Censorware vs. Blogs
The following Blocked by Bess (a censorware program) blog story is thought-provoking in a subtle way:
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Blocked by BessI work for a school district in PA and recently alot of the students have been able to blog in school. Apparently the Network Administrator has picked up on it because any and all blogs including Yahoo photo's, Flickr, and a host of others are now blocked by Bess, our filter. I won't be able to update from work anymore which really bites. Now I will have to fight over the computer that is connected to my cable modem. ...
posted by Gabby at 12:22 PM
Note this is not really a case of wrong blacklists. Here, the intent of the authorities is to forbid blogs, and that's what being blacklisted.
Rather, the problem is the peer-to-peer issue, appearing in a censorware vs. blogs conflict. If you let students freely communicate with each other (e.g. on blogs) ... they are going to talk to each other about matters that the authorities might not want them to talk about. So no blogs allowed.
Maybe it's considered a "resources" issue here rather than a "harm" issue. That would be more palatable reason for the constraint. Still, somehow, I think the blog promoters are going to have a hard time in this context. Imagine if this was taking place in a foreign country.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware | on April 05, 2005 12:56 AM (Infothought permalink)
If you let students freely communicate with each other (e.g. on blogs) ... they are going to talk to each other about matters that the authorities might not want them to talk about. So no blogs allowed.
I'm not sure that I buy this... if the school administrators were really going to act on such a motivation they would need control over students' web access 24/7; otherwise little Jane and little Johnny would go home and post to LiveJournal from their bedrooms (or send photos to Flickr from their phones while riding the bus home, even), and the whole thing would be moot.
The "resources" explanation makes a little more sense, but frankly I'm inclined to chalk this up to someone's idea of what is and isn't appropriate in a school environment; I think many school administrators lack any useful experience with anything resembling blogging technology and so view it simply as a high-tech way of passing notes.
Which it is, of course. Seth-- I can't cut French class today, since I since I need to translate this from my Quebecois pen-pal.
You didn't copy the the the most insightful part of her post: "Teenagers really suck!" She forgot to link to what our fellow-blogger Bill Maher blogged on April Fool's on Salon: Abstinence pledges suck -- literally. The shame, no comments to this poor woman's blog. Suppose we tip Jarvis off to this gross injustice?
Ok, maher's not a blogger, but he'll be retroactively called one by the end of the year.
James, I'm not pounding the table (or Jon, on Jarvis' gate) because indeed, from such a small quote, the exact reason could be argued. But I think there are some aspects here which will re-occur, the P2P issues. Of course school administrators can't control what happens outside of school. But as it becomes easier to do "electronic note passing", I suspect we're going to see more of these sorts of disputes. This is why I think it's a much more subtle issue than a wrong blacklist, basically again the peer-to-peer issue.
I'm surprised at the amount of people who have found my comments to be so thought provoking. As I am sitting here at work (looking for ways to get around the Bess filter), I accidentally came across your blog. Thanks for the quote. I thought that I was going to pass out from a spike in my blood pressure. Kudos for the rise.