May 2008 — Features

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What Are We Protecting Them From?

by Matt Villano

  • Oklahoma's HB 1715, which became law last November, requires public libraries to deny children ages 12 and younger use of the internet in its entirety in the absence of adult supervision or filtering technology that bars access to e-mail and social networking sites.
  • Being debated in the Illinois General Assembly is the Social Networking Website Prohibition Act, which would mandate that all public libraries and schools bar access to any social networking site for users of all ages.

Willard calls these laws "knee-jerk reactions." Still, with the rise in cyberbullying incidents such as the 2006 case in Florida in which online verbal taunts led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide, some observers argue that some sort of blanket legislation intended to safeguard students is at least a start.

Tom Strasburger, who serves as vice president of sales and marketing at PublicSchoolWorks, a software company based in Cincinnati, says that because most of the laws and regulations that pertain to child safety must be comprehensive and forward-thinking, they tend to err on the side of being too broad, but that's excusable in the name of security. "Do these laws go a bit overboard?" he says. "I'd say in many cases, they do. But when we're talking about our children, overprotection is far more important than no protection at all."

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An Ounce of Prevention

Opponents of web filtering legisation argue it is simply the wrong way to approach online safety. "We can filter content all we want," says Jim Culbert, information security analyst at Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, FL, "but at the end of the day, keeping students safe involves much, much more."

If filters are well-intentioned but inadequate, how do we address the real need to protect students from online harassment?

According to Willard, common-sense methods can do more than legislation. "We should tell kids that if something that looks ‘yucky' comes up on the screen, turn off the monitor and tell an adult," she says. "That essential safety technique is not being taught because of the misplaced reliance on filters."