Parents Beware: GALE Lurks On Your Child’s Electronic Devices (Op-ed By Patty Canter)

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Submitted by Patty Canter –

Lurking in your child’s computer, cell phone, or county library computers is an online resource that is embedded with harmful materials, hard core pornography, sex shops, gambling, online dating, DEI, and other nefarious materials.  

Introducing the Cengage GALE company, an online library offered through the Tennessee Electronic Library, TEL, paid for by taxpayers, and offered to schools, public and private, and homeschoolers, around the state and nation.  Whether embedded directly in GALE databases or with hyperlinks and URLs to the internet, it includes pornography accessible by children.  Tennessee state law does not allow the distribution of obscene and pornographic materials to children but does through the GALE online databases.  

When first finding out about this 5 years ago, there was a link in GALE which I reported to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, TBI.  The link in GALE in the children’s section went to xsnappers that encouraged children to remove their clothes, take pictures of themselves, send those pictures to them, and they could become porn stars.  Following my report to the TBI, the article disappeared.  However, how much more of this type of thing is in the databases?  Evidence has mounted that there is quite a lot.  

For an article from PINE about the role of research databases in sexualizing America’s children, go to “Corporate and Classroom Conflict” which includes images from GALE databases.

That was just the beginning of finding out about a monstrous problem in the GALE databases offered through TEL.  Another example is a chart with dozens and dozens of links listed that took children to porn sites, all conveniently listed for their use and ease to get there.  Children are particularly vulnerable to pornography addictions.  Here is an article about the harms of pornography to children.

Our state should not continue paying this company around $700,000 each year for a subscription to GALE.  It is past time for the gavel to fall.

Scholastic articles are not to include advertisements but do anyway.  Examples of some of these advertisements encourage sex shop paraphernalia and online dating.  There was an article that also taught children how to go around age verification laws.  Another had a picture of a naked woman in chains.  These are just samples of a much bigger problem.   We may not learn of problems until a  child is harmed by inadvertent exposure. When contacting the state about this, and giving evidence of what was in the database, they were quick to remove these materials, but it was “cherry picking,” removing what citizens had given to them, but the overall problem remained.  GALE has been documented with long standing, widespread problems including this early report from a VA news station in 2018.

In Tennessee, it appears that no serious scrutiny of GALE has occurred even after the involvement of the TBI and the passage of HB2454 SB2292, aimed at holding commercial vendors accountable for harmful content.  This is like an unbridled curriculum that no one has checked beforehand being given to children.

Although the schools may have internet filters which may block some of the hyperlinks in the articles to the internet, those safety features will not be on home computers, library computers and cell phones, and if a school librarian posts a direct link to TEL on the school website, which is common throughout the state, children will end up bypassing that safety feature.  Parents are not being made aware that the pornography problem will be there on their home computers and cell phones.  

Tennessee State Law 2022 TN HB2454 SB 2292 required GALE guarantee that there were no pornographic materials.  GALE signed a certification that said they met our laws; however, years have gone by and new evidence has been shown over and over again that GALE signed a fraudulent certification and are not adhering to our laws.  TN law has a provision that the contract can be broken if GALE does not adhere to it.  One wonders, how much evidence has to be presented to the Secretary of State before the contract is broken?  Why do they keep using a company such as GALE, that appears to partner with the porn industry? 

Oversight of the online library has failed terribly.  In fact, if going to TEL’s homepage, you will notice that there are no firewalls between ages, so an elementary child can access adult material, materials that most adults don’t even want to see or read, but the risk is there that it could come into the hands of a child which can cause great damage to them.  

Remember that GALE “bills” themselves as safer than the internet; however, it is very deceptive, as parents may think it is safe but it may not be any safer at all.  

PARENTS BEWARE.  There are huge problems with this online library.  Parents need to know about it in order to protect their children’s innocence and purity.  There are citizens and legislatures grappling with this issue in many other states, trying to bring accountability.    Tennessee law allows the contract to be broken for not adhering to our TN laws, so let’s see our state enforce the law and not do business with a company who has allowed dangerous materials into their database which can be accessed by children.