The topic of internet filtering is as important as it is complex, never failing to spark debate when public announcements are made. Take, for example, the Minister for broadband announcing policy that would require Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) to provide ‘clean’ (or filtered) internet feeds to public places. Sounds like a great idea on the surface, particularly in the light of important child safety strategies. Not so, scream the free speech advocates, technical boffins and early adopters of social networking in education. The reaction to Minister Conroy’s new years eve announcement by bloggers was quite extraordinary ranging from ‘it can’t possibly work’ to ‘it will be the end of the internet and free speech as we know it’. Simon hackett from Internet Service Provider Internode suggests the notion of ISPs being required to provide clean internet feeds will sink without a trace within 12 months’ saying ‘we’ve considered that a half-dozen times before. It seems to come up around election time and then disappear again.

Somewhere between the extremes lies a subtle but important element of this debate – there seems to be very little understanding of and absolutely no accountability for the detrimental effects of accidentally blocking social networking sites that are good for education. There is a complex subtlety and balance required to think about internet filtering in a way that will provide some benefits with a minimum of detrimental side effects. Let’s hope we can have some rational debate about that before the next election.

QUOTE: simon hackett internode suggests the notion of ISPs being required to provide clean internet feeds will sink without a trace within 12 months’ saying ‘we’ve considered that a half-dozen times before. It seems to come up around election time and then disappear again. Client end controls are moderately effective but trying to do it all in the middle of an ISP network is madness’ – The Australian, Tuesday Feb 19, 2008.

Fang - Mike Seyfang

I’m not sure how long it might take before the remnants of the nanny state’s attitudes will be made clear as ‘irrelevant’. Probably as long as it’s taken to vote out the last group of ministers.

As you say, this discussion is not about filters. As a wise Mike makes clear, it’s about responsibility. The great pity is that a minister (or teacher) can’t say, “I can do (only a) little about this, it’s up to parents”, just as it is with so many things.

I tend to monitor the convergence of oldies concerns about their kids watching a ‘clean feed’, and their kids finding ways to investigate the things they’re not supposed to be interested in. One point of convergence is in attitudes based around the two screens. The last numbers I read were that about 30% of kids bringing their laptops to the TV room (at times) in attempts at not having to watch the same crap as their parents, or to interest them in something different (OK, weird).

Not sure how many teaching parents return the compliment, but judging by edu.au’s institutional attempts at broadening their community over the years, and (co)producing riveting content, I’d say very, very few.

Roads are a very dangerous place. You can get killed crossing the road if you are not experienced at it and that is why lower primary teachers have very rigid structures when taking students out of the school. They bring along more adults, train the students to walk around holding hands and so on.

As students get older, they have more experience with using the road and so by the end of secondary school students can be trusted to negotiate roads on their own.

We need to educate about the internet in a similiar way.

Wara

While not talking about filtering the presenter is talking about providing real and useful learning opportunities for young people. He is presenting risk to youth but his real message is about safety.

My feelings on this filtering topic are documented at http://waraku.blogspot.com/2007/04/internet-filtering-system-broken.html

I want a better filtering system for schools that

* respects the different needs of children as they grow and develop
* promotes values of respect and trust
* facilitates unencumbered learning
* is respectful of the work of teachers

So what if we had a filtering system that

* a teacher could turn on and off for a student for periods of time (ATM it is only administrators that can do this)
* had various levels of filtering from very strong to none
* where students could be assigned a level for filtered access that was consistent with their percieved trustworthiness and maturity
* where this level was reviewed on an annual basis involving teachers, parents and students
* displayed all access logs for all members of the school community to all members of that community
* where community action was taken where people breached our expectations for appropriate conduct

Wara

I want my kids to be both SMART and SAFE - and I accept responsibility for making sure there are good filters BETWEEN THEIR EARS. My wife tends to me more concerned with SAFETY, I like to push the SMART side of the equation, that’s the tension we live with to achieve balance.

It is a shame that there is no real political pressure or accountability for the consequences of what you describe as ‘filter the good stuff as well’. That the Minister responsible for broadband can make outrageous demands for ‘clean feeds’ while the Minister responsible for education says nothing about how dumb that would be for education is a real shame. Doubtless both are more concerned about the impact of the press sensationalising rare cases of children accidentally accessing violent or pornographic material while at school than the much more insidious evil of missed learning opportunity because ‘the good stuff’ is filtered as well.

I have had quite a response to my quick post about filtering on new years eve. I will try to synthesize a considered response in a future post of my own, but till then here are some responses I wish to acknowledge:

- Tom Wood (one of the smart kids you mention) for a lengthly post from which I borrowed the ‘filter between the ears’ idea.

- Nick Hodge for some very positive suggestions on ways forward.

- acidlabs and bl1ink for their summaries of blogosphere revulsion.

Fang - Mike Seyfang