However, if Australians want to fight censorship, they should fight for a Constitutional Bill of Rights so these types of laws can never be valid in this country.

Actually, I swing on this argument a little. I have been in the frustrating position of a few students constantly checking out the surf online (where they really wanted to be) even though most of the students were happily engaged in the lesson. I was in a room that was hard to move around and hard to see screens.

The first time this happend was in Yr 12 Economics. My intial reaction was to request the website to be blocked: http://www.coastalwatch.com/camera/cameras_large.aspx?cam=3300&state=NSW&t=6:46:04%20PM&camName=Mona%20Vale (showing the closest beach to our school). But then he brought in surf magazines, used his phone, etc, etc. At least the PC method was less distracting to other students. The boy’s parents supported my efforts to complete the work he constantly missed in class, which he did under the watchful eye of his Dad. It was brought to me, I approved it and he promptly threw that work in the bin. The holidays before the HSC he spent at his brother’s servant quarters on a beach in Vanuatu with a mate from the same class. Frustrating to say the least.

The second time was a Year 9 boy in Commerce. When the site was blocked he just looked at photos of himself surfing he kept in his personal network folder at school. When I showed interest in his extra-curricular activity and consequently had a lengthy discussion about his surfing, he was more inclined to limit his wave watching. Loosely related, the class celebrated when his cousin won a medal in sailing at the Beijing Olympics. He was (is) such a keen surfer he kept his school (uniform) shorts really low, exposing most of his underpants, to hide his tan mark from the boardshorts he wore surfing. He complained the compusory school belt didn’t have enough notches. I brought a leather punch to class and fixed that one. The whole class, including the student, had a good laugh at that. But isn’t it funny that he’d rather expose his underpants than his tan mark!? That was two years ago and even though I haven’t taught him since we’re still friendly.

Generally I am supportive of a lack of censorship but then a tricky situation arises in class and doubt enters.

Cheers

Shani

It’s a tough topic because I keep finding myself thinking about parents that I know who are seriously gung-ho and all for filtering the internet to protect their kids. I feel like such a meanie sometimes, basically fighting for a philosophy and a system that keeps some very wrong content online.

But, at the end of the day, the protection argument is bunk. It’s far more important IMO to educate children to be discerning readers/viewers of all types of media, not just online.

And I always recall sitting at my friends’ kitchen table with her young kids, surfing YouTube for videos of The Wiggles. One video changed halfway through to incredibly scary footage of vampires from the film The Lost Boys. It was very disturbing. Lesson: it is just not possible to block everything that is going to be disturbing to children on the web, because that category is very, very large indeed. Parents who are concerned about this should be monitoring their children’s internet use from within their own home, not trusting the job to the government.

I agree 100% and have been always against mandatory filtering. There are march 6 protests and I will be attending the sydney one

Been thinking about something for a while… and then I read Why is Google Afraid of Facebook at ReadWriteWeb (recommend) and your post.

The most ancient of filters, the human network, is the third major filter that is increasingly gaining prominence, alongside the two institutionalised and glorified ones: the market (Google as an example – much for their algorithms, you throw enough money at your website and it will pop out on that all important first 20 hits), and the state (China, Iran, Conroy … ).

It is the convergence of the three that we will have to negotiate more and more. Each can support, supplant and overcome each other, even if crudely and brutally sometimes. And that is the honest conversation we need to have with those we elect, buy from/sell to and connect with, hopefully with less of the useless spin of ‘this is to protect our children from online predators (even teacher ones!)’ (95% of cases of abuse happens by family (friends) … where is the outrcy, where is the filter!) or the promised e-hippie digital nirvana where everyone is happy (as English teacher you’d know Beckett’s “we are happy, what do we do now?” line).

Scuse the ramble & welcome to the mess, Hillary is on the ball (and so are you by the looks of it …)

I look forward to sharing a glass of wine with you one day … soon.

Take care

Tomaz

This is an excellent post and a very good summation of all that is wrong with censorship of the internet. Free choice is the cornerstone of what our society is based on. I have fond memories of visiting the people standing on soap boxes in the Domain, Sydney – Web 2.0 is the new way of doing the same thing – with potentially a much larger audience.

My first teaching job was in a boys private school that had the first wireless network in Australia (second laptop school. It had no internet filtering (saving the running his eye over a list of visited sites). it worked on a system of trust and education – quite successfully. This is what I believe we should be doing in our schools and with our countries access to the internet

#nocleanfeed