Does pornography-blocking software block access to health information on the Internet?

Area of Science:

• Adolescent Health
• Internet Safety
• Information Access

Background:

• The internet is a key source of health information for adolescents.
• Pornography-blocking software, common in schools, may inadvertently block health content.
• Imperfect discrimination between pornographic and health-related sites is a known issue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify how pornography-blocking software impacts access to health information websites.
• To evaluate blocking rates across different software products and restrictiveness levels.

Main Methods:

• Simulated adolescent internet searches for health and pornography topics.
• Tested six school/library and one home pornography-blocking software at multiple settings.
• Classified over 3200 health information sites and 781 pornography sites.

Main Results:

• At least restrictive settings, 1.4% of health sites were blocked; this increased to 24% at most restrictive settings.
• Searches for sexuality-related terms (e.g., safe sex, condoms, gay) resulted in ~10% of health sites being blocked.
• Pornography blocking rates were high (87-91%), with minimal improvement at higher restrictiveness.

Conclusions:

• Blocking software restrictiveness significantly impacts health information access more than product choice.
• Least restrictive settings pose a minor impediment to general health information.
• Increased restrictiveness substantially blocks health sites, particularly those related to sexuality, with little added pornography blocking benefit.