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" The suit is part of a campaign by ACLU to pressure school districts to loosen their filtering software."
"ACLU says that because the school system is using a filtering program that screens out sites under a "sexuality" category, dozens of legitimate websites dealing with gay and lesbian issues are kept off limits to students. While ACLU officials say the school system is in its right to block pornography and other sexually explicit sites, they say the "sexuality" filter goes too far."
I think the school district is attempting to protect the children from accessing this type of information and I applaud them for it:
"Facebook kids campaign links to 'full frontal nudity"
"A Facebook page set up to promote homosexuality to children through the "Day of Silence" organized by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network – which was founded by President Obama's Office of Safe Schools chief Kevin Jennings – has scrubbed its site of links to pornography after several Web-savvy organizations revealed the offending offerings."
"...some of the links on the Facebook page promoting the pro-homosexual "Day of Silence," scheduled for Friday by activist organizations operating in public schools across the nation, linked to homosexual "hookup" websites."
"Some of those sites contained images of fully nude individuals."
Here's Columbia University's, "Go Ask Alice" website that comes up when you type in "sexuality," which it sounds like the ACLU is fighting for our school kids to be able to access. Do our school children really need to spend their time learning about sexual fetishes, etc.?
Do we really need or want our children accessing these sites in school?
I don't care if its hetero or homosexuality, if its inappropriate, its inappropriate. The school district has reportedly already lifted filtering to allow for some anti-bullying sites to be accessed; but is holding firm on the filter for sexuality. Hope the school wins this. I am not a fan of censorship except when it comes to protecting children.
Malware can redirect you from any site to any site. If your security isn't up to date or you don't follow security procedures, it makes you even more vulnerable.
Sites that were once safe can turn dangerous before you realize it. That it is done to kids is unfortunate, Not only do filters need to be tightened up in school, but so does following or reconfiguring the established security procedures.
So today, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of four of the organizations whose sites are being blocked by the district's filter: PFLAG National (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gays), the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic LGBT organization. At the same time, the filter does not block access to comparable anti-LGBT websites that address that discuss the same topics. Our lawsuit charges that Camdenton's web filter violates the First Amendment.
If they block LGBT support sites while allowing ant-LGBT sites, they are in the wrong. They either need to block them all, or stop blocking the support sites.
Access is important in schools because many kids either do not have internet access at home, or are afraid to access LGBT sites at home. I'm straight, but my own mother told me that she'd disown me if I turned out to be gay. The internet didn't really exist when I was a kid, but I am quite sure I'd have been severely chastised for looking at such material. Considering what I went through for other reasons, I'd have been absolutely terrified had I been gay.
school will lose this one. ACLU filed a lawsuit against libraries and won, claiming you should be able to view porn, since they were taxpayer funded. If you can view porn, you can view gay advocacy sights.
The question is, how does the filter work? If they just plugged in "sexuality" or something, and the software is doing the blocking, then it's nothing really that the school did.
At first I thought this was a stupid lawsuit b/c I figured it was a college so they shouldn't be putting a filter on it anyway, but now I see it's a public school system so yeah, I agree with the filter. Perhaps it needs to be tweaked, though. They should be allowing these types of sites to be accessed but just b/c they can't currently be accessed doesn't mean there is some kind of evil motive behind the school putting the filter there, which seems to be the assumption.
The question is, how does the filter work? If they just plugged in "sexuality" or something, and the software is doing the blocking, then it's nothing really that the school did.
At first I thought this was a stupid lawsuit b/c I figured it was a college so they shouldn't be putting a filter on it anyway, but now I see it's a public school system so yeah, I agree with the filter. Perhaps it needs to be tweaked, though. They should be allowing these types of sites to be accessed but just b/c they can't currently be accessed doesn't mean there is some kind of evil motive behind the school putting the filter there, which seems to be the assumption.
The problem is that they were asked to fix it, and refused.
I don't care if its hetero or homosexuality, if its inappropriate, its inappropriate. The school district has reportedly already lifted filtering to allow for some anti-bullying sites to be accessed; but is holding firm on the filter for sexuality. Hope the school wins this. I am not a fan of censorship except when it comes to protecting children.
Protecting children from seeing pictures of naked bodies? That would put a big crimp in biology instruction, wouldn't it?
I'm not sure how I feel about the legal issues in the case and whether a lawsuit is justified here; school boards must have some latitude to make even silly decisions where it's not a matter of students' civil rights being violated. But the claim that it's for the protection of children from seeing something terrible seems pretty lame.
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