Banned websites day and thank you to NCTE

My friend Sara Kelly Johns reminded me yesterday:

So while yesterday was Banned Websites Awareness Day (that I like to think I had some influence in creating), my blog entry this year is a day late.

I've written for many years about how we need to pay more attention to intellectual freedom issues around the Internet. Banned books seem to somehow benefit from the label. Banned websites too often go simply inaccessible to kids. Access to both information and ideas and the ability to create and communicate information and ideas are important equity issues.

This year I was very pleased that NCTE reposted some writing of mine about how blocking social networking sites is a form of censorship and works as a means to disenfranchise the already disenfranchised. Please read:

Marginalizing the Marginalized with Internet Filtering, Literacy & NCTE blog, September 28, 2016.

While Internet filtering still does not get the scrutiny it deserves in too many schools (and we we give book censorship a whole week but webblocking only a day instead of a Blocked Bytes Week I am happy knowing organizations and individuals are fighting the good fight.

Just for the record, here's a list of other pieces I've written about Internet filtering:

• 7 myths about Internet Filtering Blue Skunk Blog, September 28, 2011.
• Are You Sure You Want an Internet Filter? Virtual Censorship is Still Censorship TechTrends, May/June 1998
• Backtalk letter in response to "Just Give It to Me Straight: A Case Against Filtering the Internet" PDK, 2004
• Best Practices for Meeting CIPA Requirements EdTech Magazine Q4, 2005
• Blocked Bytes Week Blue Skunk Blog, September, 2008
• Censorship by Omission Library Media Connection, January/February 2010
• Checking the Internet Filter Blue Skunk Blog, October 2, 2011.
• Creating High Temptation Environments Library Media Connection, Sept 2000
• The Engagement Filter Blue Skunk Blog, June 2007
• Filtering and Hyper-compliance Blue Skunk Blog, June 2010
• Filtering Fallacies Educational Leadership, December/January 2013
• Filtering Follies Education World, November, 2007
• Freedom and Filters The Book Report, 2003
• Freedom to Learn Library Media Connection, Jan/February 2012
• The Long-term Solution to Internet Blocking Problems Blue Skunk Blog, April 2006
• Maintaining Intellectual Freedom in a Filtered World Leading & Learning, May 2005
• The Neglected Side of Intellectual Freedom, Blue Skunk Blog, September 29, 2012.
• Why Facebook Belongs in Your School Educational Leadership, February 2014
• Why Filters Will Never Be Enough Blue Skunk Blog, November 2006
• Why Minnesota’s Children Need Access to the Internet Text of talk at a TIES meeting, 1994

Comments

[Mary Clark]

Thanks for this, Doug. I am going in circles with our district to open Pixabay. They've classified it as "adult art", even after I've sent comparisons of images I found on Google from student computers that are far more "adult" than anything on Pixabay! I will read through all the articles you've included here to bolster my case.

[Doug Johnson]

HI Mary,

From my book The Indispensable Librarian:

There are few situations more frustrating for a librarian than learning of an Internet resource or tool that would be of value to students but finding it blocked by the district. Here are some strategies for dealing with this problem:

Know and be able to articulate the educational value of the blocked site.
Be able to share examples of how librarians and teachers in other districts are using the resource.
Ask to have the resource provided on a limited basis – for a certain period of time or on specific computers. Report at the end of the test period if any problems were encountered and what uses students made of the resource.
Speak as a member of a group that wants the resource unblocked.
Know exactly who makes the filtering decisions in your district and if there is a formal process for getting a site unblocked.
Know local, state, and federal laws pertaining to filtering and student Internet access to avoid “hyper-compliance” by your district.
Communicate in writing your requests and responses when seeking to get a site unblocked. Always copy the supervisor of the decision-maker on all communications.
Seek to establish a formal review process for unblocking Internet resources or seek to have the reconsider policy in your district revised to cover online resources.
File a challenge on the resource to start the due-diligence process on school materials. (Yes, you can do this as a staff member.)
Don’t give up after the first denied request. Come back with other uses, examples, and partners. Sometime the squeaky wheel gets some grease.
Good luck!

Doug

[Mary Clark]

Ah, thanks, Doug! A great reminder that I could have referenced your book, which I can reach if I roll my chair back 2 feet:) I will get started today implementing a few of these strategies.

Mary