ASTORIA, N.Y. — The Department of Education has installed new Internet filters in New York schools after a group of eight-year-olds were able to bypass the outdated filters. The third graders, who attend Public School 85, typed the phrase “hot girls” into Google’s image search and were able to view photos relevant to the search on school computers.
According to PS 85’s principal, Ann Gordon-Chang, this was an isolated incident, and students were barred from using the computers until the problem was addressed, the New York Daily News reports.
James Cox, a computer and information science professor at Brooklyn College, told the news source that no filter can be 100 percent effective; however, the fact that young students were able to bypass the Department of Education’s filter so easily means it probably wasn’t very effective at all.
While parents are glad that the filters have now been updated, Sonya Hampton, president of PS 149’s Parent Teacher Association, said that the real solution is better supervision of students who are using computers.
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