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Students using the computers at Camdenton High School here in central Missouri have been able to access the Web sites for Exodus International, as well as People Can Change, antigay organizations that counsel men and women on how to become heterosexual.

But the students have not been able to access the Web sites of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

They have been able to read Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy. But they have been blocked from reading Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that held that laws criminalizing sodomy were unconstitutional.

They have been given access to scores of antigay sites, but not to those supportive of gay people.

A clear-cut case of censorship?

Actually, not so clear.

It does not appear that the school superintendent or the librarians or board members or the district Web master made these decisions.

Instead, the district’s Web filter determined which sites would be open to students and which would be blocked. Since the passage of the Children’s Internet Protection Act in 2000, public schools have been required to use Internet filters that shield students from pornography and obscenity.

As for who developed this particular filter, which along with blocking obscenity also discriminates against content supportive of gay people, that person’s identity is hidden behind URLBlacklist, a company that sells filter software to schools.

“These filters are a new version of book-banning or pulling books off the shelf,” said Pat Scales of the American Library Association. “The difference is, this is much more subtle and harder to identify.”

Over the last year, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked officials from hundreds of school districts around the country to make changes in their Internet screening systems to eliminate bias, said Anthony Rothert, a civil liberties lawyer based in St. Louis.

All have agreed to, he said, except Camdenton, which the A.C.L.U. sued last summer.

The lawsuit — believed to be the first of its kind — does not claim that this rural district of 4,200 students purchased the software with the intent of discriminating. Rather, it says, once there were complaints about the filter last year, school officials refused to replace it. An investigator for the A.C.L.U. has been able to figure out how the filter works, but not who developed it.

This is known: The creator goes by “Dr. Guardian” and lives in Fareham, England, in a house that, according to a Google Maps image, has children’s bicycles in the front yard.

“Some person, nameless and faceless, working out of his house in the United Kingdom, winds up determining what information students in Camdenton, Missouri will have access to,” said David Hinkle, an expert on software filters with the A.C.L.U. ...

The way it worked: the URLBlacklist filter classified gay organizations in the “sexuality” category. The sexuality filter also screened out pornography. As a result, when URLBlacklist filtered pornography, it also filtered Web sites supportive of gay causes.

On the other hand, antigay Web sites were typically classified under “religion” or not categorized at all and so were allowed through the filter.

Evangelicals Concerned, a religious support group for gay people, was classified as sexuality and blocked; the Christian Coalition, a leading opponent of gay marriage, was considered religion and permitted. The 2003 Supreme Court ruling was included on a pro-gay list and blocked; the 1986 antigay ruling was not categorized and allowed through.

Judge Laughrey noted that the URLBlacklist filter was even bad at doing its primary, legal job: blocking pornography. Tested on its ability to recognize 500 sexually explicit sites, it missed 30 percent of them. CIPAFilter, one of the leaders in the field, missed 3 percent.

The judge concluded that the only reason she could see for continuing to use an “ineffective” product “falling below professional standards” was a desire to discriminate.

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

"Community standards" might apply if the guy who created the filtering software living in Missouri or even in a neighboring state - but this guy doesn't even live in the same nation!

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

One thing I do remember from when the internet skills started coming in, a lot of the early ones were blocking any mention of the grim northern town "Scunthorpe".
Some feel it's a same they've stopped doing that since...