Aleeza Siddique, 15, was in a Spanish class earlier this year in her Northern California high school when a lesson about newscasts got derailed by her school’s internet filter. Her teacher told the class to open up their school-issued Chromebooks and explore a list of links he had curated from the Spanish language broadcast news giant Telemundo. The students tried, but every single link turned up the same page: a picture of a padlock.

“None of it was available to us,” Aleeza said. “The site was completely blocked.”

She said her teacher scrambled to pivot and fill the 90-minute class with other activities. From what she recalls, they went over vocabulary lists and independently clicked through online quizzes from Quizlet — a decidedly less dynamic use of time.

New data released this week by the D.C.-based Center for Democracy & Technology shows just how often some of that blocking happens nationwide. The nonprofit digital rights advocacy organization conducted its fifth annual survey of middle and high school teachers and parents as well as high school students about a range of tech issues. About 70% of both teachers and students this year said web filters get in the way of students’ ability to complete their assignments.

Virtually all schools use some type of web filter to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, which requires districts taking advantage of the federal E-rate program for discounted internet and telecommunications equipment to keep kids from seeing graphic and obscene images online. A 2024 investigation by The Markup, which is now a part of CalMatters, discovered far more expansive blocking by school districts than federal law requires, some of it political, mirroring culture war battles over what students have access to in school libraries. That investigation found school districts blocking access to sex education and LGBTQ+ resources, including suicide prevention. It also found routine blocking of websites students seek out for academic research. And because school districts tend to set different restrictions for students and staff, teachers can be as frustrated by the filters as anyone because of how they complicate lesson planning.

Web filtering is ‘subjective and unchecked’

Elizabeth Laird, director of equity in civic technology for the center and lead author of the report, said The Markup’s reporting helped inspire additional survey questions to better understand how schools are using filters as a “subjective and unchecked” method of restricting students’ access to information.

“The scope of what is blocked is more pervasive and value-laden than I think we initially even knew to ask last year,” Laird said.

While past surveys have revealed how often students and teachers report disproportionate filtering of content related to reproductive health, LGBTQ+ issues and content about people of color, the center asked respondents this year if they thought content associated with or about immigrants was more likely to be blocked. About one-third of students said yes.

Aleeza would have said yes, after her experience with Telemundo. The California teen said how often she runs into blocks depends on how much research she’s trying to do and how much of it she has to do on her school computer. When she was taking a debate class, she ran into the blocks regularly while researching controversial topics. An article in Slate magazine about LGBTQ+ rights gave her a block screen, for example, because the entire news website is blocked. She said she avoids her school Chromebook as much as possible, doing homework on her personal laptop away from school Wi-Fi whenever she can.

When 15-year-old Aleeza Siddique tried to visit Telemundo.com, her school’s web filter blocked the attempt. Screenshot courtesy of Aleeza Siddique

Fully three-quarters of teachers who responded to the recent survey said students use workarounds to access an unfiltered internet. Laird found this number striking. Web filters, then, are not keeping students from accessing the websites they want to access, and they’re getting in the way of completing schoolwork. “It raises a fundamental question of whether this technology, in trying to prevent students from accessing harmful content, actually does more harm than good,” Laird said.

Nearly one-third of teachers surveyed by the Center for Democracy & Technology said their schools block content related to the LGBTQ+ community. About half said information about sexual orientation and reproductive health is blocked. And Black and Latino students were more likely to say content related to people of color is disproportionately blocked on their school devices.

For students like Aleeza, the blocking is frustrating in practice as well as principle.

“The amount that they’re policing is actively interfering with our ability to have an education,” she said. Often, she has no idea why a website triggers the block page. Aleeza said it feels arbitrary and thinks her school should be more transparent about what it’s blocking and why.

“We should have a right to know what we’re being protected from,” she said.

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Audrey Baime, Olivia Brandeis, and Samantha Yee, all members of the CalMatters Youth Journalism Initiative, contributed reporting for this story.

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.