he overwhelming majority of Americans say schools should install filters to block students from accessing pornography and hate speech, according to a new national survey commissioned by the Digital Media Forum.
Ninety-two percent said pornography should be blocked on school computers, while 79 percent said filters should be used to bar hate speech, the survey of 1,900 individuals showed.
Filtering software and services block pre-selected Web sites with certain characteristics, such as pornography, from an individual user's Internet account. Some schools set up systems in which students and teachers are given different levels of access depending on age appropriateness. And companies like America Online offer software to its subscribers that parents can use to block their children from accessing inappropriate material online.
"The vast majority seem to accept filtering as a way of school life," said Andy Carvin, senior associate at Benton Foundation's Communications Policy Practice The Washington, D.C.-based foundation is a member of the Digital Media Forum, a consortium of six public interest and consumer groups interested in media policy.
While 86 percent of the individuals surveyed this summer said they believe the Internet would help their children learn more, and 95 percent said the Internet is vital for developing work skills, there is still some trepidation about what materials students can access via the medium. Seventy-six percent of respondents said "inappropriate material" makes it more difficult to adopt the Internet in schools.
While support for government intervention in the Internet typically breaks down among economic and educational lines ˆ with more affluent and educated individuals opposing government interference ˆ there is broad support across income, race and educational groups for requiring filtering for school computers , said Dhavan Shah, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Shah conducted the study for the Digital Media Forum.
"It's not perceived as censorship, but rather a protection, or barrier," he said. "The support is widespread and fairly constant among all groups. It's a specific threat they see."
Shah added that support is greater for filters rather than banning pornography and hate speech outright. However, the survey did find that 74 percent of individuals said the government should ban online pornography altogether and 75 percent supported a government ban of online hate speech.
"If young people are seen as adversely affected, people see a need to step in," Shah said. "They want to restrict some forms of content and they want to do it at the point of access and not at the point of production. The strongest support is for restricting access of children to this kind of content."
Major education associations and civil liberties groups remain united in their opposition to proposed congressional legislation that would require schools and libraries to install filters in exchange for receiving federal technology funding.
Lawmakers are considering a compromise measure authored by Sens. John McCain, R-AZ, and Rick Santorum, R-PA, and Reps. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., and Chip Pickering, R-Miss., as part of a larger spending bill for the departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services.
A spokeswoman for Istook said the survey's findings confirm what the congressman has heard from constituents and other lawmakers.
"Our language is written carefully so it would not violate anyone's constitutional rights," said spokeswoman Micah Swafford. "We're talking about banning something that's already illegal. There's broad bipartisan support."
A large number of schools have already installed filtering programs. Representatives of national education groups said they do not oppose individual school districts adopting filters, but rather a federal mandate that they do so.
"The vast majority of schools today are filtering," Carvin said. "It's not necessarily a First Amendment issue, it's a way of keeping students on task."
But Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) whose group also is a member of the Digital Media Forum that released the survey ˆ said installing filters on school computers is akin to banning books from a library.
"We've described filters simply as censorware," he said. "They can exclude political opinion, medical information and information on sexuality. You essentially rely on someone else's unknown list" to determine what is blocked.
Although those surveyed seemed wary about Internet content, 76 percent said they support government-funded training to teach educators how to use the Internet, and 60 percent said they support the government's role in brining Internet access into schools.
"The support of federal involvement is high for wiring classrooms and training teachers," Carvin said. "The sense we're getting is there's strong public support for education and libraries."
With solid public support for government-funded school technology programs, it will be more difficult for opponents in Congress to eliminate or weaken them, Carvin said. Republican lawmakers initially mounted opposition to the e-rate program, which provides discounts to schools and libraries for Internet access and wiring.
"It will be much more difficult for Congress to do much to the e-rate," he said.
Shah said he was surprised to see the level of support for Internet access programs among those who do are not yet online . Typically, he said, those who are already using the Internet are the strongest advocates for expanding access.
"I was surprised by the level of support for filtering programs and the level of support for these access programs," he said. "The support tends to be strongest among those who don't have access."
