Censoring Cyberspace: Can Kids Be Controlled?

Shaheen Shariff

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511551260.007

6 - Censoring Cyberspace: Can Kids Be Controlled?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2009

Shaheen Shariff

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Shaheen Shariff: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal

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Summary

Bullying using a new information technology … gives kids way more power than they've had.

(School superintendent Anne Kerr, as quoted in Girard & Nguyen, 2007)

INTRODUCTION

School authorities look for ways to control online expression that defames or insults peers and teachers, believing it has become completely out of control. Is this really the case? Why is there such a fear among school officials that information technologies give students too much power? This chapter looks at ways in which school stakeholders influence the development and implementation of censorship laws that are designed to control not only what students express but also what they learn on a regular basis. The concern among school officials that information technology gives students too much power is grounded in the fear that technology can also change knowledge production and control of that knowledge production. As a result, the normative role of schools is challenged and compromised. Consequently, educators look for legal options grounded in positivistic responses, such as criminal law, legislation that forces schools and libraries to filter certain programs (Deleting Online Predators Act, 2006), and zero-tolerance policies rooted in military models of discipline (Skiba & Peterson, 1999). Yet as we have seen in earlier chapters, students are raising substantive legal defenses, grounded in fundamental principles of justice.

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Type: Chapter
Information: Confronting Cyber-Bullying
What Schools Need to Know to Control Misconduct and Avoid Legal Consequences
, pp. 159 - 189

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551260.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

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