How the Internet Filter Works in AACPS
by Tracey Brown, Instructional Technology Teacher Specialist
Have you ever tried to access a website on your AACPS laptop to find that it is blocked and then wondered, "why would anyone block this website?" Or maybe you have tried to share one with students only to have a similar frustrating result and thought? If the answer is yes, this blog post will help you understand how our filter system works and why so many sites that don't seem the least bit nefarious are blocked for staff, students, and sometimes both.
AACPS uses a network filtering system that works on categories. When website creators publish their site, they select applicable categories. The category system relies on them to accurately categorize their sites, which most of them do since a website publisher usually wants their intended audience to easily find and utilize their site and possibly purchase their products.
In addition to relying on categories, our filtering team can allow sites that would be blocked by a category and block sites that are currently allowed because they are not caught in a nefarious category. One common example of this customization is the category Games that is blocked by AACPS for all students. While many online games are just a waste of instructional time, other games and gamified instructional tools such as iReady and Typing Club are approved and even built into our curriculum. Based on the category system, these applications would be blocked for students, but they are whitelisted, or allowed while we keep other game sites blocked. Similarly, if a website designer does not accurately categorize their site and it is accessible to students even though it should not be, we have the ability to not only report a mis-categorization to our network filter provider, but we can also manually add the site to our blocklist regardless of its categorization.
When it comes to web filtering people fall into one of two schools of thought; those who are frustrated by the quantity of internet content students can access and want to access, and those who feel that we should not filter the internet at all and that smart, savvy teachers and students will make good choices when given the chance. If you are in the former group, you may wonder why we don't restrict more access, but for those in the latter group, you may wonder why school districts insist on having a web filter at all. The answer is, we are required by law to filter internet access for minors.
A federal law known as CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) requires that organizations such as schools and libraries that provide internet access to minors must also safeguard them from content that is inappropriate or harmful and that their internet use must be monitored.
In addition to millions (if not billions) of websites, the internet is also a great source of images, many of which are also not appropriate for our youngest learners. Images rely on a different system in our web filter. That system utilizes keywords. Many of those keywords are the same as the categories and you can probably guess a lot of the them that a school district would choose to block. What is most challenging is how vernacular can change and terms that yesterday had no secondary meaning tomorrow can have several. This means our filtering team is constantly monitoring the system to ensure that what needs to be blocked is being blocked.
One of the most commonly rejected filter requests regards audio and video streaming services. Typically around the holidays, the semester change, spring break and the end of the year, the requests to unblock Pandora, Disney Plus, and Netflix (among others) come in at a rate of more than one per day. These requests are consistently denied. AACPS does not allow streaming services other than those we subscribe to, such as Discovery Education. Other streaming services are blocked in our filter system due to their Terms of Service for personal accounts that state that your subscription to this service is for your personal use only and screening videos or sharing audio playlists is a direct violation of those terms. This means legally we cannot allow teachers to use these personally subscribed services with their students.
Have you ever tried to access a website on your AACPS laptop to find that it is blocked and then wondered, "why would anyone block this website?" Or maybe you have tried to share one with students only to have a similar frustrating result and thought? If the answer is yes, this blog post will help you understand how our filter system works and why so many sites that don't seem the least bit nefarious are blocked for staff, students, and sometimes both.
How we filter web content
How the categories work
Website categories include things like "Adult Content," "Health Content," "News," and everyone's favorite, "Friendship Content" which is a fancy term for social media. AACPS has the ability to block categories for some users while allowing them for others. Categories such as Pornography, Adult Content, Nudity, Drugs, Alcohol, and Guns are blocked for all users in AACPS. Categories such as Friendship Content are blocked for all students, but allowed for staff. Categories such as News are blocked for elementary and middle school but allowed for high school since the content contained in the news on any given day could be graphic or sensitive and should therefore only be utilized with our youngest learners in the context of a lesson and not stumbled upon by an resourceful internet surfer.What if the category system isn't enough
Why do we need a filter at all
When it comes to web filtering people fall into one of two schools of thought; those who are frustrated by the quantity of internet content students can access and want to access, and those who feel that we should not filter the internet at all and that smart, savvy teachers and students will make good choices when given the chance. If you are in the former group, you may wonder why we don't restrict more access, but for those in the latter group, you may wonder why school districts insist on having a web filter at all. The answer is, we are required by law to filter internet access for minors.
A federal law known as CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) requires that organizations such as schools and libraries that provide internet access to minors must also safeguard them from content that is inappropriate or harmful and that their internet use must be monitored.
What about images
In addition to millions (if not billions) of websites, the internet is also a great source of images, many of which are also not appropriate for our youngest learners. Images rely on a different system in our web filter. That system utilizes keywords. Many of those keywords are the same as the categories and you can probably guess a lot of the them that a school district would choose to block. What is most challenging is how vernacular can change and terms that yesterday had no secondary meaning tomorrow can have several. This means our filtering team is constantly monitoring the system to ensure that what needs to be blocked is being blocked.
A final note on the filtering of streaming services
