CIPA/Children's Internet Protection Act - Research Paper Example

? Introduction Children internet protection act (CIPA) is an act passed by the congress on December 15, 2000 and signed into bill by the president. The act requires that school and library use internet filters to protect children from harmful contents (Department of Commerce, 2003). The act also restricts use of funds available through library services and technology act. The restrictions are composed of internet safety policies and technology. It blocks or filters certain offensive material, content over the internet on school and library computers. Children internet protection act has certain requirement that must be met by school or library that receives funds for internet access, or internal connections from the E-rate program. The E-rate program cannot offer discount on internet access that make it affordable to schools or libraries unless they certify, they have internet safety measures. The safety measures can include restricting access to material that are obscene or child pornography or adopting policy to monitor online activities of minors, Safety and security of minors using chat room, electronic mail or any other form of internet chat (Department of Commerce, 2003). Access to the resources of the Internet has given children new research tools, information sources, avenues of expression, collaborative learning opportunities, and connections to other Communities, among other benefits, on the other hand internet can expose children to explicit materials that are readily available on the internet. (CIPA 106-554, 2000.) Parents and educators have access to a variety of tools that can help protect children from these dangers. In October 2000, Congress passed the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which requires schools and libraries that receive federal funds for discounted telecommunications, Internet access, or internal connections services to adopt an Internet safety policy and employ technological protections that block or filter certain visual depictions deemed obscene, pornographic, or harmful to minors. Internet Safety Policy Issues The internet has for a long time been considered a gigantic library in that it has material to serve the purpose of educating as well as entertaining. Just like in any other library not all the contents within the library are always suitable for children. All libraries are partitioned to include children and adults sections. This is to enable the youth; children and the older people within the use of the library identify which materials are appropriate for them (Lennard G, 2010). This is unlike the internet as a source of information where the content is more likely accessible to everyone. Almost every site including those about ponies and websites can be accessed by just a click. Both adult and child pornography which are considered sexually explicit material are readily available online. Many young people are consequently learning about sex from the media, their peers and to a larger extent the internet. The more often a person gets exposed to potentially harmful material, then the more desensitized the person becomes and they tend to consider it normal. This is the clear way to addiction. Other than addiction the children may form personal opinions and flawed views of their self-image and sexuality that in the long run affect their development (Caglar & Savaser, 2010). Through the internet the children do not only get exposed to sexual material but as well other forms of material that bring to fame other risky and illegal behaviours. With the current world of technology, finding inappropriate content for a child does not prove to be a hard task. It is as easy as typing into the search bar on Google the particular word of interest (Caglar & Savaser, 2010). With the current world of technology everything appears in electronic form and even education has moved to a higher level. Children have the opportunity to learn online through interactive programs, soft wares as well as other forums and as well a chance to entertain themselves through video games and through other games played online. To promote this the government has put in place a program that supports schools which offer internet services as supportive learning programs for their students (Bremer, 2005). Since the Children Internet Protection Act was enacted schools have tried to fit into the E-rate program that requires registration that makes some products and communication services more affordable for the eligible schools and libraries. However for these schools and libraries to receive such help they are required to adopt and implement Internet safety policies which includes monitoring online activities of minors and providing educative programs to the same minors about appropriate online behaviours. The E-rate program makes it easier for schools to keep the internet services running at a low cost despite having the requirements that must be met. Among the most affected group of internet users are the children who end up being unfortunately vulnerable to the negative elements of the emerging cyber-society. The people responsible for children should find a safe way for children to surf the web without necessarily having access to the illegal and mind corrupting materials posted online (Livingstone M, 2009). There is no guarantee that a child’s internet excursion will be safe. No matter the innocence on one web link it will definitely lead to another and in the long run some undesirable website. The beauty of the web is to freely surf and associate one website to another. However this is still a nemesis for those children who need protection from dangerous adult material. This has promoted the upcoming of organizations that vest their best interest in protecting the young surfers. Such an example is the SafeSurf.com that usually includes tags on their pages to help identify the content (Department of Commerce, 2003). The tags are read by a Safe surf rating file that can be downloaded. Depending on the rating file settings then the user can choose the levels of content their browser will display. Filtering in itself is not an easy task. These people responsible for surfing of kids unfortunately do not have much knowledge about the workings of the internet especially the soft wares designed to protect themselves including their children. They are the same people who will naively invest in filtering soft wares for prevention from adult material but will coincidentally ask the same children to install the program oblivious to the fact that the child installing the software will know how to override or rather disable it altogether. The protection act calls for schools and libraries subject to CIPA to implement internet safety policy addressing several issues including safety and security minors, unauthorised access including hacking, unauthorised disclosure and other measures restricting minors from accessing harmful material. To this effect, respective library administrators should utilize suitable categories of filter profiles that are put on offer by several filter companies. These filters will be the only effective way to try and minimize the level at which children who have access to the internet get access to illegal material. Filters For these schools and libraries that are subject to CIPA, they may end up not receiving any discounts offered by the E-rate programs unless they prove certification to having internet safety policies that includes technology protection measures. This is where the filters play role. Filers leave the school library administrators with the choice of what categories should be blocked. Filters not allowing the administrators to set up filter profiles and categories that will be blocked are generally not used in the library (Karen G, 2002). Some features not suitable for library use but are better off appropriate for home use include the ability to control what is blocked and how overriding blocked pages gets handled. This is among one of the greatest and most important steps all those responsible of protecting children’s internet surfing should embrace (Apete, 1999). This is one safety policy when embraced will round up most of the issues needed to be tackled with regard to Children’s Internet protection Act. The whole concept of the CIPA policy is to protect the children from accessing the illegal adult material. Therefore the most effective way to protect our children from such content shouldn’t be all about money investment but rather one of time. Children and the Internet What parents and guardians should keep in mind is that the internet is a great way for kids to stay up-to-date with the latest news, communicate with friends and also do research for school projects. However it is unfortunate that for us to ensure safe surfing of our children we should be in the position to know more about the internet than our children do. One should know some of the reasons as to why the internet is dangerous. Many people find it very easy to create false identity (Bremer, 2005). This is due to the fact that it is not possible to see the person on the far end of the computer giving chance for some people to play the role of others in the world. False identity enables predators to find their way to children or young teenagers and it always ends that this is discovered too late when they contact the children in person exposing them to risks. With so many websites and links to choose from, it is an automatic way to lead children to undesirable sites where they access websites that are violent in nature. Conclusion The Children Internet protection Act seeks to ensure some freedom guaranteed to children and also regulates the content material view by the children. Other than having only the schools and libraries play the role of regulating the rate, as it was discussed above it should be our responsibility since it is not only a matter of financial investment but rather a matter of time. As much as there may be free filtering programs available on the web, we should remember that talking to a child will help them understand the reasons behind safe surfing and personal values and expectations concerning the web. The talking should be backed up by some security measures such as establishing limits for the online sites children can visit, monitoring cell phones gaming devices and laptops, surf internet together with the children to allow you gain knowledge of what they like to do most online, set rules for social networking and know who associates with your children and ensure you keep alive the dialogue with your children about online safety. The internet is addictive and without proper measures including the provisions of the Children Internet Protection Act, children face the great dangers posed by certain materials on the internet. Therefore all schools should practice the Act and register for E-rating to assist children surf in a cheap and safe way. References Apete, V. (1999). Children and the Internet. The Business journal- Central New York, 13(12), 1. Bremer, J. (2005). The Internet and Children: Advantages and Disadvantages. Child and Adolescent Psychatric Clinics of North America, 14(3), 405-428. Caglar, C., & Savaser, S. (2010). Internet an Child Ponography. International Journal of Human Sciences, 7(1), 1001-1008. Department of Commerce. (2003). Study of Technology Protection Measures. Michigan: Havard Press. Karen G, S. (2002). E-rate: The agony and the ecstacy. American Libraries, 33(1), 94. Livingstone M, S. (2009). Children and the Internet: great expectations, changing realities. Scotland: Polity. Read More