday resources get blocked without anyone noticing. Has anyone else run into filters blocking totally normal government or safety info in their local libraries?

1 comments

1 Comment

ericp6721d agoMost Upvoted

Hot take: filters block everything except actual fires, apparently. Meanwhile the librarian is just vibing with policy instead of, y'know, helping.