coffeeClean

The wifi is for public use. The Ethernet isn’t. How is that so hard to understand?

How is it hard to understand that those two undisputed facts are actually a crucial part of my thesis? Of course I understand it because it’s the cause for the problems I described and my premise. It’s why this thread exists.

If that weren’t the case, the only notable problem would be with the mobile phone precondition on captive portals.

Time to wake up to reality. Everyone has access, the method of access isn’t discriminating, nor do you have any say in it.

That’s not reality. The reality is everyone has partial access (Firefox on a shared Windows PC only), while some people have full access via both public resources.

If you want to gain anything from this conversation, try to at least come to terms with the idea that Firefox is not the internet. The internet is so much more than that. Your experience and information is being limited by your perception that everything that happens in a browser encompasses the internet.

In other words, it’s public, free for all, and the way they set it up.

It’s not free. We paid tax to finance this. The moment you call it free you accept maladministration that you actually paid for.

If you don’t like the free service, don’t use it. It not being how you like it isn’t wrong in any way, that’s your problem.

You’re confusing the private sector with the public sector. In the private sector, indeed you simply don’t use the service and that’s a fair enough remedy. Financing public service is not optional. You still seem to not grasp how human rights works, who it protects, despite the simplicity of the language of Article 21.

Could I be in the wrong? No, it must be literally everyone else in this entire thread / national library network.

Is your position so weak that you need to resort to a bandwagon fallacy?

Grow up.

and an ad hominem?

You demonstrate being a grown up by avoiding ad hominems in favor of logically sound reasoning.

Their terms require a phone so yes, on their terms.

I keep a copy of everything I sign. The ToS I signed on one library do not require a mobile phone. It’s an ad hoc implementation that was certainly not thought out to the extent of mirroring the demand for a mobile phone number into the agreement. And since it’s not in the agreement, this unwritten policy likely evaded the lawyer’s eyes (who likely drafted or reviewed the ToS).

Why would they make an exception for anyone?

Because their charter is not: “to provide internet service exclusively for residents who have mobile phones”.

And why would they want to deal with paper agreements for WiFi?

Paper agreements:

• do not discriminate (you cannot be a party to a captive portal agreement that you cannot reach)
• are more likely to actually be read (almost no one reads a tickbox agreement)
• inherently (or at least easily) give the non-drafting party a copy of the agreement for their records. A large volume of text on a tiny screen is unlikely to even be opened and even less likely to save it. Not having a personal copy reduces the chance of adherence to the terms.
• provide a higher standard of evidence whenever the agreement is litigated over

You don’t have to be a member to use WiFi, someone else could have given you the password if there even is one

That’s not how it works. The captive portal demands a phone number. After supplying it, an SMS verification code is sent. It’s bizarre that you would suggest asking a stranger in a library for their login info. In the case at hand, someone would have to share their mobile number, and then worry that something naughty would be done under their phone number, and possibly also put that other person at risk for helping someone circumvent the authentication (which also could be easily detected when the same phone number is used for two parallel sessions).

If someone is doing something illegal it’s gonna involve the library if you get caught (that’s why the phone number but maybe they are just being shitty with it). Not worth the risk.

Exactly what makes it awkward to ask someone else to use their phone.

You have, throughout your comments, repeatedly spoken down toward librarians and libraries.

Again, you’re not quoting. You’ve already been told it’s not the case. You need to quote. You replied to the wrong message.

but you’re certainly not painting them as “trying their best”

There are many librarians with varying degrees of motivation. I spoke to one yesterday that genuinely made an effort to the best of their ability. I cannot say the same for all librarians. When I describe a problem of being unable to connect, some librarians cannot be bothered to reach out to tech support, or even so much as report upstream that someone was unable to connect.

“worth having an adult conversation with instead of misrepresenting my situation intentionally”

This is a matter of being able to read people. I don’t just bluntly blurt out a request. I start the conversation with baby steps (borderline small talk) describing the issue to assess from their words, mood, and body language the degree to which they are likely to be accommodating whatever request I am building up to. Different people get a different conversation depending on the vibe I get from them. Even the day of week is a factor. People tend to be in their best mood on Fridays and far from that on Mondays.

You’ll have to quote me on that because I do not recall calling them baddies. I have spotlighted an irresponsible policy and flawed implementation. It’s more likely a competency issue and unlikely a case of malice (as it’s unclear whether the administration is even aware that they are excluding people).

If they are knowingly and willfully discriminating against people without mobile phones, then it could be malice. But we don’t know that so they of course have the benefit of any doubt. They likely operate on the erroneous assumption that every single patron has a mobile phone and functional wifi.

I have to say I didn’t downvote you as you’ve been civil and informative so far. But I’m not sure how to cite/quote from the UDHR as though it’s not law. I named the article and pasted the text. For me whether the enforcement machinery is in force doesn’t matter w.r.t to the merits of the discussion. From where I sit, many nations signed the UDHR because it has a baseline of principles worthy of being held in high regard. When the principles are violated outside the context of an enforcement body, the relevance of legal actionability is a separate matter. We are in a forum where we can say: here is a great idea for how to treat human beings with dignity and equality, and here that principle is being violated. There is no court in the loop. Finger wagging manifests from public support and that energy can make corrections in countless ways. Even direct consumer actions like boycotts. Israel is not being held to account for Gaza but people are boycotting Israel.

I guess I’m not grasping your thesis. Are you saying that if a solidly codified national law was not breached, then it’s not worthwhile to spotlight acts that undermine the UDHR principles we hold in high regard?

You can’t claim shit about equality for all and access without materials, when discussing byod. Make up your mind.

There is PC access, and then there is byod access. It’s a false dichotomy to demand choosing one or the other particularly when only one of the two is available to everyone, and harmful to people’s rights if you simultaneously design a system of workflow on the assumption that one replaces the other interchangeably.

They are different services for different purposes. Don’t let the fact that some tasks can be achieved with both services cloud the fact that some use-cases cannot.

Everyone has access

Everyone has access to a PC running Firefox. Not everyone has BYoD WAN service access.

byod is covered for 99% as extra convenience.

Firefox is not the internet.

It’s not just convenience. It’s the capability and empowerment of controlling your own applications. If the public PC doesn’t have a screen reader and you are blind, the public PC is no good to you and you are better served with BYoD service. If you need to reach someone on Briar, a Windows PC with only Firefox will not work.

You aren’t being treated poorly, instead, you have unreasonable expectations.

This remains to be supported. I do not believe it’s reasonable to only serve people with mobile phones. Thus I consider it a reasonable expectation that people without a subscribed mobile phone still get BYoD WAN service.

Data persists both in the cloud, or on a memory stick. Free options exist.

None of the PCs in any library I have used will execute apps that you bring on a USB stick (but even if they did, the app you need to run may not be compatible with Windows). Also some library branches disallow USB sticks entirely. So a restricted Windows PC cannot replace controlling your own platform, regardless of the convenience factor.

(edit) But strictly about convenience, I also would not say it’s fair for a public service to offer extra convenience exclusively to people who have a subscribed mobile phone and not to those without one. That would still be unequal access even if you disregard the factors not related to convenience. It’s still discriminating against a protected class of people.

The UDHR is not a treaty, so it does not create any direct legal bindings.

Sure, but where are you going with this? Legal binding only matters in situations of legal action and orthogonal to its application in a discussion in a forum. Human rights violations are rampant and they rarely go to The Hague (though that frequency is increasing). Human rights law is symbolic and carries weight in the court of public opinion. Human rights law and violations thereof get penalized to some extent simply by widespread condemnation by the public. So of course it’s useful to spotlight HR violations in a pubic forum. It doesn’t require a court’s involvement.

The judge who presided over the merits of the Israel genocide situation explained this quite well in a recent interview. If you expect an international court to single-handedly remedy cases before it, your expectations are off. The international court renders judgements that are mostly symbolic. But it’s not useless. It’s just a small part of the overall role of international law.

The article you quote may have been excluded, overwritten or rephrased in your jurisdiction.

I doubt it. It’s been a while since I read the exemptions of the various rights but I do not recall any mods to Article 21. The modifications do not generally wholly exclude an article outright. They typically make some slight modification, such as some signatories limiting free assembly (Art.20 IIRC) to /safe/ gatherings so unsafe gatherings can be broken up. I would not expect to see libraries excluded from the provision that people are entitled to equal access to public services considering there is also Article 27:

“Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”

The European HR convocations take that even further iirc.