Intellectual Freedom essays

Intellectual Freedom essays Many parents feel that Internet filtering by programs such as BESS really do work effectively. However, by blocking information from reaching students by means of an automated filter may actually cause more harm than good. Teachers have forgotten their duty to supervise students while they use the Internet. Many students often try to "press the limits" of the filter and try to gain access to topics that are normally filtered, such as pornography. One student who attends a school district other than Pasco County has told me "students now go into the library and try to access pornographic sites seeing how many are not blocked. The librarians have relaxed a bit now and do not actively supervise students, since they believe the filter stops access to such sites. Today, more students access pornographic sites from school than before BESS was installed, just because they want to prove that they can. It is funny how before we had BESS, nobody ever dared to go to a pornographic site." The same thing happens here in Pasco County. Not only do students try to access pornographic and adult content knowing that it is against the "Acceptable Use Policy" (AUP), but they also break that same AUP by accessing content such as jokes, online video games, online clothing stores, etc. One incident regarding the blocked category of lingerie now comes to mind. A few weeks back I was in my Web Design class with two girls who were looking at clothing that they liked, online. They did not know that they were accessing a site that BESS should have blocked, because it did not do its job. An incredible number of educational sites are blocked by BESS for a varierty of reasons. N2H2, the creators of BESS, has publicly stated, "Our staff of 100+ Human Web Reviewers personally examines every site we categorize." Yet, students can still access pornographic sites through BESS and are then denied access to very educational sites. This is no surprise consider...