Cyber censorship in HCDC?

Holy Cross of Davao College always says, almost as an article of faith, that just because it is a Catholic school doesn’t mean that it will only take care of the students’ spiritual aspect. It will also work for the development of the social, mental, and intellectual aspect of the students.

It may have achieved some successes in developing the mental, intellectual, spiritual, and social aspects of the students. But the social aspect? Fuhgeddaboudit!

If the IT Office of Holy Cross will have its way—and it probably has—it is doubtful if Holy Cross will succeed in developing the social aspect of the students.

Just this August, the IT Office just killed half of Holy Crossians’ social life when it blocked access to nearly all social network sites. Back then, when Friendster became popular and students who entered the Internet Laboratory go nowhere else but to Friendster, access to it was blocked, or at the very least, prohibited. Now as more and more students turn to other social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, etc., IT people blocked access to them.

There was no notice whatsoever announcing that social networks shall be blocked. Students discovered the news, to their dismay, when upon typing, say, www.facebook.com on the address bar, the message that appeared on the screen informed them that the site has just been blocked.

It said: "Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to Category Personals & Dating."

“Why?” some students find themselves asking. “Is there something wrong with Facebook or Friendster? Besides, don’t we pay for it?” Those are valid questions—and they need answers. But as of now, nobody from the IT Office deigned to inform the students what prompted the blocking. This is surprising, given that Holy Cross has a standing policy that only sites containing sexually-explicit contents are prohibited. Does Facebook now contain sexually-explicit contents? Based on my experience as a Facebook user, I haven’t seen any. And if there is, thanks, but no thanks.

In this Internet age, only rogue countries censor social network sites. And nowhere is cyber censorship more rampant than in Burma (Myanmar), Iran, North Korea, China, and Cuba. These countries do it when they feel their national security or national stability is threatened. Consider China. “Twitter has become so widely used among political activists in China," wrote Steven Johnson, "that the government recently blocked access to it, in an attempt to censor discussion of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that by blocking access to social network sites, Holy Cross has degenerated into a rogue state. The point, however, is that there’s nothing inherently wrong with social network sites. And nothing is inherently good with them, either.

“...[T]echnology itself is neutral,” wrote Richard Stengel, managing editor of Time. “It's a tool, neither good nor evil. It's all in how we use it.”

Yes, it's all in how we use it, and IT people must have felt that students are just wasting their time when they're on Facebook or on other social network sites, that's why they blocked them. This is partly correct. Like it or not, students spend most of their time checking out their Facebook or Friendster account whether somebody has sent them a comment or a picture.

But they also use social network sites as tools of communication. Facebook is to them what cellphones are to others. They open their Facebook account sometimes to check where will they meet for their practice in P.E.; sometimes to know whether they will have a class for this or that day; sometimes to inform their classmates, who happen to be their friends on Facebook, what did they just do when he was gone. The same thing is true to users of other social network sites.

Technology is changing the way people live and interact. It's changing how students socialize as well. If Holy Cross is serious about developing the social aspect of the students, it must unblock access to social network sites---now.