Inside America’s School Internet Censorship Machine

Thanks in large part to a two-decade-old federal law, school districts across the US restrict what students see online using a patchwork of commercial web filters that block vast and often random swathes of the internet. Companies like GoGuardian and Blocksi govern students’ internet use in thousands of US school districts. As the national debate over school censorship focuses on controversial book-banning laws, an investigation reveals how these automated web filters can perpetuate dangerous censorship on an even greater scale. An analysis of more than 117 million censorship records confirms what students and civil rights advocates have long warned: Web filters are preventing kids from finding critical information about their health, identity, and the subjects they’re studying in class. Virtually every school in the US uses an automatic web filter, largely due to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) passed by Congress in 2000. The law requires schools and libraries to block “child pornography” and other content deemed “obscene” or “harmful to minors” in order to be eligible for federal technology aid known as E-rate funding.