New Comprehensive Filter Report Available

The Brennan Center for Justic (NYU) has released Internet Filters: A Public Policy Report, 2nd Edition. It is written by Marjoire Heins, Christina Cho and Ariel Feldman. You may have heard about the original version of this report when it came from the Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP). The FEPP is now part of the Brennan Center.

This new report summarizes studies done on the effectiveness of Internet filters pre-2001 and post 2001. Unfortunately, there isn't much new to report but it is handly to have all the information in one place and it does provide some good recommendations for those of you using filters.

Highlights:

"There are much more effective ways to address concerns about offensive Iinternet content. Filters provide a false sense of security, while blocking large amounts of important information in an often irrational or biased way. Although some may say that the debate is over and that filters are now a fact of life, it is never too late to rethink bad policy choices."

"Ultimately, as the National Research Council observed in a 2002 report, less censorial approaches such as media literacy and sexuality education are the only effective ways to address concerns about young people's access
to controversial or disturbing ideas."

"Filters erect barriers and taboos rather than educating youth about media literacy and sexual values. They replace educational judgments by teachers and librarians with censorship decisions by private companies that usually do not disclose their operating methods or their political biases, and that often make misleading, if not false, marketing claims."

Their list of recommendations match very closely with what I recommended in Filtering and Filter Software but unlike my work which costs $63, this new report is free to download:

• Avoid filters manufactured by companies whose blocking categories reflect a particular ideological viewpoint. These may be appropriate for home or church use, but not for public libraries and schools.
• Choose filters that easily permit disabling, as well as unblocking of particular wrongly blocked sites.
• Only activating the sexually explicit or similar filtering category, since only requires blocking of obscenity, child pornography, and harmful to minors material, all of which must, under the law, contain prurient or lascivious sexual content.
• Establish a simple, efficient process for changing incorrect or unnecessary settings.
• Promptly and efficiently disable filters on request from adults, or, if permitted by the portion of that applies to them, from minors as well.
• Configure the default block page - what the library user sees when a URL is blocked - to educate the user on how the filter works and how to request disabling.
• Develop educational approaches to online literacy and safety. Despite the superficial appeal of filters, they are not a solution to concerns about pornography or other questionable content online. Training, sex education, and media literacy are the best ways to protect the next generation.

Download the Report