FAQ on HB473 School Digital Materials Amendments

For more information see, Alert: Another Bad Library Bill in Utah

KEY POINTS

  • The “School Digital Materials Amendments” bill (HB473), is a bill is a solution looking for a problem:

    • Allegations of problems were raised and debunked in 2018, and UEN thoughtfully and carefully adjudicated the complaints and found that they were “unable to replicate” the search results (October 2018 Deseret News article) . See quotes from Deseret News article, “Board votes to restore Utah public schools' access to educational database” 2018.

    • It’s safe enough for the grandkids! “Ray Timothy, the executive director of the board, said his own grandchildren use the databases that the educational network contracts with so he takes complaints of access to inappropriate materials seriously… I feel comfortable that my grandchildren and other children are not being exposed to content that is inappropriate.”

    • Under scrutiny, allegations of problems were found to be untrue by UEN Board members. "We have not been able to replicate" access to inappropriate materials that resulted in the temporary shuttering of the database.”

    • False allegations of problematic content being found were being reported — even when database access had been turned off! “One woman read aloud to those attending the meeting excerpts of very explicit content she said she found on the database at 10 p.m. Thursday. [UEN Chair Raymond] Walker reminded the board and audience members that access to the K-12 database had been shut down since Sept. 22 so anyone who had accessed such materials found them elsewhere.

  • Current federal and state laws already require databases to have safety mechanisms in place to prevent access to material that is harmful to minors.

    • CIPA Protects Students: With the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), there is already a federal law that requires schools to block anything that meets the legal definition of “harmful to minors”

    • HB38 (2021) Requires Database Safety Measures from Vendors: The Legislature passed a very similar bill, HB38 School Technology Amendments, in 2021 - and there have been no problems with students accessing “harmful” materials. HB38 School Technology Amendments requires digital resource purchased or licensed by UEN and offered to students in public  schools to have safety policies and technology protection measures that prohibit and prevent a public school student using the resource from sending, receiving, viewing, or downloading obscene or pornographic material; to filter or block access to obscene or pornographic material.

    • HB38 empowers UEN, if it discovers a digital resource that is out of compliance, to withhold payments from the digital resource provider.

    • And it requires UEN to report to the Education Interim Committee detailing all instances of a digital resource provider's failure to comply with the provisions of this law - and there have been no such failures

  • UEN has been monitoring student database usage for years, and -- with nearly a million searches/month --  has consistently reported appropriate usage with no finding of problematic content

    1. Since 2018, UETN has closely monitored databases and produced 28 separate audits and reports on their efforts. 

    2. With nearly a million searches conducted every month, close scrutiny, monitoring, and public reporting by UETN staff over more than five years, there have been no known reports of problematic content.

    3. Four years of reporting  (28 separate reports!) on usage by students.  The two phrases that appear over and over again in the reporting:

      1. "there appears to be no 'inappropriate terms'"

      2. "searches of what looks like 'regular use'"

      3. "It appears to be of normal school use and for what seems to be student research"

  • Databases keep kids safe. They aren’t the problem, they are the solution.

    1. Databases are curated to support grade-appropriate research. Research databases are curated, walled gardens of high quality, credible resources appropriate for academic research.

    2. Research Databases are safer then searching on the open web. Databases keep students from accidentally encountering truly harmful material that they could encounter if they were using the open web to conduct research. It is safe because these electronic resources are curated, for grade-level and subject specific academic research. They are magnitudes safer than sending students out onto the open web to do research.

  • This Bill is Anti Business and Anti Free Market

    1. The Bill applies a different standard for businesses than it does for people: The legal standard of“ content that is “harmful to minors” (found in 76-10- 1201) is the standard applied to parental custody decisions. Why would we apply one legal standard to apply to decisions about protecting children when it relates to parental custody, and but apply another standard to protect children when applying to businesses who offer highly curated, safe, grade-appropriate research databases?

    2. The bill may compel businesses to violate the First Amendment. Because the bill would force vendors to remove materials “sensitive materials” definition that doesn’t allow for assessing content “as a whole” (as opposed to looking at cherry-picked text out of context), it puts businesses in an untenable position of possibly violating first amendment law and opening themselves up to lawsuits for illegal censorship.