Online censorship in schools is ‘more pervasive’ than expected, new data shows

Aleeza Siddique, 15, was in a Spanish class earlier this year at her Northern California high school when a lesson about the news was derailed by her school’s internet filter. His teacher told the class to open their school-issued Chromebooks and discover a list of links he had curated from Spanish-language broadcast news giant Telemundo. The students tried, but every link returned the same page: a picture of a padlock.

“None of that was available to us,” Aleeza said. “The site has been completely blocked.”

She said that her teacher scrambled to pivot and fill the 90-minute class with other activities. From what she remembers, they went through vocabulary lists and independently clicked online quizzes from Quizlet – a decidedly less dynamic use of time.

New data released this week from the D.C.-based Center for Democracy and Technology shows how often some of that gridlock occurs across the country. The nonprofit digital rights advocacy organization conducted its fifth annual nationally representative survey of middle school and high school teachers and parents on a range of technology issues. About 70% of teachers and students this year said web filters interfered with students’ ability to complete their assignments.

Almost all schools use some type of web filter to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which requires districts that take advantage of the federal E-rate program for discounted internet and telecommunications equipment to prevent to children from viewing graphic and obscene images online. A 2024 investigation by The Markupwhich is now a part of CalMatters, discovered much more expansive blocked by school districts than the federal law requires, some of the political, mirroring battles of culture war on what students have access to in school libraries. This investigation found that school districts are blocking access to sex education and LGBTQ+ resources, including suicide prevention. It also found the routine blocking of websites that students search for academic research. And because school districts tend to set different restrictions for students and staff, teachers can be as frustrated by filters as anyone because of how they complicate lesson planning.

Web filtering is “subjective and unverified”

Elizabeth Laird, director of civic technology equity for the center and lead author of the report, said The Markup’s report helped inspire additional survey questions to better understand how schools are using filters. as a “subjective and unverified” method of restricting students’ access to information.

“The scope of what’s being blocked is more pervasive and value-laden than I think we initially even knew to ask for last year,” Laird said.

While past surveys have revealed how often students and teachers report a disproportionate filtering of content related to reproductive health, LGBTQ+ issues and content about people of color, the center asked respondents this ‘year if they thought that content associated with or about immigrants was more likely to be blocked. . About a third of the students said yes.

Aleeza had said yes, after her experience with Telemundo. The California teenager said how often she runs into blocks depends on how much research she’s trying to do and how much she has to do on her school computer. When he took a debate class, he regularly cleared blocks while looking for controversial topics. An article in Slate magazine about LGBTQ+ rights gave a lock screen, for example, because the entire news site is blocked. She said she avoids her school Chromebook as much as possible, doing homework on her personal laptop away from the school’s Wi-Fi whenever she can.

Three-quarters of teachers who responded to the recent survey said that students only use it to access an unfiltered Internet. Laird found this number surprising. Web filters, therefore, do not prevent students from accessing the websites they want to access, and they get in the way of completing schoolwork. “It raises a fundamental question about whether this technology, in an attempt to prevent students from accessing harmful content, is actually doing more harm than good,” Laird said.

Nearly a third of teachers interviewed by the Center for Democracy and Technology said their schools block content related to the LGBTQ+ community. About half said that information about sexual orientation and reproductive health is blocked. And black and Latino students were more likely to say that content related to people of color is disproportionately blocked on their school devices.

For students like Aleeza, the block is frustrating in practice and in principle.

“The amount they clean up actively interferes with our ability to have an education,” he said. Often, he has no idea why a website activates the block page. Aleeza said she feels arbitrary and thinks her school should be more transparent about what it blocks and why.

“We should have the right to know what we are being protected from,” he said.

Audrey Baime, Olivia Brandeis, and Samantha Yee, all members of the CalMatters Youth Journalism Initiative, contributed reporting for this story.

This article was originally posted on The Markup and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license