[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Americans overwhelmingly want Net-filters in schools

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Wed, 18 Oct 2000 11:57:13 -0400
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Americans overwhelmingly want Net-filters in schools
Copies to:      	dburt@n2h2.com
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

[David Burt is a longtime filtering advocate and current employee of a
filtering company. He might even be right: The geek community is
certainly aware of filtering software's problems (and has been for
well over four years, c.f.
http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/cwd.keys.to.the.k
ingdom.0796.article and efforts by groups like ifea.net). But that
doesn't seem to have had much of an effect -- or perhaps non-tech
parents weigh the costs and benefits of the blocking-sw equation
differently. --Declan]

**********

From: "David Burt" <dburt@n2h2.com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com>
Subject: 92% support filters in schools
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 08:46:20 -0700

Amazing, just amazing.  A massive, 3-year dis-information campaign
that "filters simply don't work" by the free speech groups and their
allies appears to have had *no effect at all* on public perceptions.

October 18, 2000
Survey Finds Support for School Filters
By REBECCA S. WEINER
<http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/18/technology/18EDUCATION.html>http://
www.nytimes.com/2000/10/18/technology/18EDUCATION.html 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------- The overwhelming majority of Americans say schools should
install filters to block students from accessing pornography and hate
speech, according to a new national survey commissioned by the Digital
Media Forum.

Ninety-two percent said pornography should be blocked on school
computers, while 79 percent said filters should be used to bar hate
speech, the survey of 1,900 individuals showed.

Filtering software and services block pre-selected Web sites with
certain characteristics, such as pornography, from an individual
user's Internet account. Some schools set up systems in which students
and teachers are given different levels of access depending on age
appropriateness. And companies like America Online offer software to
its subscribers that parents can use to block their children from
accessing inappropriate material online.

"The vast majority seem to accept filtering as a way of school life,"
said Andy Carvin, senior associate at Benton Foundation's
Communications Policy Practice The Washington, D.C.-based foundation
is a member of the Digital Media Forum, a consortium of six public
interest and consumer groups interested in media policy.

While 86 percent of the individuals surveyed this summer said they
believe the Internet would help their children learn more, and 95
percent said the Internet is vital for developing work skills, there
is still some trepidation about what materials students can access via
the medium. Seventy-six percent of respondents said "inappropriate
material" makes it more difficult to adopt the Internet in schools.


[...]

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