In conjunciton with Banned Books Week The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has designated September 28 as Banned Websites Awareness day. Internet filters, installed on many computers in schools and public libraries to filter out pornography and other materials deemed harmful to minors, can also block educational sites that prevent library users from finding information about such topics as breast cancer, or reproductive health. Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual and Transgendered (GLBT) youth sometimes discover that they cannot find positive, affirming sites on their school computers, which may have settings to block out all information regarding homosexuality or transgendered indivduals, or may only allow information about "reparative therapies" through. Because of a recent sutit by the ACLU several filtering companies have reset their "homosexuality" filters so that educational, and supportive content will be "unblocked" from internet searches. Find out more at
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/censorship-watch/filtering-companies-unblock-lgbt-sites-response-aclu-campaign
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/08172011/aclu-files-suit-missouri-over-blacklisted-lgbt-sites
Filters also prevent students from learning for themselves how to evaluate information and how to find appropriate materials for their own research.
Rep. Dick Armey learned that filters can make it difficult to find political web sites for certain people ;-)
ReplyDeleteWeb sites that protest corporations are subject to a different form of censorship, as the threat of lawsuits can make it difficult to hold on to high-profile domain names. WalmartSucks.com is a good example, as I mention on http://webhost.bridgew.edu/jhayesboh/badbusiness.html.