YouTube banned in Australian schools

Google Inc.'s popular video sharing site, YouTube has been banned in Government schools in Victoria, Australia's second most populous state. The 1600 schools in the region have blocked YouTube due to an assault on a student that was later uploaded to the video sharing site. Education Services Minister Jacinta Allan said the ban was made to fight cyber-bullying.

The case, which is still being investigated by the police, included a group of male students, who attacked a 17 year old girl and then uploaded the video of the attack to YouTube last year. The attack took place in the outskirts of Melbourne. Allan said the schools and their ISPs already filtered Web sites that were available to students, and YouTube had been added to their list.

"The state government has never tolerated bullying in schools and this zero tolerance approach extends to the online world," Allan said. "All students have the right to learn in a safe and supportive learning environment -- this includes making students' experience of the virtual world of learning as safe and productive as possible."

Source:
CNN

Written by: James Delahunty @ 1 Mar 2007 6:52

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34 comments

Attin

theyl just go upload those videos somewhere else...

and lol "cyber bullying"

*cutting hes wrists*
OMG there are vidoes out in t3h internets !!!
rofl

1.3.2007 10:44 #1

sinners

Unfortunatley, I don't think you know how horrible those events were back then. I lived very close to the incident when it happend and it was just plain sad what happen, its just not some "Cyber-Bullying".

1.3.2007 11:01 #2

borhan9

This is a really big matter in Australia not just in Melbourne. Banning it in schools is one way of just taking the bullying outside of school walls. What needs to be implemented is strategies to teach young people how to deal with bullying of all types.

Also strategies have to be put in place to help the bully understand he/she actions and also when a bully lashes out in most cases its a cry for attention due to not getting any attention at home or he/she could have an abusive situation at home and decides to deal with it that way. We need to ban but also implement anti bullying programs. Like peer support back into schools.

1.3.2007 11:04 #3

Andycogen

1.3.2007 11:07 #4

sinners

Hehehe Proxies are banned too or don't work correctly ;) But I can still access Youtube.com

1.3.2007 11:12 #5

canuckerz

They aleddy got it blocked completely here in atlantic Canada. For like a year and a half now. no way around the stupid filter even with pings proxies or anything, its one thurough pain in the ass.

I really dont find this surprising, cyber bullying isnt probably the real issue besides them wanting to make headlines, they most likely got rid of it cause of bandwidth. Thats what they did here atleast. LOL i still lag the stupid school server playing 16 person lan halo demo on good'ol blood gultch.

1.3.2007 15:01 #6

Rikoshay

It doesn't sound bad when you call it Cyber-bullying; what that situation sounded like it was on a way higher criminal scale than "bullying." But considering that school is meant for learning, and that if there's a bandwidth problem, then it would seem appropriate to that extent.

Originally posted by canuckerz:...LOL i still lag the stupid school server playing 16 person lan halo demo on good'ol blood gultch.Hehe, I used to do that in my Tech Support class during my last year in High school, but I don't think it caused much bandwidth usage cuz we were on a hub. Fun times :P

1.3.2007 17:24 #7

Blasph3my

Depending how good their filters are the students would obviously just use a program or online proxy to get to it, the school wouldn't be able to ban all anonymous proxy sites.

But videos like that, especially the attack on a girl definitely shouldn't be seen by kids, or anyone for that matter.

1.3.2007 17:51 #8

Gradical

Hell Im a school teacher and im shure as heck youtube has allways been banned in my classroom, since day one i started working in the school the first three things i did was

banned Messenger
Banned Youtube
and Banned Myspace

its all been good since then
:D

1.3.2007 18:39 #9

DarkJello

Shouldn't they be glad he was dumb enough to post a video of him 'bullying' someone? Sounds like pretty good evidence to use against him to me...

1.3.2007 18:49 #10

Attin

Originally posted by Gradical:Hell Im a school teacher and im shure as heck youtube has allways been banned in my classroom, since day one i started working in the school the first three things i did was

banned Messenger
Banned Youtube
and Banned Myspace

its all been good since then
:Dummm... You are a very bad person >:(

2.3.2007 06:14 #11

DarkJello

I'm not saying it's good that it happened, but the bullying probably would have occured regardless of youtube.

2.3.2007 09:24 #12

djgizmo

Bully's need to get their asses kicked and see how they like it.

Originally posted by borhan9:This is a really big matter in Australia not just in Melbourne. Banning it in schools is one way of just taking the bullying outside of school walls. What needs to be implemented is strategies to teach young people how to deal with bullying of all types.

Also strategies have to be put in place to help the bully understand he/she actions and also when a bully lashes out in most cases its a cry for attention due to not getting any attention at home or he/she could have an abusive situation at home and decides to deal with it that way. We need to ban but also implement anti bullying programs. Like peer support back into schools.

2.3.2007 09:38 #13

ZippyDSM

why? there are plenty of vids on the site classes can discuses and elarn from,this is just stupid reaction from a anal goverment/system.

borhan9
same in the US they would rather ban media,thinking,video games,moives,music,myspace and youtube then sit down and create a system where kids can report abuse and something is done about it...
I was bullied/abused in the late 80s when kids where kids and chased other kids across traffic and into garages and hit them with hammers >>

2.3.2007 12:55 #14

gtaUK

ha they've only just banned this, in the uk they ban everything in school, about the only website you can go on is news websites and educational website and must of google is blocked and first off we can't surf the internet unless a teacher turns on the internet for each computer so we are completly shut off from the internet in school

3.3.2007 04:27 #15

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by gtaUK:ha they've only just banned this, in the uk they ban everything in school, about the only website you can go on is news websites and educational website and must of google is blocked and first off we can't surf the internet unless a teacher turns on the internet for each computer so we are completly shut off from the internet in school
funny since anythign can fall under the guise of "educational".

3.3.2007 05:09 #16

gtaUK

Quote:Originally posted by gtaUK:ha they've only just banned this, in the uk they ban everything in school, about the only website you can go on is news websites and educational website and must of google is blocked and first off we can't surf the internet unless a teacher turns on the internet for each computer so we are completly shut off from the internet in school
funny since anythign can fall under the guise of "educational".ha you have a point there

3.3.2007 05:13 #17

ZippyDSM

gtaUK

the problem with these zero tolerance filters a teacher can not take the class where they need to go on the net.

3.3.2007 05:24 #18

gtaUK

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:gtaUK

the problem with these zero tolerance filters a teacher can not take the class where they need to go on the net.
yes i know that but come on turning the internet off alltogether seems a little extreme especially seeing as nearly every website on the net is blocked anyway and students actually being told by it teachers and the it technicans that if you go on any website that isn't permited in school such as youtube or bebo and proxy's to get to them then your account will be deleted and you will be suspended from school! yes you heard me! our school will suspend us if we go on any unpermited sites. Don't you think that is extreme

3.3.2007 06:47 #19

Gradical

a little extreme?? Im sorry youre saying it like it was your constitutional right of freedom of websurfing, besides as the side of the teacher i could tell you, is not that i dont want to protect nobody to watch any inapropiate things in school, is just that im sure you can watch them at the commfort of your own house/kinkos, and not while youre in my classroom when you are supposed to be studying

3.3.2007 07:08 #20

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by Gradical:a little extreme?? Im sorry youre saying it like it was your constitutional right of freedom of websurfing, besides as the side of the teacher i could tell you, is not that i dont want to protect nobody to watch any inapropiate things in school, is just that im sure you can watch them at the commfort of your own house/kinkos, and not while youre in my classroom when you are supposed to be studyingit is and it is not ti should be up the teacher to detreman what web page the class goes to,and when a teacher is not around the net is fully locked down and off.

if a home class needs parts of the net for surfing and data gathering then it can be filtered ,all I am saying its better than the BS they are doing because they would rather blame the net then do anything to fix the problems at hand.

3.3.2007 07:59 #21

gtaUK

i do know that you are suppsoe to be working, but what if you have free time and at lunch you can't do anything, so much for a technology college if you can't use the technology

3.3.2007 09:37 #22

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by gtaUK:i do know that you are suppsoe to be working, but what if you have free time and at lunch you can't do anything, so much for a technology college if you can't use the technologythe filters at work and in collages are pointless...its tell adults how to behave and think..its rather sad....

for 5-11th grade they need some supervision.

3.3.2007 09:43 #23

gtaUK

Quote:Originally posted by gtaUK:i do know that you are suppsoe to be working, but what if you have free time and at lunch you can't do anything, so much for a technology college if you can't use the technologythe filters at work and in collages are pointless...its tell adults how to behave and think..its rather sad....

for 5-11th grade they need some supervision.
only because they go on games not porn sites, no one goes on them

3.3.2007 09:46 #24

Gradical

I know why you think theyre pointless

first of all you dont have to clean All de Spyware, Malware , Trojans that the computers get every time you go onto freegames.com or whatever cheesy webpage one can think of to get free sh17 that is one

Second of all sure everyone likes to complaint of how slow the internet connection is in every classroom, yet everyone wants to hog the bandwith it has way to many complications

and besides that you shoul always remember that the priority of this places is to give acces to knowledge that is usefull for curricular development, so if you watching a beatboxing freak makes the access to legitimate knowledge that is curricular to other students impossible because of the bandwith you�re using then its more than usefull to have this filters

3.3.2007 09:53 #25

gtaUK

it's not so much the bandwidth that the school is worrying about because they have a pretty fast connection etc. it's just they don't want us to go on games in class and they especially don't want us using social websites such as bebo and myspace as they say "websites like them are full of sexual predators".
When i first came to the school there were only a few website blocked, you could practially go on anything and the interent was never shut off, so it was like this for th first 3 years i was there for and then all of a sudden myspace and bebo became popular and everyhting was blocked and then this year they added a program that allows no access to the internet unless a teacher turns it on. Can you tell me why is that, because of bandwidth problems?? It's become virtually impossible to surf the web when you actually get access to it even for our school work! our teachers turn on the internet and we look for the sites to get info from and most of them are blocked so they've successfully stop students going on unpermitted sites but now they can't do their work properly...

3.3.2007 10:24 #26

ZippyDSM

gtaUK
its called zero tolerance it tends to toss the baby out with the bath water,out local news radio bitch's about it most of the time thus is blocked that is blocked it all comes down from above,just because some CEO thinks its a waste of time to go onto the net and find NEWS you are reporting on or take a break and look at pron or some sht its just stupid,some restrictions are ok but this BS is over the top.

3.3.2007 10:31 #27

SoulRhino

Im from australia, and this incident was more than bullying.

The 8 or so 17 yr old males in question filmed themselves setting fire to a homeless man.

then they called up a 15 yr old girl with a mental condition and used her as a toilet.

this was then uploaded to youtube

3.3.2007 12:22 #28

Gradical

Quote:Oh hell, let's just get RID of all these computers and we can all go back to watching television, am I right, kids?

Bullying in a classroom has NOTHING to do with surfing the Internet. What planet am I on? This is nuts.

It's no wonder most people thinking computers are such a waste of time; they keep getting BLAMED for every possible social or moral problem acting on its inhabitants.

Oh, but wait, didn't we used to do that with televion? Oh. Yes. Never mind. I didn't say a word.

Grow up, teachers. If you truly having a problem with your students having minds of their own--and stop villifying amazing inclusive kinds of technology or websites, LIKE YOUTube, where you can communicate with any person on the planet--you need to take a real close look as to WHY you educate people at all. Yes?

Christ. This is ridiculous. Banning YOUTube because some asshole assaulted a female. Assault the asshole, not the community he lives in.

That's be like shutting down a town, because of a murderer.

Thank you.Quote:Grow up teachers??
comon it sounds like if somebody is stopying you from breathing, besides that, filtering the content surfed in a school maybe bad in the sense of zero tolerance, but lets just thank god you still can go out and access the internet anywhere else, is not like the school got the copyrights for it. I would say You Grow UP! So its Banned!, What are you going to do?? Besides Crying like a Baby? Take it like a man! lot of things are gonna be banned in youre life and sure just complainning wont change it, and as i said before is not like its your constitutional right to surf the web through any accesible internet access, Its the school access and theyre surely in control as far as to decide what you can access or not

3.3.2007 13:23 #29

tutukaka

To canuckerz
and other illiterate morons out their in cyber-world... Was that English... What the hell did you say? Have you forgotten how to communicate? Obviously you've been fed a poor diet of You-Tube mush!

"Get a life" and I don't mean a virtual one - a real life! Who gives a damn about You-Tube? If blogs weren't bad enough - at least with blogs you need to use your brain to some extent - now people are spending endless hours looking at what someone else is doing in their bedroom or kitchen MUNDANE SHIT if you ask me... What a BORE! In the meantime your brains are turning into mush and you are devolving into a sub-human piece of flesh and fat who's whole purpose in life is to see what everyone else is doing with their useless lives. As evidenced by the dribble that was written by this "person" that was supposed to pass as communication in a language called English!
Give me a break cool dude because you watch You-Tube.

3.3.2007 15:58 #30

Dr_Shifty

I'm another Australian, and this news report does not give much info of the situation. SoulRhino gave you a bit of an idea a few posts back on what really happened. Here's a fuller explanation.

A bunch of teenage boys sexually assaulted a teenage girl. They force her into sexual acts and then defecate on her. One of the assailants made a video of the assault which was shared between them and perhaps others. Somebody then put the video on YouTube.

There are two issues here. Firstly is the assault, which is a police matter.

Secondly is the intentional shaming of the victim by putting the video on YouTube. It is this second issue which constitutes the cyber-bullying that the original news report refers to.

This is not a case of "A kid gets bullied at school. I got bullied at school. Lots of kids get bullied at school. Get over it."

Nor is it a case of whether any particular school should or should not ban any or all internet sites.

This is a case of cutting off one avenue of bullying. Think of how easy it is for a student to take a cellphone movie in the classroom and put it on YouTube to shame another student or teacher. This is the type of bullying that the original report is getting at.

3.3.2007 20:02 #31

georgeluv

my old highschool blocks youtube because they have a 2/1 ratio of computers to student and if half the given students at any one time were all on youtube, wich is not totaly out of the question, then there wouldnt be enough bandwidth.

4.3.2007 13:13 #32

patchted

Nowadays in the uk, schools ect are more worried about being sued or blamed if something goes wrong. It is eaiser to ban everything than be realistic and look at the problems, which is why snowball fights, conkers tag and internet are banned in certain schools

5.3.2007 21:56 #33

xboxdvl2

around the year 2000 when i was in school they went nuts with the computers.downloading was disabled,thousands of websites were blocked they even tryed to block us from opening up floppy drives and cds cause of the games we played on the computers. Porn was an instant suspension from school and students would say who gave them the pics in exchange for a lesser punishment.

as for cyber bullying what they wanna do is make it appear it doesnt exist.its like when i was in school you'd hear about drug busts in public schools and incidents in public schools but stabbing would happen in private schools,heroin busts would happen in private schools media would know nothing about it.

R.I.P. mr 1990 ford falcon.got myself a 1993 toyota corolla seems to run good.computers still going good.

13.6.2012 05:30 #34

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