Public School Internet Sevice Selective Blocking

[Veritas]

CT high school filters conservative websites, allows liberal pages

A high school student in Connecticut is accusing administrators of political censorship after the school restricted access to conservative news outlets and websites while allowing students to visit liberal sites.

Andrew Lampart, a student at Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, Connecticut, was assigned an in-class debate on gun-control during his "Law & You" course. While preparing for the debate during study hall Lampart logged onto the school provided Internet and found out that students were forbidden from visiting The National Association for Gun Rights website or the news outlet TheBlaze.com.

"I used my study hall to research gun control facts and statistics. That is when I noticed that most of the pro-second amendment websites were blocked, while the sites that were in favor of gun control generally were not," Lampart told Campus Reform.

The school’s SonicWALL internet filters also block the Connecticut GOP homepage, news organizations like Townhall, RedState, and political action committees like SarahPAC.com, categorizing them under the Political/Advocacy Groups restricted web pages.

However, the school’s firewall allows students to access the homepage for the gun control group Moms Demand Action, the Connecticut Democrat Party, Center for American Progress, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the homepage for Hillary Clinton.

Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[Joykins]

They're afraid some kid will shoot up the school.

 

[MSBS]

Was just playing with my sonicwall here at work-- turning on the political filter didn't block redstate, but did block the Connecticut democratic party. The rest are pretty much the same. It looks like someone made specific rules for those sites though, because the default blocking when political sites is checked is different for those two.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Was just playing with my sonicwall here at work-- turning on the political filter didn't block redstate, but did block the Connecticut democratic party. The rest are pretty much the same. It looks like someone made specific rules for those sites though, because the default blocking when political sites is checked is different for those two.

Could be a different revision of the settings.

 

[MSBS]

Could be a different revision of the settings.

the list is constantly updated from Sonicwall/Dell

 

[EdwinWillers]

They're afraid some kid will shoot up the school.

Yes, because that's what conservative kids do.

(Wondering if it's possible to be any more goading / inflammatory?)

 

[Joykins]

They're afraid some kid will shoot up the school.

Yes, because that's what conservative kids do.

(Wondering if it's possible to be any more goading / inflammatory?)

I was referring to the blocking of pro-gun sites, because I only read the first paragraph of anything

I do know that it's impossible to research anything adequately with net nanny software, which I'm convinced cause confusion and delay overall. One of my old offices had to constantly work around it to do their work, as it blocked the DEA site because DRUGS.

(And FWIW anyone of any ideology could want to look at conservative sites. I've been known to do it from time to time, although not in high school, when our internet equivalent was called the "library" and I had to look at actual conservative publications)

 

[Maynard Keenan]

What I've found in many news stories about unequal treatment from internet filters - usually, in my case, coming from liberal sites and frequently involving blocking of atheist or non-christian religious sites - there's often not any intent to treat people unequally, and those using the blocks don't really know what is and isn't blocked. I've seen a lot of cases in schools or libraries where atheist or pagan sites were unblocked when brought to the attention of the organizations. Hopefully that's the case here, and with this realized it will be made right.