Adapted from a post on the Blue Skunk Blog.
By Doug Johnson
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 web blocking 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
This work used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.