The relationship between the protection of freedom and unrestricted access to information and ideas is the foundation of democratic and secular society. However, access to information and ideas may be in fact subject to greater restriction today than we imagine.
Batch (2014) in her report “Fencing Out Knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act 10 years later” sheds light on aspects of oppression that result from a substantial over-reach in filtering processes that have become accepted in exchange for funding in the American context. The abuse of such arrangement is made evident in the report. Initially designed to protect adults and minors from obscenity the CIPA is has been used in the segregation of social media and networking from educational contexts also. The argument that there is a major area of young people’s lives that is implicitly banned from schooling is impoverishing their ability to thrive in a world where these platforms are increasingly linked to economic and social success is one that needs to be heard out.
Another concerning intersection between filtering and freedom is the extent to which the private actors are empowered to act without transparency or public accountability. There are real issues developing in late Capitalism of the rise of technocratic elites who as gatekeepers filter the facts and truths that those relying on information technology access. The widening gap between an advantaged class of people with unlimited and unrestricted access to information and those who have limited public access through schools bears serious future consequences for the stability of society globally.
Batch states that “blocking access to social media and networking sites leaves youth on their own to use these sites outside of the classroom instead of engaging them in the use of these tools in a supportive school environment.” (Batch, p. 26). There are two distinct groups of young people at-risk in the current climate of restriction. The first are those that are left behind in developing the transliteracy needed to reach their full future potential as a result of limited economic access to unrestricted information. The second group however are just as vulnerable in the chaos of the digital world. The generation of young people who have become normalised to circumventing systems of control are increasingly the prey of a predatory class of anti-social groups that seek to destablise society and create disorder. Understanding the modes in which terrorist organisations use information to radicalise and weaponise the minds of young people is a dark but compelling area of knowledge for TLs to be aware of and learn from. Explicitly addressing the ways information can be warped to fit the ideological outcomes of fringe political groups protects students more than actively promoting the prohibition freedom.