Censorship In Schools

[sportman]

I am conducting this poll for my Writing For College class and need this information to help me with my research paper on Internet Censorship in schools. If possible voice your opinion on the topic as well.

 

Thanks,

Sportman

[semthex]

It'S worth a promotion. Censorship is bad and should be stopped.

 

I advertised your survey on my blog to aid your collage dutys a bit :-)

 

http://semthex.freeflux.net/blog/

[mifki]

Censorship is bad, but when the school/institution at which you attend provides internet for a purpose (studying etc. etc.) i think that they have the right to filter it as most kids will just play games, download pr0n or torrents instead of using it for its real intention. Anyways its not hard to get past it if you really want to

[jgrimes80]

The only time I wouldn't permit the censorship of the internet is if I was the one paying for it.

 

If someone else is providing it, there is no reason to ever complain. I'd even permit complete recording all activity on computers at school: Emails, internet, papers etc. It shouldn't be a problem. If it is, I'm inclined to believe you're not using it for it's provided intentions.

 

It's just like having cameras in a liquor store... or police cruising residential areas...

[gwprod12]

Well, I AM paying for my internet access at school. They tack on a fee for every credit I take. ;-p

[sportman]

Well I agree it should be censored my main arguement for my paper is to what extent it should be sensored. It is sensored to the point where my teachers are getting fed up. My science teacher the other day tried showing us a web page on fermentation and it comes up blocked for alcohol. Also my high school has a DECA club and the New York DECA (Business Club) Web site was somehow blocked for pornagraphy. In my research paper I am going to suggest new ideas to improve the current systems. The insanely mac web page is also blocked on our web filter along with any online email systems. This is extremely upsetting when doing a school project or report and you need to register with certain web sites such as an online bibliography tool, because students need to wait until they get home to verify their registration.

[mifki]

Well some filters are just stupid, the teachears should be able to change them, or bypass them, i remember google was blocked once but pinkpornstars and illusionarys.com wasn't. The teachers should have a override password

[gwprod12]

Sounds like a lot of abuse by students. LOL

[sportman]

yea i am basically talking of things like that, it needs to be changed cause the filters in places at a lot of schools are really stupid. Improvements need to be made on the systems, basically thats the direction i want to go in. im not saying all censorship is bad just internet filters need to be improved a lot.

[gwprod12]

I dont think public schools have any obligation to provide their students with uncensored materials. However, there should be a way for a teacher to bypass filtering.

[sportman]

I agree, especially when the materials being blocked are educational. It is really getting frustraiting.

[killbot1000]

I think censorship in schools is just irrelevant. If the kid is smart, they WILL get around the filter. If the kid is dumb, well...they're dumb so theres nothing you can do. You just punish them if you find out they aren't doing their work....Simple. Popping up to a porn page or an alcohol page isn't going to scar them for life hahah.

[AppleLegal]

Cant get around all filtering software. Look up Websense Enterprise for example.

 

Oh, and to answer poll's, yes schools should filter the internet but not using whitelists that are overly restrictive. It works in my school. I know that because i havent figured out how to disable it yet, only bypassing it using VNC or an ssh tunnel.

[bwhsh8r]

hidemyass.com and affiliates in fact, any proxy will do....

 

and quote "jgrimes80" or police cruising residential areas...

 

 

i hate that.... i hate that.... i hate that

[kevin_4e]

I can understand a lot of what they block (ie. MySpace, AddictingGames, etc.) but they miss a lot of stuff they should and block a lot of stuff I still have no clue why. For example, Ask.com is blocked at my school. If Ask is blocked, then why is google allowed along with Yahoo? Google Images is also blocked which makes it difficult for any project and teachers would even agree. Reluctantly there's about a million google sites not blocked (google.uk, .ie, and so on). Some of the most obvious sites they don't block are YouTube and AIM. That's used by many but not blocked. Anyways, those are my thoughts.

 

Also, on a site like hidemy ass, is there a way to incorporate that into your own site? I wasn't sure.

[wildcat69410]

At local schools, the kids seemed to get around it by writing their own program that takes a web address, and then gives them an IP address in return. As the web blocking program the county uses only blocks site addresses, they're able to insert the IP addresses and avoid the blacklisted sites. Of course, the guy got caught big time, but he was big friends with the County Webmaster, who had the whole thing conveniently "erased".

 

Guy's a genius though, broke into the school system once and altered grades for fun. He also inserted a virus once just before progress reports were due, shut down the entire system, and delayed it for a few days. Of course, now every single computer problem in the school is instantly attached to him, so his infamy is a little bit problematic at times.

[gwprod12]

Script-kiddie bs. A friend of mine got arrested by the FBI for just such shenanigans.

 

EDIT: Though, I should qualify. He was using his script-kiddie bs on government servers.