Actually, the local news stations are reporting that this is the coldest winter in Beijing in five decades. My previous trip to China was this past summer, and it was warm, very warm. I did quite a bit of sightseeing then, but virtually no Web browsing. It was good that I took advantage of the warm weather then, I would not like to try any sightseeing this week!

So here I am back in my Beijing hotel room staying warm and catching-up on my email and browsing the Internet; but as I browse the World Wide Web, I realize just how heavily filtered it is! And, I’d imagine that the filters are closely monitored; so I’m not going to test the Chinese filtering system and see where I can and can’t go-to! I wonder just how effective the hardware/software filter is and, I assume, there is also a very effective human filter/monitoring! Needless to say, I did not field test the effectiveness of the human filter!

What problem does filtering attempt to solve in that country, and does the policy solve the problem?

The Chinese, the Saudis, and we Americans have identified a ‘problem’ and enacted policy to deal with it. But I wondered how the answers to my questions vary from one country to another.

It seems to me that the goal of filtering is to keep people from accessing something on a Web site or restricting email. In certain countries in the world, the goal of filtering is to keep the average citizens from accessing non-government approved material for various reasons. In these countries, their policy is directly aligned with their goal. These countries identified their ‘problem’ and then enacted and deployed policy that deals with the ‘problem’ very effectively.

The goal of filtering in the USA is to keep children from coming into contact with ‘harmful’ material and/or ‘harmful’ people. I’m sure that we are all very much in favor of keeping bad things and bad people away from children. But I wonder just how effective our policy is and how effective our hardware/software filters are. The question is: Does our policy directly align with its goal?

Certainly the difficulty in solving the problem of contact with inappropriate people/material may be vested in the effectiveness of the filters themselves and not in the policy. I wondered about this; I wondered if the policy – deploying hardware/software filters – is THE solution. Certainly it helps alleviate the problem of children coming into contact with inappropriate material. Filters are a good thing; a very good thing actually. But it seems to me that filters have given us a false sense of security. It seems to me that filters and the policy they have engendered have furthered the illusion that filters insulate children from inappropriate material, and that they are THE solution. It seems to me that filters are like shark repellant; they don’t really work. It seems to me that we have neglected our responsibility to educate the children about the dangers of Web browsing and Internet. It seems to me that the ‘cure’ is misdirected and creates a more challenging educational environment than it should!

In a recent posting to the Teachers.Net Internet Security and Safety Chatboard, Bert wrote:

“I am not sure just what the school uses for the entire system. I do know it is basically useless though. The kids use circumventors to get around it to get to whatever they want to get to. And it stops them from doing actual research on school subjects.”

In another Internet Security and Safety chat board posting, newazsub bemoans that fact that:

“Websense wont let me on Teachers.Net's main teacher chatboard (it says it’s a chatroom and I am not allowed to go there), BUT it will let me onto every other board.”

So, given all this, it does not seem that the goal is to protect children!

To me it seems that we view filters as THE solution. But I wonder WHAT filters are THE solution for? I wonder what problem they solve? The Chinese government, the Saudi Arabian government, and the US government have identified their ‘problems’ and have implemented policy to deal with then. If the filter is THE solution to the US ‘problem’, we in the USA, seem to have misidentified the ‘problem’! In the USA, filtering seems to actually be THE solution that protects the school administration and teachers from blame. Thus the USA-identified ‘problem’ is that school/teachers may be held legally liable or just may be the focus of an irate parent.

I believe that having a policy where students and parents must sign Internet use forms without providing education to the students about the dangers of the Internet, just serves to insulate the school from blame. That is not altogether a really bad idea. But without an aggressive program that addresses the dangers of the Internet and Web, signing Internet use forms solves only the problem of parents taking action against the school.

RESOURCES

SafetyNet provides user-friendly guidelines for guarding a child's online adventures: http://www.kidshield.com/safetynet/index.htm

Protecting Children on the Internet: Learn about the risks of cyberspace and how to protect your family with sound Internet safety practices. http://www.family.org/entertainment/A000000935.cfm

Protecting Your Children On The Internet: A good site to visit to learn more about protecting children on the Internet is http://www.protectkids.com. It's full of great information every parent and teacher: also see http://www.defendingthenet.com/Articles/ProtectYourChildrenOnTheInternet.htm

How to Protect Your Children on the Internet: A Road Map for Parents and Teachers (Hardcover book) http://www.amazon.com/How-Protect-Your-Children-Internet/dp/0275994724

A Journey into Cyberspace Protecting Children on the Internet The Internet — good or bad? This site lists some websites that will help you learn more about the problems associated with Internet use by children. http://www.focusonyourchild.com/learning/art1/A0000086.html

Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace http://www.protectkids.com/kidsonline/endorse.html

Teachers.Net Internet Security & Safety Chatboard http://teachers.net/mentors/internet_security

Teachers.Net Computer Teachers' Chatboard http://teachers.net/mentors/computers/

Teachers.Net Tech Coordinators Chatboard http://teachers.net/mentors/tech-coordinators/

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