Mindy Lawson

SLM 521

03/28/04

Elective # 8 - Filtering

PROS

1. According to the argument used in the March 5, 2003 Supreme Court review of the earlier Court’s decision, the filtering required for computer use in public libraries, including public schools, only filters material which would be deemed inappropriate for use in the traditional library mediums.

2. You can go to http://www.solidoak.com/

and get filtering that can control how long someone is allowed online at a time. This could be great for a house with teenagers.

3. Filtering software and sites are easily accessible. You can find many sites on the web who are dedicated to keeping our children safe.

4. Many ISP’s have built in protection for filtering which can be easily turned on and off or set for different family members.

5. I use kid-oriented search engines when working with my kindergartner online because I would not want to have things pop up on my screen that he is just not ready for yet. So there are good uses for filtering.

CONS

1. According to the same argument, libraries have no way of keeping track or knowing what they are blocking. There is no one there to watch and say “Wait a minute, we should not have blocked that site.”

2 With so many internet filtering software choices, how can you make sure you are getting the right one.

3. Often parents rely so heavily on someone else watching over their kids, filtering is just another way for parents to not be involved in things with their children.

4. Some sites may be blocked for the wrong reasons. For example, students learn about cancer in high school, including breast and testicular. They may have trouble accessing sites about these diseases if the filtering does not let these words through.

5. If you have a smart enough or computer-literate teenager, they can probably get around some of the filtering designed to protect them. (Maybe not at school but more at home.)