This past summer the State of CT started using a new internet filter. After complaints by some schools that it was too restrictive they sent a letter to the districts with the following decision:
CET voted to provide a default configuration of blocked Web site categories, including all the categories that are currently mandated. These default categories, however, will now be modifiable within each district by the locally assigned network administrator. Only two categories – Child Pornography and Pornography/Adult Content – will be included in the new mandatory minimum filtering level. The mandatory minimum filtering categories cannot be overridden.
Here are the categories that are turned on:
|
Child Pornography/Child Abuse * |
Obscene/Tasteless ** |
|
Pornography/Adult Content * |
Criminal Skills ** |
|
Dating/Personals ** |
R-rated ** |
|
Dubious/Unsavory ** |
School Cheating ** |
|
Explicit Art ** |
Terrorist/Militant/Extremist ** |
|
Hate & Discrimination ** |
Tobacco ** |
|
Illegal Drugs ** |
Weapons ** |
The categories with an ** can be modified by each district. My district also added “internet radio.” So we cannot access our podcast site in school this year. We can see it, just not download or listen to anything on it. The 200 or so videos that we made last year we do not have access to–http://viddler.com is now a rated R site.
I did really like two lines from the letter:
We urge all CEN filter managers to use extreme caution and careful consideration when deciding to unblock a Web site category. For example, if a district chooses to unblock the “R-rated” category with the intention of opening up access to video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and Google Video, that action will also unblock ALL Web sites categorized by 8e6 as R-rated or “services pertaining to anything that involves 18 and over material such as lingerie and swimsuits, revealing pictures (sites that are adult in nature without being explicitly pornographic).”
Now follow me here and let me know if there is a flaw in my logic…My guess is that we would not have a problem if we found a girl looking at lingerie or a bikini. My guess is not many girls would be searching for sites that deal with all the banned content in the box in the beginning of this post. Most male students wouldn’t search for that content at school. So then filters are created to prevent a small percentage of male teenagers access to certain content on the internet. Maybe we should also have a no-walk zone around Victoria Secrets in the malls, and we should seriously consider banning teenage boys from beaches in the summer. They might see someone in a bikini.
3 responses so far ↓
Haha. I never understood that either. It’s sort of like that at my camp, because boys aren’t allowed to swim with the girls.
Thanks for the comment on my post about my story. That’s a really great idea, but I’m kind of just writing it for fun, and I doubt that I could finish it in just three weeks.
-Mallorie
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I think this post goes well with your previous story about the ineffectiveness of some teachers to integrate technology into the classroom. Rather than encourage the use of the internet (there are certainly plenty of great educational, non bikini websites out there), massive filters such as this stifle the internet’s use in the classroom.
It also doesn’t make sense that n order to unblock one site, you have to unblock a whole category. Shouldn’t individual teachers be allowed to petition the district to open up individual sites based on educational value?
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Our school division recently decided to allow individual schools the option of managing their own filters which is a big step forward in my opinion. Now individual teachers can ask the teachers who have been given the rights to add and subtract sites from their schools to unblock sites if they need them for educational purposes. So it’s a bit of a compromise but at least teachers aren’t restricted quite as much as they once were with the blanket divisional filter system.
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