Comment Filtering *NEEDED* for public education (Score 1) 339
I generally find these anti-censorship threads boring, because they end up being long rants by wankers worried about the loss of easy access to their free porn and movies. In this context, "free speech" is usually just camouflage for "free porn".
If you really want to worry about "free speech", go post in some threads about Google and China! Or, go blog about the US "Fairness Doctrine". Both topics offer you an opportunity to rant about political censorship pure and simple, with no subterranean porn issues.
Nevertheless, let me say I don't care that much about porn, per se. If you want to watch porn on your home or office PC (as long as MY tax dollars aren't paying for it) till you have a right arm the size of a pro wrestlers and a pecker so calloused it's always hard . . . have at it! It's no worse than spending your life on Warcraft or a some redneck virtual football pool.
But, this kind of filtering matters for reasons most of you wankers miss: its absence totally cripples the use of computers in public schools!
Public schools -- at least in the US -- specialize in educating kids whose parents don't give a sh$$, but who will $ue at the drop of a hat. Teachers, and especially administrators, live in terror of Johnny Pervert pulling up Wikipedia's illustrated pages on pornography. Johnny Pervert may see his mom or 'aunt' screwing around with 'Uncle Bob' at home, or may leaf through Hustler on his weekends with Dad, and nobody gives a sh$$. But mom is likely to become "upset -- just totally upset" if he sees a pecker or pu##-E on a PC at school. And she's likely to stay outraged till there's a school board hearing and hush-up settlement involving $$$. At that point, either the administrator or teacher or possibly both will be unemployed, and possibly sued or charged with a crime.
At least, that's what the teachers and admins believe -- and act upon -- thanks to some highly public cases and news accounts.
As a result, PCs at schools -- elementary through high school in my school district -- are so restricted and filtered as to be useless. They essentially have no internet access, except maybe to National Geography, Discovery Kids and the like.
I have to laugh, every time some PC industry titan, like Gates or Cuban, pontificates about needed more technology in schools. It's a big joke, because you until you give EVERY student one, PCs have to be used for largely unsupervised activities like research or using targeted programs for reading, math or typing. Because these activities have to be somewhat unsupervised -- since the REST of the class is doing something else -- teachers don't want, and won't use more PCs. They can sort of keep an eye on 2 or 3, while teaching the class, but they can't keep up with 6 or 8.
The bottom line here is simple: until you can find a way to keep PCs from being a threat to teacher's and admin's jobs, all the talk of technology in the schools will remain just talk, no matter how many millions or billions you spend. Even teachers with AOL level tech skills can find the off-switch!
In order for them to be able to use 6 or 8 PCs, they HAVE to have reliable and trusted filtering. It's doesn't have to let everything good through, it just has to keep almost everything bad out. AND -- and this is VERY, VERY important -- it has to be provided by someone official enough to create a high CYA factor. That is, if Johnny Pervert does manage to show Cindy Angel a stiff pecker, the classroom teacher has to be able to SUCCESSFULLY defend him or herself by saying, "But, we've been told we could trust the filter -- after all it's provided by the GOVERNMENT!"
Almost by definition, a private company's filter is useless for this purpose -- unless it's PERFECT -- because it will NOT be effective at protecting the teacher or administrator. At the outside, a private filter -- selected by the school board -- will only move blame from the teacher to the board . . . and THAT is NOT going to happen. By contrast, a STATE or NATIONAL government filter will move blame to the amorphous government bureaucracy. In the US, filter failures may lead to hearings in state or national legislative bodies, but the lawsuits will be stifled and the teachers and admins can continue to work, largely unmolested.
So, all you wankers, piss off!
If you want your porn, fight for the right to acquire an adult registration that will allow you sign in and bypass the filter. But, let the states build a mostly effective filter that will keep students and government workers focused on the work at hand, rather than constantly trying to surreptitiously handle their work! And, let them build a filter 'agency' that will get the blame, when Johnny bypasses the system, so the teachers and admins can effectively CYA, and be enabled to view PCs as something other than a constant thread to their jobs!
PS. The ability to bypass such systems is highly overstated. Relatively few public school wankers have those sort of skills -- and hardly any elementary school students do. Implementing a punitive "sign in as yourself or else" Internet access policy beginning at middle school is not hard to do, using a drop-in Linux box running Squid, sarg and iptables with ipset. A government filter agency could provide these cheaply to schools. And, those few computer weenies who could get around the system would mostly 'Just say No!' if they knew they were risking a transfer to the local "District Attendance Center", where they'd share a classroom with all the hardcore hoods in their district!
If you really want to worry about "free speech", go post in some threads about Google and China! Or, go blog about the US "Fairness Doctrine". Both topics offer you an opportunity to rant about political censorship pure and simple, with no subterranean porn issues.
Nevertheless, let me say I don't care that much about porn, per se. If you want to watch porn on your home or office PC (as long as MY tax dollars aren't paying for it) till you have a right arm the size of a pro wrestlers and a pecker so calloused it's always hard . . . have at it! It's no worse than spending your life on Warcraft or a some redneck virtual football pool.
But, this kind of filtering matters for reasons most of you wankers miss: its absence totally cripples the use of computers in public schools!
Public schools -- at least in the US -- specialize in educating kids whose parents don't give a sh$$, but who will $ue at the drop of a hat. Teachers, and especially administrators, live in terror of Johnny Pervert pulling up Wikipedia's illustrated pages on pornography. Johnny Pervert may see his mom or 'aunt' screwing around with 'Uncle Bob' at home, or may leaf through Hustler on his weekends with Dad, and nobody gives a sh$$. But mom is likely to become "upset -- just totally upset" if he sees a pecker or pu##-E on a PC at school. And she's likely to stay outraged till there's a school board hearing and hush-up settlement involving $$$. At that point, either the administrator or teacher or possibly both will be unemployed, and possibly sued or charged with a crime.
At least, that's what the teachers and admins believe -- and act upon -- thanks to some highly public cases and news accounts.
As a result, PCs at schools -- elementary through high school in my school district -- are so restricted and filtered as to be useless. They essentially have no internet access, except maybe to National Geography, Discovery Kids and the like.
I have to laugh, every time some PC industry titan, like Gates or Cuban, pontificates about needed more technology in schools. It's a big joke, because you until you give EVERY student one, PCs have to be used for largely unsupervised activities like research or using targeted programs for reading, math or typing. Because these activities have to be somewhat unsupervised -- since the REST of the class is doing something else -- teachers don't want, and won't use more PCs. They can sort of keep an eye on 2 or 3, while teaching the class, but they can't keep up with 6 or 8.
The bottom line here is simple: until you can find a way to keep PCs from being a threat to teacher's and admin's jobs, all the talk of technology in the schools will remain just talk, no matter how many millions or billions you spend. Even teachers with AOL level tech skills can find the off-switch!
In order for them to be able to use 6 or 8 PCs, they HAVE to have reliable and trusted filtering. It's doesn't have to let everything good through, it just has to keep almost everything bad out. AND -- and this is VERY, VERY important -- it has to be provided by someone official enough to create a high CYA factor. That is, if Johnny Pervert does manage to show Cindy Angel a stiff pecker, the classroom teacher has to be able to SUCCESSFULLY defend him or herself by saying, "But, we've been told we could trust the filter -- after all it's provided by the GOVERNMENT!"
Almost by definition, a private company's filter is useless for this purpose -- unless it's PERFECT -- because it will NOT be effective at protecting the teacher or administrator. At the outside, a private filter -- selected by the school board -- will only move blame from the teacher to the board . . . and THAT is NOT going to happen. By contrast, a STATE or NATIONAL government filter will move blame to the amorphous government bureaucracy. In the US, filter failures may lead to hearings in state or national legislative bodies, but the lawsuits will be stifled and the teachers and admins can continue to work, largely unmolested.
So, all you wankers, piss off!
If you want your porn, fight for the right to acquire an adult registration that will allow you sign in and bypass the filter. But, let the states build a mostly effective filter that will keep students and government workers focused on the work at hand, rather than constantly trying to surreptitiously handle their work! And, let them build a filter 'agency' that will get the blame, when Johnny bypasses the system, so the teachers and admins can effectively CYA, and be enabled to view PCs as something other than a constant thread to their jobs!
PS. The ability to bypass such systems is highly overstated. Relatively few public school wankers have those sort of skills -- and hardly any elementary school students do. Implementing a punitive "sign in as yourself or else" Internet access policy beginning at middle school is not hard to do, using a drop-in Linux box running Squid, sarg and iptables with ipset. A government filter agency could provide these cheaply to schools. And, those few computer weenies who could get around the system would mostly 'Just say No!' if they knew they were risking a transfer to the local "District Attendance Center", where they'd share a classroom with all the hardcore hoods in their district!
