Yesterday, Miguel Guhlin wrote a post about Bloglines’ new “Image Wall.” His main contention is that the images aren’t filtered, and so anyone using the service may be exposed to offensive material. (Bloglines does require you to accept a disclaimer before passing you on to the Image Wall.)
Because of the Image Wall, Miguel is requesting that other educators boycott Bloglines until that service is removed:
I hope you’re reading Bloglines. Image Wall is bad, bad, bad. I’m headed to something else. Ok, BOYCOTT BLOGLINES, FLICKR, BLOGSPOT, YOUTUBE, BLIP, etc.! Around the Corner v2 – MGuhlin.net – Around the Corner v2 – MGuhlin.net
There’s already some talk happening on the Bloglines forum about this (search “image wall”), and comments are growing on Miguel’s post.
My first comment on this thread was:
Seriously? I’ve written a bit on my blog about the balance between safety and access, between protection and education. I think schools are erring far to the side of caution and, through our fear and “head-in-the-sand” approach, are abdicating our responsibility to successfully prepare and educate students. We therefore fail them now and set them up for further failure in the future. (The New York Times was just reporting on the results of this failure, actually …)
I don’t advocate improper material in the classroom, but how can we teach students to safely but effectively use emerging technologies if we just run around blocking them all? We need to teach and model safe, effective use. We need to lead in knowledge, confidence, and hope … not hide in ignorance, fear, and despair.
I can guarantee a child’s safety by locking them up for 18 years, but I don’t recommend that approach … and what would they do when they were released?
On a tangent: this country’s hyper-sensitivity to nudity seems absurd to me, and ignorantly prudish to most of the rest of the world. Decapitations, pools of blood, serial killers, machine-guns and torture? All fine for primetime viewing. A bare breast!? God forbid! HaloScan.com – Comments
Since then, others have commented as well. I wanted to continue the conversation, but my latest batch of thoughts were too long for the comment section and contained too many links. Instead, I’m posting my comments here (and left a link in the comments thread). I recommend you read Miguel’s post and related comments first so that you can read this reply in context:
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First of all, Bloglines belongs to the owners of Bloglines, not us. They provide a service that consumers can choose to use or not use, and they are well within the legal requirements (along with Flickr, YouTube, Blogspot, and others). I don’t use Bloglines, but that was a decision that came long before this issue. I do stand by Bloglines’ right to do whatever it thinks is best, within legal limits. I also stand by the rights of others to choose not to use their service and to voice complaints to Bloglines as potential customers. However, I do not support anyone trying to make that choice for anyone else.
Secondly, the Internet does not belong to any one subgroup (just like the nation as a whole, in theory). The moment that one subgroup, regardless of size, attempts to silence other subgroups, we have a serious problem. This is an issue of rights, and it’s larger than the classroom.
Please understand me: I am concerned about safety in the classroom and am not suggesting we disregard this concern. However, if educators truly want total control, then educators should create or implement software and services that provide them with that control. I’ve argued in the past that we need a leveled approach to safety: younger students do need more protection than older students, but at some point, students need to be taught to deal effectively with the actual, uncontrollable world.
Knee-jerk reactions that attempt to silence others or ban their use outright seem counterproductive–it removes students even further from the “world and future” for which we claim to be preparing them. You’d be hard-pressed to name three more powerful, revolutionary, and popular online services than Flickr, YouTube, and Blogspot. And now we want to ban them because they allow individuals to use the services however they see fit, within legal confines? That just sounds too dangerously close to 1st Amendment violations to me.
The problem seems to me to lie more with how schools are dealing with “the outside world” (online or not), the rights of students, and the schools’ obligations in terms of both. Our policies and our understanding need to catch up (so that things like the Julie Amero case don’t have to happen).
Now, on the other hand, if Bloglines wants to position itself as a key educational tool, then this “image wall” is probably a bad idea (and, as others have said, also kinda pointless). Educators should indeed express their concern. And I agree that services like Bloglines, YouTube, Flickr, etc. should allow all customers to easily filter potentially objectionable material (as services like StumbleUpon does … and with the understanding that these filters will never be perfect). I think concerned users of these tools should let their requests be known to the services.
But we must remember that the law in these cases is designed to protect free speech because we realize, as a nation, how important that right is and how dangerous restricting that freedom can be. I want my students to understand that, and I want to educate them in that direction. There’s a line we need to watch carefully between carelessness and empowerment, but we also need to watch the lines between education and programming, between protection and control.
So, while I agree with the rallying cry to teacher vigilance and student safety, I also request that we take a more thoughtful, balanced approached. Of course, I could also be just plain wrong. If so, please talk me through why that’s the case.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for articulating this…I don’t care for long messages in comment boxes, either.
A few points about my objections to Bloglines:
1) They implemented a feature that will effectively result in their services being banned from schools. The Image Wall does present inappropriate content.
2) In grades K-12, every effort is made to prevent student and staff access to these types of images because they are inappropriate to instructional settings.
3) This is not a free speech issue. As of this morning, I am asking other educators to stand up and demand a “opt-out” preference setting that will effectively establish an account as education focused. That means, no image wall feature. I don’t care what people do at home with Bloglines and the Image Wall.
Bloglines.com is now an inappropriate tool for use in K-12 education solely because of the image wall. I want to be able to recommend its use in K-12, but cannot because the image wall is in place.
Perhaps the question boils down to this: Isn’t it in Bloglines.com’s best interests to provide education-friendly features, rather than immediately put itself on the banned list because of those features?
Thanks again for your reasoned conversation.
Best wishes,
Miguel Guhlin
February 19th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Nice, balanced post. My two cents:
1. Bloglines is out of touch by forcing widgets on users. Netvibes has a much smarter approach: they allow users to choose what modules (widgets) to install on their readers. Optional add-ons are a nice middle ground between “can’t-subtracts” like Bloglines’ Image Wall, and the free speech position you so rightly lay out.
2. There’s still the reality of parental complaints and law-suits, as your other recent posts suggest. While I agree that educating learners about responsible use and safety is the ideal, I don’t want to butt heads with parents or endanger the so-far enthusiastic attitude, among my school administrators, about web 2.0 in the classroom.
3. I totally agree with your analysis of the stupidity at the root of this all: American horror (in many, at least) over basic biology, pleasure, and natural sense experience.
I’ll close by adding that Bloglines does seem to have budged a bit by making the “addtional features” menu in the feed frame collapsed by default, rather than expanded. Maybe the lazy buggers I’m teaching will follow their natural instincts to never click the expand button
I enjoy your blog, by the way.
February 19th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Thanks for the compliment, Clay. I agree with your two cents.
I responded to Miguel’s comment on his blog (basically saying thanks and agreeing with his point that it’s in Bloglines’ best interest to create education-friendly features).
To be clear, I’m not pro-Bloglines on this issue (or pro-porn, for that matter). I’m just very concerned about balanced approaches to online freedoms and education.
February 19th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
I agree that free speech is something we need to uphold but, in the same turn, we need to demand that with the right to free speech, one MUST fulfill their responsiblities that come along with the free speech. That is why speech filled with the major ‘-isms’, hate, slander and other demeaning qualities is not free speech. With every right there is a corresponding responsibility that sometimes gets forgotten along the way. I agree that bloglines hasn’t done a thing wrong – they have offered a service, put in place disclaimer and then allowed the public to make their decision. Neither has Miguel. Last time I checked, he has every right to suggest a ban by educators unless Bloglines does some modifications.
However, as an administrator and teacher, I won’t be letting bloglines into our school and I’ll be suggesting that the division ban its use. Why? I don’t want to make the temptation to do something wrong so great that they cannot resist – thus no bloglines. The temptation to click that button will just be too great for some of the students and then I’ll have no choice to deal with the resulting fallout. Teach all you want about using the internet wisely and what is allowed in schools and what isn’t – it will happen. So why put the temptation in front of them? That’s why companies are filtering various content – temptation is just too great – and they’re losing too much work time to these temptations.
I see this as less of a free speech issue than one of good practice – you don’t temp someone to do something wrong, it just isn’t a wise thing to do. I agree that one way of alieviating the problems with content on YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, etc would be to have a filter check which would allow schools to use these great resources without having to watch the sex acts of various people during an English class, although it provides great blog material!
btw – interesting material and posts. Thanks for doing such a good job of writing!
February 19th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
My reaction was similar to yours. There’s a panicked tone in the post, especially in the all-caps call to “BOYCOTT BLOGLINES, FLICKR, BLOGSPOT, YOUTUBE, BLIP, etc.” and “other services that host inappropriate media”. I mean, seriously, the internet is a service that hosts inappropriate media. We’ve always had to take the bad with the good online, and to use the opportunity to help kids make good choices.
I don’t blame these educators for being in a fit about it, but it’s hard for me to not see it as a failure of the entire education system that this is even an issue. It makes it seem like school is more like prison, with the main goal to being to protect students from society and themselves.