With all the talk on censorship I thought I would blog on the topic.
PC's are excellent tools for education, like most stuff that encourage experiments and interaction, abuse and misuse is commonplace. I have heard students asking how the firewalls at the Library IT systems can be bypassed and some boasting on how they managed to enter Facebook and play Farmville on MCAST's IT system! While this may be harmless I do wonder how vulnerable our IT systems may be. It is not just about accessing pornography, it's also about blocking games, music, images, video and peer-to-peer programs, the downloading of copyright and illegal material such as viruses or spyware.
The U.S. Supreme Court placed the onus on schools to shield students from online indecency. In the UK all schools have a responsibility to filter both access at school and any access pupils are given as part of home-school links. Where are we in all of this?
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ReplyDeleteUnfortunately in Malta we swing from one extreme to another. It is either the whole hog or nothing. The Censorship debate is a tricky issue. People of certain ages cannot cope with certain ideas and graphical images. they are not mature enough to handle the situation. Unfortunately our society bombards us with violence and sex as a matter of daily life. So we expect it. Prior to censorship one must educate. One must instill values and explain what certain behaviour is acceptable and others are not.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately censorship, at times, does not just limit itself to the immoral. It lends a hand to hide events to twist opinions. Remember Google in China? So where does this stop? Now if I am not mistaken Indonesia has joined the frey and censoring its internet too. If one drinks poison, he cannot expect to live much. Same if you continuously read things that are incorrect and convey bad messages. You cannot expect that you would have formed ideas.
I believe that the state should only apply layered censorship. This in the sense that one has to educate and prepare people for life rather than scare people away. What about pornography and violence, do e give it to children. Certainly not, and a school should filter such avaiability. But what about ideologies and opinions about things? should we filter that too?
Who decides what should be censored and what should not be censored? In Malta we've had many embarrassing events regarding censorship, from the Luqa Monument, to the censored literature piece by Alex Vella Gera published in ir-Realta, a University newspaper.
ReplyDeleteOne of the units my colleague and I gave our students was called "Sex, Body and typography" and before our students worked on the Unit, we were worried whether or not we would be able to showcase the work of our students, due to the law of censorship.
In a surprising turn of events, we didn't need to worry since our students self-censored their works. Us Maltese are so brainwashed with censorship since the day that we are born, that when we are given the chance to be free and limitless, we actually find it hard to truly express ourselves. This is a huge problem especially for students studying art and design who are expected to delve into unexplored territories and strive for innovation.
The less censorship, the better. And onto what Jason Aquilina was mentioning, Farmville and Facebook are not censored at Art and Design. Yes our students do sometimes ignore the lecture and have a bit of a Farmville-moment, however in general this does not distract from the quality of their work.
Ehe….
ReplyDeleteCensorship…….
A very hot issue, and not because of this week’s weather!
I read with interest my colleague’s contributions to this blog. Personally I agree with Moira that censorship is imposed in Malta by our religion, culture or whatever it is that makes us Maltese, Maltese.
The issue is:
Who has the right to impose censorship on others?
And on what grounds?
How can anyone (usually a small select group of individuals) decide for all the rest of us what is good and what is bad?
I find this very hard to accept.
Yet I understand that we, as a population are still ignorant and immature with respect to issues such as nude art and any other matters that tend to raise an eyebrow or two in our society.
I believe that as a society we must release the stranglehold imposed by our local censorship slowly but steadily. In parallel we must find ways how we support our young generation to become more mature and open minded.
It will not happen in a day, nor in a year…..
But it will happen …. I’m sure of that.
This topic is highly controversial and there are two aspects to evaluate:
ReplyDelete(1) When it comes to e-learning it is important to have some kind of censorship in order to offer students a safe online environment, similar to the one provided in classrooms. Students and their parents must be aware that same rules applied in classrooms will apply in chat rooms, forums and web-conferences. Censorship enables certain selected words to be "blacked out". The administrator can supply a list of words to be blacked out. The list is updated on weekly basis. Teachers and administrators can easily edit the list of words based on their specific requirements.
(2) On the other hand one may argue that censorship software is not the right thing to do; because this may be seen as an ostrich–like behavior, i.e. burying own heads in sand. The real educational process should help students be selective to sort out carefully the information they obtain from the internet. What is needed is not censorship but powerful and thoughtful dialogue focusing on inquiry and the development of personal judgment.
Educational institutes and libraries can harm students by setting up heavy Web filtering software that block access to potentially educational sites. At the end of the day, critical thinking and showing students controversial Web sites can be beneficial. Students need to be able to access controversial sites and information, ideally when under the guidance of their tutors so that they can be guided on how to think about such issues.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to know that some students were given a project on "Sex, Body and typography", I wasn’t quite sure how to react, but today I believe that a lot of good can come out by bringing up certain controversial subjects in class, within a controlled environment and with proper guidance.
Professor Craig Cunningham says "Everybody should be thinking about the balance between exploration and safety, but they shouldn't always fall down on the side of safety. Because there is a trade-off."
Like anything else computers can be misused. It is up to us to persuade the students to make good use of computers.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that sites such as Facebook should be blocked in labs. I'd rather have a student using Facebook during the lesson than disrupting the whole class. Having several lessons a day can be quite boring and we must not forget that students HAVE to attend for lectures. I'm not sure how the system at University is but a few years ago when I was still studying I was never forced to attend lectures. If students miss lectures then it's up to them to get the notes and study them on their own.
To be honest I found it strange that we had to sign twice for all lectures during the PGC VET course. I know that this happened since it is funded by the EU. But this doesn't justify anything!! I am sure there are better ways to monitor if money is being spent well in such projects!
Censorship! This is truly a hot and highly controversial subject especially in such a small island where we can be so ingrained in our beliefs and culture that they tend to make us a bit narrow-minded. I am not saying that we should accept everything but sometimes I feel that we do go a bit to the extreme. In reality something which is censored seems to be more appealing maybe because it should not be done? While on holiday in Spain last year, visiting a Spanish friend, I realised that in spite of the many similarities we are very different when it comes to what should be censored and what not. After lengthy discussions with my friend I arrived to the conclusion that it all boils down to the fact that we were raised with different values that make us view things differently in adulthood.
ReplyDeleteI think that censorship can make us look at things with a different perspective, and for example rather than appreciate something as a work of art we tend to look at it as something shameful. I believe that in some respects we need to be more open minded and tolerant. My feeling is that the younger generations are more open minded and that in due time some ideas of censorship will be more lenient. This could be mainly as a result of more exposure to foreign ideas and way of living through media such as TV and the internet. The influx of foreign media is so huge that it is impossible to censor everything, including the internet, therefore it is crucial to educate people as through education one will be in a better position to personally judge what is good and what is bad. In fact it is very important that children are educated as from a young age on subjects which are now considered to be a taboo. Another way how one can open his mind is through meetings with different people from other countries.
On the other hand with regards to censorship of internet sites at schools I think that one has to be careful to block those sites that are indeed harmful whilst keeping those that are potentially educational accessible to all.
Mildred
In my opinion, there should be some sort of filtering and censoring at educational institutions such as MCAST, University and schools in order to make sure that it is safe for the students. One must also note that a number of students are under 18, and so they have to be protected from websites that are not appropriate for students. It is also important that parents or guardians at home are aware of the potential dangers of certain web sites and they also filter Internet access at home. This is important because it is useless if students cannot access potentially harmful web-sites at school but access them at home! It is also important to use good quality filters that students cannot bypass and access these web-sites anyway.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I gather this topic has opened a very nice controversy. I think that there is no real solution to it, because where do you draw the line? Do censor and if yes up to what extent do you censor. I agree with the comment that computers, as many other things, may be used and abused. But education will ease the burden on censorship. Our censorship laws have not received an update in more than half a century, and that says a lot. We are censoring with different weights and measures. But what about ideas? Do I have the right, as a government, to censor ideas, with the premise that they are not in the best interests of the people. Electronic filtering is already in force. And I agree with it only under certain conditions. But do you realise the filtering that goes on TV, and in our news papers? Is that right?
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my initial post, we must not forget that restricting access to certain websites may also protect the IT system from downloading viruses and other malware. My colleagues often complain that their pendrives have become infected with a virus. I avoid using my pendrive on our systems as much as possible. Hence I believe that firewalls represent a necessary evil to ensure that nothing private from our system goes out and nothing malicious comes in.
ReplyDeleteLouis I have the answer some of your questions:
ReplyDelete"The issue is:
Who has the right to impose censorship on others?"
I believe the government whom Maltese citizens (including maybe you and I) voted to represent us in Parliament. Our votes may have put that right.
I don't agree neither that "the less censorship the better." Even another IAD blogger (Haber) said:
"a lot of good can come out by bringing up certain controversial subjects in class, within a controlled environment and with proper guidance."
Within a controlled environment!! Isn't that a subtle form of censorship? So how is one going to have a controlled environment on the Internet?
So I believe that some form of censorship is necessary, but yes, I do agree that within a controlled environment, law can be broken "for the common good" (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
at this point of the argument I would like to ask, why block out precious information when a student could easily be influenced by someone in a chat area. That is why most against Internet filters would say it's best for parents to surf along with their kids, and not let them alone! Just think………….., are those filters really going to keep students from starting an eating disorder, or having unprotected sex? NO, It's going to stray them away from those crucial pages, that could help them learn the consequences of an eating disorders, or unprotected sex, and many other issues! As many of you have said, education is the fundamental tool to achieve acceptable results.
ReplyDeleteWhere does censorship begin and end?
ReplyDeleteEverybody is focusing on censoring digital material which can be accessible on College Pc's. What is the point of placing tight censorship filters when our students can easily access the same information using their mobile or portable notebooks? Are we not understanding that this is a lost war?
I am not saying that we should close our eyes and leave everybody do what they like, but the issue is not censorship but education. What's the use of not allowing access to certain material at school and having no control at home? We must educate our students to be responsible and mature enough so that in all situations they can judge between what is right and what is wrong. Rather than loosing time to censor this and censor that, we should strive to build and share strong ethical and moral values between us and our students. Nothing to do with religion though!
Outside college, we have seen hilarious rifts between institutions on simple and straightforward campaigns that would keep our population healthy from STIs...but what happens? Someone censors the campaign and everybody is left haywire! In contrast with our close minded concept of censorship, other countries have embarked on nationwide public campaigns portraying direct images and audiovisual material of the consequences of such diseases involving directly youths in the same campaign. This way students and youths were directly exposed to the consequences before they could have even been exposed to! Rather than always being on the protective side, we should expose our students to a certain degree on censored material. Like many said above, this can only prepare them on how to deal and think on certain issues.
Life does not begin and end during College hours. Our educational system should ensure that our students are heavily exposed to certain things much before they can be exposed to them in the world out there. It's useless placing barriers to censor this or that, cause this will only make students fetch another way how to jump those barriers. Rather than loosing time discussing a very interpretable subject, we should focus our efforts on thinking how we can responsibly expose our students and instill good moral and ethical values amongst them.
Mariella
Following censorship is like battling to poor an unspilt glass of wine afloat a ship during a perfect storm! Since this is a blog personal comments are allowed, just felt I should start my post this way. Some say censorship is wrong other claim its right. Can never find the bottom of it however one might reason some issues. Censorship should not really be about the impact of an image or sound source but censorship should be weighed on matter much more social friendly. Censorship is mainly related to media so I will be arguing on that. Social value is already in the lime-light of any producer but the intentions differ, some are economical, political etc... Reasons why persons express themselves are endless so what should a watch dog's job be. To educate? tolerate? penetrate? It is hard to tell when an individual is actually weighing censorship by personally analysing content in respect to one's own background.
ReplyDeleteI believe that is quite basic and totally selfish. Once I switched on a local talk show and complaints where all driven by personal forces, however I ask what about the 'social need'?
After a friendly chat with a colleague of mine earlier today I wind this video absolutely interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWQ6bI9BqvM
This can be a very good exercise to start censorship evaluation
Badass Soldier a local music production found on a youtube space. Primarily I would just like to point out some European conventions on human rights.
ReplyDeleteArticle 1 - respecting rights
Article 2 - life
Article 5 - liberty and security
Article 6 - fair trial
Article 8 - privacy
Article 9 - conscience and religion
Article 10 - expression
Article 11 - association
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
This should be quite an interesting platform to toast the above mentioned video with responsibilities of content developers
The ongoing discussion about censorship is very interesting and has indeed opened up a can of worms! I do not want to come across as a prude, but I honestly think that the term should be closely followed by and inter-related to ethical considerations.
ReplyDeleteThe following hot issue, which occurred in the not-so-distant past, immediately springs to mind. I am sure that many of us remember the infamous cartoon of the prophet Mohammed as depicted in the Danish media? Obviously the publisher and/ or editor felt they were in their full right to “publish / upload and be damned”, citing the freedom of expression as their reasoning. Yet whoever was responsible does not seem to have given an afterthought to the consequences the newspaper’ s actions would have on other law-abiding citizens. The creator of the design was offered full police protection in Denmark while others, elsewhere, have had to fend for themselves.
As Mildred said, it is crucial to educate people at all levels and one of the underlying pillars of this educating process should be respect for the other.
I personally think that censorship and education do not go hand in hand, and this is because they are a contradiction of terms I believe. Censorship is about restricting access to information, while education is all about the providing of information.
ReplyDeleteIn most situations censorship is imposed on the premise of morals and values. However the argument does not hold water, at least from an educational point of view. This is because the role of the educational system should not be one of imposing morals and values but one where value and moral are taught. Now you cannot teach something by restricting information, which is what censorship does. On the contrary the role of the educational system should be to show the principles behind the morals or value. Let us take case of pornography for example. Just by censoring pornographic sites no education has taken place. On the contrary if one explains the ill effects of pornography such as the issue of slavery, abuse, exploitation, child abuse etc one would have accomplished the role of education much more.
Another issue about censorship and education is the fact that traditionally censorship has been used as a tool against the dissemination of knowledge so that those in power would have more control over the people, supporters, followers or what have you.
Lately in Malta we are witnessing what I consider to be an increase in the number of cases where censorship is taking place. The issues that are being censored are varied ranging from pornography, to far right sentiments. While it does not mean that by objecting to the censoring of a number of issues I am agreeing with the issues themselves I believe that people have two rights:
1. To express themselves
2. To have access to information so that they can make an opinion for themselves about an issue
I personally am against these types of filtering technologies in colleges and libraries, and was a bit impressed when I got to know about filtering techniques. I am sure that there are many instances where the filters are blocking out sites that are perfectly acceptable and good for the students, and teachers, to view. Just imagine going to the library and cannot access the Moodle!! From my little research, I found out that there have been reports of help sites that were also filtered in some schools. Such sites talk about the dangers of abuse or molestation. What would you do, for example, if you feel you are a victim of such acts and find out that such related websites have been blocked? Funnily enough though, it is true that certain material can still get through the filters, thus making the latter ineffective.
ReplyDeleteI honestly feel that instead of filters, good supervision would be enough. Supervision will prevent most students from viewing objectionable materials online. After all, which students wants to explain to the principal or their parents why they were looking at porn at school instead of paying attention in class or in the library. Another option is to provide each student with a unique user account to log onto the computers, and have every website that is visited logged, and flagged if it is believed to be objectionable. This could then turn into taking the appropriate action. This system would work best if the students knew that the websites they visit are being watched automatically.
What about situations where censorship is taken just a little too far? 3M Correctly mentioned the Google case in China. Remember when Google decided to stop censoring its Chinese version of the search engine some months ago? Because of the great firewall of China and insistence by the Chinese government to control access to online content, Google ultimately had to pull out its business from China. A CNN video report on the matter can be seen by accessing the link below:
ReplyDeletehttp://cnn.com/video/?/video/business/2010/03/23/vause.china.google.update.cnn
I find this thread to be a very interesting read. Though I cannot find how the 'badass soldier' song can relate to censorship... I hope that no one has considered that this video should be censored in any way! I just find it mildly funny.
ReplyDeleteMy view of internet blocking at MCAST is that of extreme frustration. It is not the first time when I find a search result that perfectly addresses my query, and then access it only to find the "ACCESS DENIED" message splashing on the screen.
As regards filtering of internet in public schools, there has been a study conducted about this by the Electronic Frontier Foundation who are a donation driven organisation addressing the social and legal issues arising from the impact on society by theuse of the computer.
Testing nearly a million pages, the researchers found the following:
-For every web page blocked as advertised, the blocking software blocks one or more web pages inappropriately, either because the websites are miscategorized or because the web pages do not merit blocking.
-Schools that implement internet blocking software even with the least restrictive settings will block at a minimum tens of thousands of web pages inappropriately.
-Schools that implement internet blocking software with the most restrictive settings block 70% or more of search results based on related school curriculum topics.
-Internet blocking software was not able to detect and protect students from access to many of the apparently pornographic sites that appeared in search results related to state curriculums.
Conclusions drawn:
-The use of Internet blocking software in schools cannot help schools compy with law, because schools do not and cannot set the software to block only the categories required by the law, and because the software is not able to block only the visual depictions required by law. Blocking sotware overblocks and underblocks in other cases.
- Blcoking software does not protect children from exposure to a large volume of material that is harmful to minors withing the legal definitions.
- Blocking software in schools damages educational opportunities for students, both by blocking access to web pages that are directly related to state curriculums and by restricting broader inquiries of both students and teachers.
Although it is quite long, it would be worth to have a look at the whole report drawn up by the EFF: http://w2.eff.org/Censorship/Censorware/net_block_report/net_block_report.pdf