In March of this year, the Palo Alto Unified School District turned on an Internet filter on the district network. This purpose of this filter, according to the district, is to keep pornography off of school computers. After a particularly arduous and painful research and writing process, the feature story that I wrote on Internet filters (published May 20) elicited several opinion-filled pieces of feedback. While the purpose of journalists is to report the facts, we have opinions, too.

Internet filtering is, at its heart, a form of censorship; Miriam-Webster defines censorship as, "the act of suppressing or deleting anything considered objectionable," which is exactly what Internet filters accomplish. Some, such as Bennett Haselton of Peacefire.org and the folks at the Censorware Project, have labeled the filtering software "censorware" to reflect the supposed true nature of Internet filters. Some even go as far to argue that pornography is not harmful to minors.

Some on the Internet charge that the software manufacturers are in league with the Religious Right in blocking Web sites advocating or displaying homosexuality while allowing anti-gay propaganda to escape their filters. The district is hardly a bastion of conservatism. In fact, the district’s policy towards its Internet filters is rather enlightened and certainly not a situation where right wing overlords suppress information through blocking access to specific Web sites. While the purpose of the filters we encounter at Paly is still technically censorship, the purpose is to censor pornography. Even though there is disagreement as to whether the filters are necessary, one cannot attempt to make a serious argument that there needs to be access to pornography on campus. The district’s review of blocked Web sites and the fact that it actually unblocks Web sites that are dedicated to the homosexual representation (such as the Lesbian Herstory Archives) is evidence to support the idea that the district is not out to subdue political opinions or freedom of speech.

The district’s block review program also addresses the issue of false positives, at least in theory. At the risk of sounding like a mouthpiece for the district, the issue of false positives is no issue at all. While there will be erroneously blocked Web sites, it is only the erroneously blocked sites that people actually encounter that matter. It does not matter if the filter falsely blocks thousands of Web sites, as long as nobody attempts to access them. It is unrealistic to assume that students would attempt to access these thousands of Web sites simultaneously, which is the only way to create a huge list of Web sites for the district to review. According to district director of technology Marie Scigliano, in a period of a month, people only requested the district to unblock 110 Web sites. That averages out to slightly more than three Web sites per day for somebody to review, which a single person could easily handle as a part-time job. In addition, considering the amount of people using computers to read Internet forums, browse Myspace, or take part in other non-school related activities on the Internet, the block rate is surprisingly low (incidentally, the filter is not set to block forums or Myspace; only pornography). A blocked Web site is, at worst, merely an inconvenience until a student can get home or to a friend’s house with an unfiltered Internet connection.

While Internet filtering does reek of Big Brotherism and handholding on the part of the school district, it is important to keep in mind that, according to PTA Council president Melissa Caswell, it was the actions of elementary school students that caused a sufficient uproar for the district to install the filter. While high school students are more capable of moral reasoning and making intelligent decisions than small children are, it is still illegal for most students to view pornography, but it should not take place at school. A filter whose sole purpose is to deny access to pornography is perfectly fine, if the district takes reasonable steps to ensure that it does not block legitimate content.