But every filtering enterprise to date is a failure and a disaster, and it’s my belief that every filtering effort we will ever field will be no less a failure and a disaster. These systems are failures because they continue to allow the bad stuff through. They’re disasters because they block mountains of good stuff. Their proponents acknowledge both these facts, but treat them as secondary to the importance of trying to do something, or being seen to be trying to do something. Secondary to the theatrical and PR value of pretending to be solving the problem.
The quote is from a Cory Doctorow article on filtering that is worth reading. I realize that some filtering will be in schools no matter what but the poor quality of filtering teachers and students have to deal with is unacceptable. The way decisions on filtering are (too often) made by those without any educational experience is unacceptable.
gyrhead wrote an interesting comment saying, in part,
If you have a one size fits all filtering solution like Bess you will end up with a very restrictive environment; if you go with your own locally managed and customizable solution you will have much better results.
I think that’s true up to a point. For me, it all depends on who is managing things locally. Too often it’s technology, as opposed to instruction, making those decisions and too often decisions are made out of fear rather than through rationale thought.