TEENAGERS don't need to hide dirty magazines under their mattresses anymore - they can simply go to the library to watch porn online.
Children aged 13 and older can easily access hard core porn in New York City's public libraries by simply claiming to be of age on the software and clicking off the filters that block adult content, the New York Post reports.
Library-goers say it happens all the time. "You'll see three or four kids, 13 or 14 years old, and they're all gathered around a computer giggling," said a regular at Brooklyn's central library at Grand Army Plaza.
Even teens who don't want to surf for smut can be exposed to it.
"A lot of the times, I see people watching pornography and stuff like that. The man right next to me today was watching naked women," Julio Sosa, 14, said at the Jerome Branch in the Bronx.
Library officials defend their policy of allowing easy access to porn as a free speech issue, claiming that only five percent of web traffic on public library computers is to porn sites.
"Our staff carefully monitors use of computers in adult areas. It is long-standing library policy - here and across the nation - to abide by the First Amendment," said New York Public Library spokeswoman Angela Montefinise.
But Julio Sosa said teens watch it anyway. "She (a librarian) comes over and tells them to stop watching it, but once she leaves, they just go right back to watching it," he said.
City library collections never included pre-internet porn, in books, magazines or movies, and some religious leaders and politicians said the standard should be the same for online porn.
"There's a big difference between exercising your 'freedom of speech' at home and exercising it in a public place such as a library, where you're surrounded by other people - including children," said Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro, who is threatening to cut taxpayer funding of libraries.
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