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FC: Americans overwhelmingly want Net-filters in schools

------- 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]

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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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---------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------- | David Burt, Marketing Research Manager dburt@n2h2.com http://www.n2h2.com/ | | Intelligent Technologies For A Safe and Productive Internet | || Phone 206 892-1130 Fax: 509 271-4226 | |--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- | | Children's Software Revue Magazine Awards Filtered Search Engine Its Only | | Five Star Rating To N2H2's http://www.searchopolis.com | | #1 Ranked Kids Search Engine for Second Straight Year. | |--------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------

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