Re: filtering and anarchy

[Nancy Willard <nwillard@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>]

Here is the category description from the company:

Anarchy: Sites contain information regarding militias, weapons,
anti-government groups, terrorism, overthrowing of the government, killing
methods, etc.

The company is 8e6 Technologies. You can look at all of their category
descriptions at
http://www.8e6technologies.com/statistics/8e6categories.html.

This is but one of the issues about these products that concerns me. The
company is including sites that  none of the folks on this list would want
kids to be looking at "killing methods" in the same category as political
protest sites that I think students ought to be able to access.

Based on the company's description wouldn't the US Declaration of
Independence and Bush's arguments for regime change in Iraq meet the
criteria for blocking? If not, why not? And if not, what is the criteria for
deciding what sites are to be blocked?

If a tech director is making this call, what would it be -- block this
category or not?

Here is another example:

Sex Education / Sexuality
Sites dealing with topics in human sexuality. Includes sexual technique,
sexual orientation, cross-dressing, transvestites, transgenders,
multiple-partner relationships, and other related issues.

This is Symantec's category. The URL is unmanageable. But go to their search
site http://www.symantec.com/search/iatoc  and type in "content categories."
Do you see the issues this raises for schools. So does a district block nor
block this category. Certainly sites on sexual technique and swinging are
not appropriate for students. But to limit access to these, you are also
blocking access to sites on sexual orientation. I have screen shots of
I-Gear blocking access to GLSEN and GLAAD in this category (they may have
changed this because I have publicized this information).

If a tech director is making this call, what would it be -- block this
category or not?

Nancy

Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.

Center for Advanced Technology in Education
University of Oregon, College of Education
E-mail: nwillard@oregon.uoregon.edu
URL: http://netizen.uoregon.edu

Responsible Netizen Institute
URL:http://responsiblenetizen.org

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