PLN 8

Today I read an article on the Fischbowl called More Thoughts On Filtering. This article was about how, in our district many websites like YouTube are being blocked to students. Many believe that this is a violation of both staff and student's view and read, in turn you are violating their right given to them by the first amendment.

This article relates to my class because the block of YouTube and similar sights is in affect at our school. We may not necessarily need to use these sights at the current moment, but sometime during the school year, we may want to add a video to enhance a project, but because of filtering, we would not be able to even view the video. There are certain websites that I do believe should be blocked, but I think it is ridiculous that websites like YouTube (which do not generally allow any videos that should need to be blocked) are censored. We aren't little kids who look for the definition to a particularly naughty word and then giggle about it, we are all old enough to know better than to look for websites we shouldn't.

The article More Thoughts On Filtering relates to the world because there are many other schools that filter websites like YouTube. Some students may not object to the censoring of these websites, but many more do. The censor does not prevent anything, nor does it help anyone. As stated in the article:
"You violate your staff's and students' intellectual freedom, their rights to view. By arbitratily blocking other sites, you are violating your staff's and students' right to read. You are denying them their rights accorded by the First Amendment."

It is not fair that anyone should be denied the right to upload a video for a project just because some of the adults who run our schools are scared we might get into something "naughty".