The American Civil Liberties Union scored a major victory in their âDonât Filter Meâ initiative against illegal pro-LGBT censorship on public school web browsers by getting Lightspeedâa major supplier of school web-filtering softwareâto stop blocking LGBT content. The ACLU asked U.S. students to report any schools blocking sites like the It Gets Better Project and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network website. And while thousands more schools will now have access to these and other pro-LGBT sites, thereâs still five other major companies on ACLUâs hit list. Letâs see who they are:
Blue Coat, M86, Fortiguard, Websense, and URL Blacklist, all have active filters against student-friendly, pro-LGBT sites (presumably in an overreaching attempt to block access to porn). Even though the ACLU continues to issue letters of notification telling schools and districts to fix their filtering or else, getting these companies to change their software would easily effect far more schools than on a case-by-case basis.
Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project, said, âSchools buy web-filtering software in order to protect their students and comply with the law, but when filtering companies sell anti-LGBT filters to a public school, they are exposing the school to legal liability.â
He then goes onto explain why itâs illegal:
How about we take this to the next level?
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When used by a public school, programs that block all LGBT content violate First Amendment rights to free speech as well as the Equal Access Act, which requires equal access to school resources for all extracurricular clubs. This means that gay-straight alliances and LGBT support groups must have the same access to national organizational websites that help them to function, just as other groups such as the Key Club and the chess club are able to access their national websites. By blocking access to LGBT websites, schools deny helpful information to gay-straight alliances and other support groups that could be vital for troubled LGBT youth who either donât have access to the Internet at home or do not feel safe accessing such information on their home computers.
Thatâs wonderful. Of course, there remain four types of gay websites that schools should continue to blockâthough not ours, of course.
Hyhybt
It wasn’t at a school, but there was one hotspot I was using (wish I could remember where) that allowed Queerty, but blocked the Gay Christian Network as… I don’t remember, porn or indecent content or something like that.
And that was when Morning Goods was still a regular feature here.
EdWoody
Yeah, sometimes the lines are pretty arbitrary. I was at a place yesterday that blocked Queerty but allowed AfterElton, and blocked BlindGossip but allowed FM Forums. So what exactly is the criterion there?
Spencer
At school, all the websites were allowed, and we use m86 im pretty sure.
Really happy that the school allows them đ
But also, the pray-away-gay sites were allowed but, whatever.
Tim
This article incorrectly says its the companies, Blue Coat, M86, etc. that have blocks. That’s not true. They just categorize the websites into different categories. Most have a category for LGBT. It’s the school or whoever is using the tools from these filtering companies that decides to block the LGBT category, these companies just offer that tool.