Survey Results. The Free Expression Policy Project. For nearly a decade, the issue of Internet filtering has consumed legislators, educators, advocates, study committees, and courts.
Despite the well-documented problem of over-blocking (censoring material that is non-pornographic and intellectually valuable), filters are now widely used in schools, libraries, and other centers of learning. In the interest of helping the public understand the issue, this fact sheet summarizes the most salient facts about Internet filters. History and Background In the late 1990s, rating and filtering systems were developed in response to concerns about pornography and other controversial material on the Internet. Companies began marketing the software to schools and libraries. The over-blocking tendencies of Internet filters soon became known.
In 1997, citizens in Loudoun County, Virginia brought a First Amendment challenge to a new library board policy requiring filters on all library computers. The NRC compared these educational approaches to swimming. Hack Education - powered by FeedBurner. State Internet Filtering Law Comparison - Balanced Filtering in Schools. The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has a good website comparing state Internet Filtering Laws.
I’m not sure if this is being maintained, last update as of this writing (2 Oct 2010) was Dec 2009. Schools and the Children’s Internet Protection Act. | Information from ALA | Other News and Information | Two studies commissioned by Congress, “Youth, Pornography, and the Internet,” a report published in May 2002 by the National Research Council, and the Final Report of the Child Online Protection Commission (COPA), presented to Congress, October 20, 2000, found that the most effective and least intrusive way to protect our children from objectionable material on the Internet is through online information resources and family education programs.
A report forthcoming in October 2002 from the Electronic Frontier Foundation finds that schools that implement Internet blocking software with the least restrictive settings will block between a half percent and five percent of search results based on state-mandated curriculum topics. Those that implement Internet blocking software with the most restrictive settings will block up to 70 percent of those searches. Schools install Internet filters to receive federal money.
Schools install Internet filters to receive federal money Dale Alexander, the information technology director for Albuquerque, public schools, was not exactly a fan of filtering software for blocking pornography and other Web sites deemed inappropriate for children.
But when Congress required it of schools that receive certain technology grants, Alexander had no trouble deciding whether to install the software — up to $14.7 million was at stake. "There was a lot of money on the table," Alexander said. And it outweighed any arguments that good adult supervision — not a filtering product — is the best solution for dealing with unsavory online content. All across the country, schools are installing filters or expanding their use despite flaws in the software, which sometimes blocks legitimate sites needed for lessons.
When Schools' Internet Filters Follow You Home. Don't Filter Me: Web Content Filtering in Schools. Many public schools use web filtering software to block students’ access to pornographic websites, in accordance with federal law.
Unfortunately, many of the most commonly used web filtering software packages include a special category for websites that contain information about LGBT issues and organizations, even though the websites are not sexually explicit in any way. When public school districts block these LGBT categories, preventing students from accessing websites for positive LGBT rights organizations, they often still allow access to anti-LGBT sites that condemn LGBT people or urge us to try to change our sexual orientation. This viewpoint discrimination violates students’ rights under the First Amendment. That’s why the ACLU launched the Don’t Filter Me campaign in February of 2011: to prevent viewpoint-discriminatory censorship of positive LGBT web content in public schools nationwide. Missouri School District Questioned Over Anti-Gay Web Filter. Stop Blocking Online Content. Severely limiting Internet access does high school students a disservice.
Credit: Wesley Bedrosian The blocking problem started back in August 2007. Each time desktop-publishing students tried to access images, they were blocked. When my English teacher, Lisa Huff (profiled in this Edutopia.org article), needed to get to information from Flickr and the document-sharing site Scribd, she was blocked. My classmate Megan Holifield wanted to watch a news clip on YouTube for inspiration in producing her own broadcast, and she was blocked. Instead of embracing technology as twenty-first-century schools should, the Batesville, Arkansas, schools -- along with many others -- have been turning on the firewalls, preventing students from realizing the full opportunity the Internet offers. Students and teachers need online tools to create projects, dispense information, and deepen their understanding of the subject matter.
Children's Internet Protection Act. The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was enacted by Congress in 2000 to address concerns about children's access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet.
Freedom of Information: How a Wisconsin School District Ditched Internet Filters. Among the more memorable people I met at last week's ISTE conference in Denver is a renegade technology director from Racine, Wisconsin.
Just a few months after his promotion from network manager to director of information systems of the Racine Unified School District last summer, Tim Peltz made a revolutionary move: he removed the firewalls that had blocked students from many parts of the Internet. He didn't just remove a brick here and there. He tore those walls completely down. In a back-to-school letter to faculty and staff, Peltz announced that students could now access almost all websites, online chats and discussion boards, streaming video, Skype, and Web-based e-mail services like Gmail. He even opened up the two sites that seem to scare the pants off many school administrators - Facebook and YouTube. "I got a lot of resistance," Peltz said when we met in Denver.