12/04/2023

Inside America’s School Internet Censorship Machine

An investigation into internet censorship found widespread use of filters

Around dinner time one night in July, a student in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Googled "suicide prevention hotline." They were automatically blocked. The student tried again, using their Albuquerque Public Schools district–issued laptop to search for "contact methods for suicide." Blocked. They were turned away again a few hours later when attempting to access a webpage on the federally-funded Suicide Prevention Resource Center. That night, more than a dozen times, the student tried to access online mental health resources, and the district's web filter blocked their requests for help every time.

In the following weeks, students and staff across Albuquerque tried and failed to reach crisis mental health resources on district computers. An eighth grader Googled "suicide hotline" on their take-home laptop; a ninth grader looked up "suicide hotline number;" a high school counselor Googled "who is a mandated reporter for suicide in New Mexico;" another counselor at an elementary school tried to download a PDF of the district’s suicide prevention protocol. Blocked, blocked, blocked—all in a state with among the highest suicide rates in the U.S.

Thanks in large part to a two-decade-old federal anti-porn law, school districts across the U.S. restrict what students see online using a patchwork of commercial web filters that block vast and often random swathes of the internet. Companies like GoGuardian and Blocksi—the two filters used in Albuquerque—govern students’ internet use in thousands of U.S. school districts. As the national debate over school censorship focuses on controversial book-banning laws, a WIRED investigation reveals how these automated web filters can perpetuate dangerous censorship on an even greater scale.

Please select this link to read the complete article from WIRED.