Filtering critics, issues in 3 countries

Teachers, not students, are the people most affected by school filters, according to a commentary in the Washington Post - even though the US federal law requiring filtering by schools receiving federal connectivity funding (the Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA) is aimed at protecting students from inappropriate content. "Walk the halls of a public school, and students will readily share tips for evading filters, some of which would be good work-arounds for the Great Firewall of China," writes Justin Reich, a former high school teacher working on his PhD in education at Harvard. He tells of a high school student who recent showed him a Facebook group called "How to access Facebook from school" that has 187,000 members and offers simple methods for filter-free surfing and profile updating. A teacher told me once that, when she needs to get to a site that her school filter blocks, she just asks one of her students to help her.

So one question is, if this view of filtering as blunt-instrument solution is or becomes widespread, what replaces it? One idea might be school-network monitoring. More than 1,000 UK schools have monitoring software running on their networks (probably mostly alongside filtering software). Are US schools using this technology as much? Should monitoring become more of a focus in schools - to allow administrators to identify problem spots, have the "evidence" they need to work through cases of cyberbullying and harassment? What do you think? Is the choice blanket filtering (that's less than effective as a student-protection measure) or dealing with situations as they come up? See my slightly related post, "Zero tolerance = zero intelligence: Juvenile judge." (Post comments here or in the ConnectSafely.org forum, or you can always email me at anne (at) netfamilynews.org.)

And questions about filtering aren't being aired in the US only, of course. The BBC reports that, over in the UK, school regulatory body Becta just released a report which found that Net technology and devices is getting more sophisticated than the filters UK schools use, which often filter what's being downloaded only to computers (rather than mobile phones, iPod Touches, and other portable devices) and based solely on keyword, not image, detection. The report also pointed out that filters just block - they don't alert anybody to efforts to bypass the filtering. And in Australia, children's advocacy groups are criticizing the government for spending $33 million on mandatory nationwide household filtering, Australian IT reports. "Both Save the Children Australia and the National Children's & Youth Law Centre believe the resources could be better spent on law enforcement agencies battling to eradicate child pornography on the Internet."

All Oz to have filtering

Soon all Australians' Internet access will be filtered, "under the government's $125.8 [about $85 million US] million Plan for Cyber-Safety," TechWorld Australia reports. The Australian government is requiring all Internet service providers to provide "a clean feed" to households, schools and public places with Internet access available to children. By this report, it appears some Australians thought they'd be able to "opt out" of the filtering, but reportedly not. There will be two levels filtering that blocks content inappropriate for children (not clear how that's defined) and filtering that only blocks illegal content, which presumably means child abuse images. ISPs told TechWorld that the blanket filtering "will cripple Internet speeds because the technology is not up to scratch." The government's about to run a field trial to iron out any kinks, according to TechWorld.

Australia's very connected families

Ninety percent of Australian families with children are online, up from 7% in 2005, reports Australian IT, citing new findings from the Australian Communications and Media Authority, Three-quarters (76%) of those online families have broadband connections. The study also found that "most Australian families with children older than eight now have three televisions, three mobile phones, a gaming console, and Internet access," and 98% own a computer. Oz's 15-to-17-year-olds spend on average an hour and 15 minutes a day online, and 42% have posted content to social-networking sites. As for TV, it has diminished in importance in Australia too, but 20% of Australian children have TV sets in their bedrooms now (up from 8% in 1995), and that compares to 70% of UK kids and 75% of US kids, according to the report. "The vast majority of [Australian] parents say their children's media consumption is fairly easy to control."

Very connected Oz

A just-released study in Australia found that 90% of Australians have both cellphones and landline phones and 80% have Internet access, mostly broadband, Australian IT reports. According to the study, by Australian Communications and Media Authority, "parents believe broadband is important to aid their children's schooling, and mobile phones were a useful safety aid."

Online-safety hotline for Oz

The US has its CyberTipline.com, Canada its Cybertip.ca, and Britain its hotline at the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre. "Within weeks" Australians too "will have access to a national online child protection hotline," as well a free filtering software, Australian IT reports. The Communications Ministry put the emphasis on the education part of the $99 million (US) program, saying parents will be able to call the hotline or visit the Web site "to get individual advice about online safety." There are hotlines in many other countries, but they focus largely on reporting child pornography. The Australian government is aiming to launch the hotline "in time for national child protection week, which begins September 7."