I just received an email from OpenDNS. I use (by myself, natch) their home service to configure my DNS, with Google as a fallback. In it was the following message:
This is big: One out of every three public schools in the United States is now using OpenDNS’ award-winning Web content filtering, security and DNS resolution services. We couldn’t be more thrilled at this unprecedented adoption. OpenDNS is the best performing and most affordable way to secure a network and what better validation than use by schools, for which Internet safety is of the utmost importance.
And I realized something extremely important. I grew up in an environment without massive web filtering, back in the age of portals. As a result, I was allowed to receive the following on my computer and on my school computers (despite it being a fairly religious school):
…
It’s ironic that you used a metaphor of death to describe the consequences of including gay/lesbian/bisexual/questioning information on your district’s site. Gay and lesbian teenagers commit suicide at two to three times the rate of their heterosexual classmates, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A 1991 study at the University of Minnesota found that out of 150 lesbian and gay young people surveyed, 30 percent of them had tried to kill themselves at least once as teenagers. On the “lighter side,” there’s also the verbal and physical abuse of out gay high schoolers and those merely suspected of being queer.
…
It’s incredibly ironic, that as technology gets better, this question from the web of 1999 might not even be seen by a high school student in web 2020. It also speaks hugely about how we as a society are harnessing the web: we can now shut others’ information out at will if someone uses a connection we are providing.
What’s hard about this selection of information is that we eventually prevent certain groups from understanding certain types of information. Already I am having a harder time finding the research papers I used to read for fun on the internet. They are becoming paywalled en mass. However, I am finding more references to various types of material, and more citizens research. It’s a difficult, brave new world.
As odd as this sounds, will information overflow cause a new sense of class and education: where some people get educated in a new set of values and others don’t? Or alternatively, will the shut-out process mean better vetting of material and a die-off of older cultural artifacts (like the one of this letter writer. There was a NYTimes editorial about how in the US GBLT+ relationships are viewed as morally acceptable over 50% of the time in polling for the first time.)
We shall see. And we’ll definitely see what students will consume. Morality be damned or saved.
DNS and Speech
I just received an email from OpenDNS. I use (by myself, natch) their home service to configure my DNS, with Google as a fallback. In it was the following message:
And I realized something extremely important. I grew up in an environment without massive web filtering, back in the age of portals. As a result, I was allowed to receive the following on my computer and on my school computers (despite it being a fairly religious school):
It’s incredibly ironic, that as technology gets better, this question from the web of 1999 might not even be seen by a high school student in web 2020. It also speaks hugely about how we as a society are harnessing the web: we can now shut others’ information out at will if someone uses a connection we are providing.
What’s hard about this selection of information is that we eventually prevent certain groups from understanding certain types of information. Already I am having a harder time finding the research papers I used to read for fun on the internet. They are becoming paywalled en mass. However, I am finding more references to various types of material, and more citizens research. It’s a difficult, brave new world.
As odd as this sounds, will information overflow cause a new sense of class and education: where some people get educated in a new set of values and others don’t? Or alternatively, will the shut-out process mean better vetting of material and a die-off of older cultural artifacts (like the one of this letter writer. There was a NYTimes editorial about how in the US GBLT+ relationships are viewed as morally acceptable over 50% of the time in polling for the first time.)
We shall see. And we’ll definitely see what students will consume. Morality be damned or saved.