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Filtering's Effect on Ed Publishers: Not MuchJanuary 2001 ? Many feel the new Internet filtering requirement attached to December's last-minute education budget agreement (see AEP Online 12/19) would present an unnecessary burden for schools and libraries that receive federal funds. The Consortium for School Networking opposed the Children's Internet Protection Act, and the American Civil Liberties Union has announced it will file suit to stop it. But even when the Federal Communications Commission issues its formal rule on the Act, expected in April, what potential difference would that make for publishers? Common sense dictates it wouldn't make much -- as educational sites are unlikely to be barred -- and at least one expert on the subject agrees. "I would not anticipate that there would be very much content that would be blocked, in educational publishing," says Sara Fitzgerald, an education consultant who serves as project director for CoSN's "Safeguarding the Wired Schoolhouse" project. She adds it might be a good idea, though, for publishers to try experimenting with various filtering products, to see the results: "What might occasionally come up is, where a Web-based publication is hosted by a particular ISP, some sites are blocked because the filtering company decides that the ISP itself has hosted some questionable sites, and isn't analyzing them closely." (Apart from filtering, schools and libraries are also required to "adopt and implement" a policy that addresses issues including privacy -- but these specifics mirror those already included in the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.) Many filtering companies start with artificial intelligence ("spiders," employing key words, addresses, etc., that go out and find potentially questionable sites) and then use human review to make determinations about who will be blocked for a particular client, given its criteria. Some would allow each school or library to define various subgroups of users: Does a school want to filter out hate group sites, for instance, but allow its 10th graders, who are doing a unit on social tolerance, to include them in their research? For schools, as for Web site operators, experts and leading filtering providers agree: the more customizable, the better. CoSN's "Safeguarding" briefing paper, guiding school districts in providing access to appropriate Internet content, brings up questions publishers, too, should consider in educating themselves about filtering http://www.safewiredschools.org. | ||||
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