Harvard doctoral student argues against filters, for complete Internet ethics education

Justin Reich, a doctoral student at Harvard University School of Education, has an interesting op-ed in the July 11 Washington Post, “In Schools, a Firewall that Works too Well.” Reich argues that Internet filters in schools keep out valuable material and that students and teachers alike become cynical in trying to get around them. He says that there is no substitute for a complete program of Internet and technology citizenship education in the schools, including all topics like copyright and reputation, as well the more “obvious” problems about pornography or supposed “adult” or “harmful to minors” content.

He does point out the downside of the Children's Internet Protection Act of 2000, under which "any school or library that uses federal funds to buy computers is required to install Internet filters." This is old hat now.

The link for the op-ed is here. Reuch is co-director of Ed Tech Teacher, here.

Public schools should teach responsible Internet use at home; this would help protect minors

Recently, Electronic Frontier Foundation put together a copyright education course for schools, which I discussed on my main blog on June 12, 2009.

However, it seems that public schools should gear up to teach responsible computer and technology use, and even ought to include the curricula as part of standards of learning, such as Virginia’s SOL’s.

Besides copyright, students should learn about defamation, privacy invasion, harassment and cyberbullying, and even some idea of what trademarks and patents mean.

While schools should teach the legal risks of “sexting” on cell phones and other devices, states should remove the practice from felony prosecutions and should not treat incidental occasions as “child pornography” or as a reason for sex offender registration. States need to change their criminal codes appropriately.

A broad inclusion of the legal responsibilities associated with technology use would help protect minors from inappropriate materials at home, including not just pornography, but other activities including bullying and responding to inappropriate contacts from chat or instant messages.

If (and more likely when) I return to formal employment, helping school systems deal with these issues could he high on the list of my own goals.

Billboard (by Calvin Klein) in NYC provokes "COPA-like" controversy

A Calvin Klein billboard in Soho in Manhattan, at Lafayette and Houston Streets, is thought to go to far as it shows a threesome of young people whom some say are made to look underage. According to federal law, the producer of the ad would have had to document and register the ages of the models as at least 18.

The New York Daily News story is by Sara A. Armaghan and is here and it was featured Monday June 15 on ABC “Good Morning America”.

Neighborhood residents, in one of the nation’s most liberal areas (the West Village is nearby) say that the billboard sends the wrong message to minors and is harmful to them. Fashion companies say that they must promote their products in a competitive environment during economic downturn. There is no real oversight of the content of billboards. Is there a correspondence with the “harmful to minors” of COPA? Well, the pictures probably still wouldn’t have met the legal definition.

Digital movie or TV filtering runs into DMCA/DRM problems: analogy with COPA filtering arguments?

Seth Schoen of Electronic Frontier Foundation has an interesting analysis of the Child Safe Viewing Act of 2007, which it had commented (to the FCC) on with “Examination of Parental Control Technologies for Video or Audio Programming, here.

Movie studios had sued ClearPlay over a product that skipped particular scenes in movies, and Congress passed the Family Movie Act in 2004 to protect innovators who offer playback movie editing from copyright infringement claims.

Then there is a product called TVGuardian, a V-chip alternative from Principal Solutions, which apparently will become ineffective in a digital environment unless the product is allowed to circumvent Digital Rights Management in order to filter shows for minors.

In the COPA case, many of the plaintiff’s arguments were based on the effectiveness of filters. In digital TV, DMCA anti-circumvention provisions can prevent similar effectiveness of filtering technology of shows and movies.

The link for Schoen’s analysis (June 8) is here.

COPA, sexting, and "self promotion": we don't see around the corners

A day after more media reports that a central Virginia county sheriff was investigating another teen for possession of porn in his cell phone after receiving “sexting” meesages, it seems to me that the whole question of protecting minors – and the families that raise them – has become convoluted indeed. We constantly find more legal and security-related corners that we just don’t see around.

COPA was focused on what now seems, in retrospect, a relatively narrow issue, of images and perhaps text that would be “harmful to minors” when placed by commercial sites on public areas of the Internet. What we found was that many of the concepts weren’t so narrow: what is “commercial”, what is “prurient”, how relevant is the maturity level of the individual minor (the “Smallville Problem”). The Judge that decided the case, as well as the Supreme Court when providing guidance, articulated the idea that many supposedly stable legal concepts can play “shape shifter.”

But, even getting beyond the sexting issue as well as laws like COPA, what we find is that the biggest underlying problem for parents protecting minors is the easy self-promotion. A lot of it has to do with search engines, and a lot of it has to deal with the incredible power of social networking sites. When one draws attention to oneself before one has “paid his dues” and competed appropriately, one can attract unwelcome and unexpected attention to oneself and even other family members (especially of teens). We’re finding this particularly in the behavior of employers, making sniff judgments on social networking profiles (it seems that this happens now even with profiles supposedly marked private), and it is a problem that seems to be growing. This isn’t really a teen’s problem. Teenagers learn that the world is a competitive place, and in the world that they can perceive, the web, as well as the high school stadium (or the classroom) is a place that everyone competes. No wonder they do what they do. They’re just copying what they learn from us, and they can’t see around all the corners. But neither do we.

The American "adult" industry could be on its way out?

David Goldstein has an amusing, or perhaps sobering article in "The American Prospect", reprinted by Alternet. May 15, “Is the Porn Industry Doomed?” I couldn’t get the American Prospect site to come up, so the Alternet copy is here.

Larry Flynt reportedly asked Congress for a $5 billion bailout of the “adult” industry. Is he pulling our leg? Okay, conservatives say, its because of the porn business that men don’t want to get or stay married. Fantasy is more appealing than reality, but that goes beyond porn, doesn’t it. That was a key point in the COPA trial.

Diane Duke, Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, admits that piracy and free content could be driving the business down.

Goldstein goes on to discuss the politics of it on Capitol Hill, including Barney Frank, and pretty soon we get into “Outrage” territory.

Northern VA authorities take cautious approach on "sexting" by minors

The Fairfax County (VA) Police Department has been handling the “sexting” issue carefully, according to a front page story in The Washington Post on Thursday May 7.
The story is “Sending of explicit photos can land teens in legal fix,” link here.

Typical the police department confers with a Commonwealth attorney, and may recommend counseling or juvenile court instead a full prosecution, as has happened in other states. The laws were never really designed to protect kids from each other this way and lump them in with “predators.”

Police say that many are “good kids” with no records, and have no concept that explicit photos could wind up on the Internet and be found by future employers or schools.

Update: May 13, 2009

Station WJLA-7 announced that Fairfax County police will have an information forum for the public on the sexting issue at West Springfield High School tonight, May 13.

WJLA provides a report of the meeting "Concerned Local Parents, Teens Gather for Sexting Meeting", link here. WJLA provides a video from the meeting there. The suggestion was made that parents take cell phones away at bedtime, and police said that over 20% of teens have texted. Technically, they are committing serious felonies. There is talk of changing the laws (with "Romeo and Juliet" age provisions) but police say it is difficult to do so without inviting real "predators" back in. Kids don't think what they are doing is wrong, and the problem it creates is indirect and existential.

Today, Ellen DeGeneres, on her show May 13, frivolously called "Sexting" "Texting with a booty call". I wonder if she realizes how serious the legal issue is.