How to Avoid Offensive Internet Sites

TO: Students of South Carroll High School

RE: Offensive Sites on Internet

It is Carroll County Policy that use of the school Internet is a privilege not a right. If a student abuses that privilege one can expect to lose it.
Unfortunately students who use the school Internet for the purpose of education, and for researching approved school assignments may sometimes find themselves on offensive web sites by accident. A growing trend on the Internet is for companies to place distasteful material on seemingly innocent URLs. School computers do have filtering software that works to prevent and block unwanted Internet sites; however, more and more legitimate sites are becoming entwined with inappropriate links.

What should you do when you find yourself in this situation? If the site makes you feel uncomfortable, contains offensive language, or inappropriate pictures, follow these emergency action procedures:

1. If this occurs at school, immediately turn off your computer screen and alert the teacher or librarian. Please be mature when handling this issue. No need to call the entire class’s attention to this matter.

2. If working at home and no adult is available for assistance, hold down the ALT key and press F4. This closes the inappropriate window. In the case of multiple windows popping up, you can do this repeatedly and rapidly.

3. Watch out for the “Look for” button, as it is a button offering to sell domain names on some pornography/offensive sites. If you click on it, a screen will come up with a

form to fill out-- Don’t fill out the form. Just close the browser by clicking on the box in the upper right hand corner.

4. Make a note of the web address and have a parent report this deceiving web site to - The Online Internet Institute http://www.oii.org/html/report.html

This information and more can be found on this topic by visiting: The Online Internet Institute - http://oii.org/html/porn-napping.html