should internet access be censored or limited in schools?

This thread/poll was inspired in a way by a few posts made in the Site Announcements forum among other places about schools limiting access to the internet, specifically certain pages.

To be honest, I'm kind of neutral to the whole subject, but just wondering how you felt? I thought this forum would be a great place to place just a poll... you can vote for more than one if you wish!

 

None of the above options. There should be one for fuck the goverment and parents and all them chodes. I'll use internets where I want.

 

I think it should be limited (to ensure security of the equipment that the provider is responsible for) but not censored for content. The ONLY effect content filter is a deny all except list solution anyway.

 

Well, the title of this thread is 'should internet access be censored or limited in schools?' The problem is, that's not really what the debate is about. It's not about whether access should be censored or limited-it's about passing a law that says what kids can and can't see on the internet while they're in school, and putting people (i.e, school officials) in jail if they violate it-and then create a bigger government bureacracy to enforce it. That's what it's really about-federal control, getting more and more pervasive, over exactly how we live our lives. If an individual school wants to make a policy about that, fine. But to have the federal government tell every school in the country exactly what they can access on the internet, and then put people in jail (don't worry, it'll happen) if they don't comply; it's just more creeping government control over how we live our lives. Screw the government.

 

my school already censors content on the computers. its not as bad as in gradeschool though

 

I put no, but I think the filter should at least block out porn, because I remember kids in highschool always trying.

 

I think that the schools have the right to censor it

 

Board of Education v. Pico

Go learn about this case.

 

i think that certain sites such as myspace should be blocked because kids have the tendencies to check it during school and it wastes peoples time.

 

I think yes, internet access should be majorly limited at all schools, even universities. Not because I think the government should be doing babysitting for the parents, or censoring what information they see. My kids are homeschooled, I don't believe in letting the government "educate" my children, much less take care of them every day and tell them what to do and how to act. My problem with internet access in schools has more to do with the underlying issues like children seeing advertisements on websites when they are so very impressionable. But mostly it's because of all the kiddie porn being spread around by people using university or other public computers, one case in particular, right here in my hometown, a man I used to know very well.

I think the use of school computers should be limited to only research, the sorts of things we used to have to do with periodical indexes and card catalogs.

 

i dont think that they should take it that far
i think in elementary school they should block the porn sites and social networking ,same with middle school

in high school only the social networking sites should be blocked

and in universites everything should be open, theres no reason to block anything consitering a large about of the internet kids use in there dorms is the universites internet, and anyways you can just use a proxie server to get around blocked pages.

 

if the school is paying for the internet, the school gets to decide what level of access is available. If you pay for your own internet, you can do what you want. There are many valid reasons to limit access.

 

I don't allow my kids to have access to inappropriate material while their minds are so impressionable and I want everyone who is at any time responsible for them to prevent them from viewing any sources of inappropriate material.

It has nothing to do with parenting. I can teach my kids not to look at something, but if they do a search for something innocent for research and something else comes up, or there are ads with sexual images on the site they are viewing, then the child ends up viewing something he hasnt even looked for.
One twisted image can be seared into an innocent mind at such an age that they will have hang-ups in adult hood.

 

Nothing should be censored.

If schools don't want kids accessing certain sites, they shouldn't provide the internet - or should provide it on a supervised and limited basis.

 

my thoughts exactly!

 

I picked undecided. I don't know if I can add much to the discussion, all I can say is I was pretty naive as a child, and uncensored use of the internet whilst I was growing up taught me things which I value highly now, even if I lost a little innocence in the proccess. Is that a good or bad thing...? I don't know. But I'm pretty damn sure my neither my parents nor school teachers would have taught me those things, and considering there are some kids who don't have access to the internet any other times..

maybe it shouldn't be censored at schools, or if it is, I think they should censor porn sites (yeah, I can see some sort of benefit but that should be in private lol) and NOT points of view or outlets like myspace or forums, that they might not otherwise have access to.

 

I picked "Yes, in all schools."
with the reasoning being that today, kids are not monitored as they should be while on the computer/internet at home.
Unless the parents have completely locked down their computer to prevent unexpected trips to porn land, or anything else kids shouldn't see at a young age, typing in a simple sentence or a word in fact, will take them there!

I don't feel that the teachers, who are already under paid, should have to monitor what the kids pull up on the internet PLUS have to monitor the kids, what and how they say something to the kids and how they teach.

I go on about this because my wife teaches at a pre-school and, with the state laws being what they are, she can get fired and fined just for using a wrong word. Not mentioning a lawsuit against the school itself if the parents are in a pissy mood.

Monitoring of the internet should be left up to the parents, not the schools.
I don't want my kid coming home and telling me about the pictures she saw while doing a search for the book "Little Women."

 

Theres pretty good reason to keep out pornographic websites out of schools, however internet filters don't work very well at all.

Consequently, they filter off lots of websites that shouldn't be (even news websites), and many websites that you'd want to keep out can be. You can always get around them very easily anyway.

I agree with Xaosflux, the web should be filtered to protect the servers, but not for content.

The lady who says universites should be filtered is bat shit crazy.

Whoops, no hipforums for the kids.

 

You all talk about free speech and the like. But, I can tell you from experience that the internet provides many distractions for students, and last time I checked, kids using the internet at school is for work, not for hipforums.com. They can access that at home, or at the library.

 

I teach computer technology at an elementary school. Supervision doesn't work because you have 15 kids on 15 different computers. By the time a picture of a woman having sex with a dog pops up (yes that has happened), the damage is done. These kids are between the ages of 5-11. I think the sites should be limited to educational sites with special access for the students between 9-11 to specific news sites.

It is ESSENTIAL that schools provide access to the Internet. This is the way research is done in the real world. Children need to learn how to evaluate the reliability of a web site. Lesson plans and homework are being accessed and turned in via the web. Encylcopedias have online links that ensure that the information is current.

I do NOT think that public libraries in any way should censor but elementary school ones need to. However, the librarian should be able to override any block.