I am getting so fed up with these internet filters. Youtube and MySpace have been blocked at Charlottesville High School for over a year now, but our dear friends in the school’s IT department have just recently decided to ban Facebook. And boy, is everone upset. You see, we often use laptops in classes at CHS - to work on powerpoints, do research; we even blogged in my 10th grade English class. Naturally, high schoolers spend about 70% of that time on sites other than those select few academic ones they’re supposed to be navigating.

Solution?

BLOCK FACEBOOK!!!! Hahaha! That will teach those little snot-faced teenagers a lesson. They will know the wrath that is the Charlottesville City School’s filtering capabilities!

Sure, they might stop visiting Facebook and start doing their work. More likely, they’ll find a way around the filter using knowledge no more complex than a simple subdomain switch, using the iPhone version of Facebook (which they didn’t bother to block), or even more likely just go back to playing Flash games all period (remember those?).

Not surprisingly, teachers are also upset about the ban (and they have less free time to find a way around it). Yes, teachers use Facebook for legitimate educational purpose. Same goes for YouTube. Ever heard of using video as a learning tool? But I suppose the IT department deluding themselves into thinking they’re actually preventing slackage among the students is more important than letting the teachers do their job innovatively.

I say all this in an only slightly off-topic response to Congressman Mark Kirk’s proposal to ban Second Life in all libraries and schools - a game he says is riddled with sex and is a breeding ground for online predators, endangering children. Ignoring the fact that only about 10 percent of predators meet their victims online, and maybe the goverment should focus on making the real world safer before obsessing over a statistically tiny minority of cases, this is just another example of conservative fanatics attacking what they deem unsanitary lifestyles (apparently Second Life has a fairly active “adult” second), using child safety as an excuse.

If you want to protect children, Mr. Kirk, do something useful and work on actually protecting them in their physical environment. This effort to ban Second Life isn’t going to stop kids from using the site. Nor will it protect them.