So BYU is blocking access to YouTube for bandwidth and censorship reasons.
Strangely enough, they don’t block MySpace which contains similar materials.
Is it just a matter of time before BYU blocks all of the Internet aside from campus and church approved sites?
See:
On one hand, I agree with this. It’s their bandwidth and they can do what they want with it.
I am disturbed by the following though:
“First to protect students from inappropriate material.”
IMO, this is what’s wrong with the church in genral. Why do these adults need protecting? Why does the church / BYU have so little faith in the abilities of their members to follow the teachings themselves? If they do need protection, it’s only because the church / byu is so ineffective at teaching their people correct principles / doctrines that instead of doing this correctly, they take the easy road and appoint themselves the absolute moral authory and choose to filter.
That statement reminds me of Moses 4:1. In essence, they are saying “They can’t do it themselves, so we’ll do it for them”.
They should be doing it for a reason like “This is a church funded facility and we don’t want certain types of material flowing through our bandwidth.” It’s the institution and the network that needs protection, not the students.
…and the eventual problem that develops with any form of institutionalized censorship is, who will watch the watchmen?
I don’t disagree with their ability to set policies for their bandwidth use (our firm certainly does), but it seems that this is an arbitrary decision and not based on any procedural framework.
JM,
I wholeheartedly agree.
It’s funny really because the Church entrusts the lives and eternal salvation of God’s children to 19 year old boys, yet they don’t trust 21 year old boys with their own lives.
An institute of education restricting information to its students is considered normal in many dictator ruled countries such as Cuba, China, Russia, Iran and now BYU.
I wonder what BYU is afraid their students will find on YouTube. Perhaps the Mason’s secret rites video that is on YouTube would be hard to explain to young minds.
Bandwidth is however a good reason with thousands of students all downloading videos at one time would create a problem for any network.
Censorship is never a good thing no matter how it is packaged.
Or, they are just trying to help the students make right descisions without forcing them to confront what temptation might be out there. As for the assertion that MySpace is not banned, that is not entirely true as many pages on MySpace are inaccessible from on campus.
Ummm…There’s no decision to be made.
They’re not helping students make decisions, they are making the decision for them.
Big difference.
When I chose to attend BYU, I did so, in part, because of the environment I would find there—an environment that would give me a refuge from much that is wrong with the world. I was perfectly free to choose a different institution that wouldn’t create that environment. But one of the reasons I chose BYU was that I wanted that protection.
Adults should be able to choose an environment where there is less vile trash being pushed at them.
You may have entered a refuge from what is wrong with the world, but you entered the trenches with what is wrong with the church.
I’m not saying that BYU doesn’t have a lot of good to offer. But like rick said, knowing that they are making decisions for students is fundamentally wrong.
Jospeh didn’t say “We try to teach people correct principles, but they are all imperfect, so we’ll make the decision for them. That way they won’t have the chance to slip up and they’ll be better off for it.”
Do you see how that type of thinking just shouts Moses 4:1? If you believe that we all rejected Satan’s plan in the pre-earth life, then how can you support any flavor of it in the here and now?
Good post. When I was at BYU a generation ago, a plaque with that famous JS quote about members governing themselves was in a dark basement corridor in the Admin building. That said it all about the place. Obviuosly, nothing has changed. Satan’s plan rules at BYU. We called it back then “free agency and how to enforce it”. Ironically, BYU was a gay mecca back then too.
One of the main reasons I transferred out of BYU after my freshman year was the control issue. I hated the fact that they didn’t seem to trust me to make the right decisions myself.
Not really in the vein of what the rest of you are saying, but just a funny story. When I worked at the HBLL, I would often get people coming to the reference desk and asking why such and such site was blocked. They looked only slightly less sheepish than those who wanted items from the locked case. One time, a student informed me that the United Airlines site was blocked.
But, what I find really funny are the reasons. When you get a blocked page, it tells you why: porn, file sharing, indecent, lingerie, swimwear (but only women’s swimwear is blocked, not men’s), sex, etc. However, by far my favourite is this one: “tasteless”. I can imagine the ones coming up with that one. ‘Well, we don’t want our students seeing that. It’s just…so tacky.’
Defender of the Faith – But one of the reasons I chose BYU was that I wanted that protection.
One of the reasons to allow Satan to rule is so we do not need protection. Same concept different twist.
BYU coeds not being allowed to purchase underwear off the internet would make a interesting fodder for TV News. It is no wonder non-members think the LDS religion is weird. The LDS do it to themselves with this kind thing.
Seems pretty evil to me.