Is Pinterest safe to use for schools?

[fiza]

Exactly as the title states. We have been asked to open it up by the Art Dept for staff use.

Is it safe? Does it have unsuitable material on it?

[OB1]

Exactly as the title states. We have been asked to open it up by the Art Dept for staff use.

Is it safe?

No

 

Does it have unsuitable material on it?

Yes.

 

It used to be fine, but it appears the moderation has become a bit lax of late. It's fairly easy to find naughty pictures on there.

[FN-GM]

I have found the same as above, it does contain very graphic images.

[foofighterjim]

Yup, have been asked by Art and DT in the past and have always told them no. If they want to collaborate we have a perfectly good VLE at their disposal.

[pcstru]

The other issue is copyright. First there is the issue within the school of whether you have permission to use and reproduce the images (assuming a teacher isn't just displaying pintrest to the class on the screen). Then there is the issue of artists and designers actually giving permission for their works to be displayed on pintrest. pintrest puts the obligation on users to either own copyright or obtain permission, but few do. This is potentially very damaging to designers and artists who may rely on exercising control of their rights in order to make money.

[bossman]

A definite no! no!

 

Our art department asked for it to be unfiltered here but after a quick look at the site was all it took for me to escalate to my line manager (DHT) who immediately said NO!!!

 

[Mark182]

Same here! It's a big no no.

[Geoff]

Yeah, there's a fair amount of porn on there. Not as bad as imgur, but still I wouldn't open it up to a school network.

[Baerf]

Exactly as the title states. We have been asked to open it up by the Art Dept for staff use.

Is it safe? Does it have unsuitable material on it?

 

If it's just for the Art Staff to use, then why not? There is some questionable material on the site, but again, if it's the staff and it's for academic usage, then i can't see why you would block it. Surely if the request has come to your team and it was questionable, then you would go to your SMT to ask for clarification and their opinion? I don't mean to rude on this, but if there is an academic usage for the unblock, then who are ICT to say yes or no?

 

B

[pcstru]

if there is an academic usage for the unblock, then who are ICT to say yes or no?

I'm inclined to agree to an extent. Here, who are IT support to say yes or no? We just happen to be the people who process the requests. I make a call based on how safe I think the site is for use in a classroom. For pintrest a bad scenario might be : new teacher X joins the school, is in class and discovers we allow pintrest, then during her class decides to show her pupils and her innocuous search for "jugs" turns up some unexpected content. I think that would be ... potentially problematic. I'd be happy for SLT to make the call and I'd encourage staff, if they feel strongly, to make a case to their Head of Department and/or SLT.

 

As it happens, since pintrest is simply a content theif^H^H^H^H aggregation site, the content is generally available on the actual content owners site unless the content happens to be the 1 in a billion images that are actually owned by the pintrest account holder.

[Sagima]

Our Art department wanted it opened up for all students but after a couple of years of requests being denied they were bargained down to having a select group of sixth formers by the new Deputy Head (about 10 of them iirc).

Staff had access anyway.

[Baerf]

I'm inclined to agree to an extent. Here, who are IT support to say yes or no? We just happen to be the people who process the requests. I make a call based on how safe I think the site is for use in a classroom. For pintrest a bad scenario might be : new teacher X joins the school, is in class and discovers we allow pintrest, then during her class decides to show her pupils and her innocuous search for "jugs" turns up some unexpected content. I think that would be ... potentially problematic. I'd be happy for SLT to make the call and I'd encourage staff, if they feel strongly, to make a case to their Head of Department and/or SLT.

 

As it happens, since pintrest is simply a content theif^H^H^H^H aggregation site, the content is generally available on the actual content owners site unless the content happens to be the 1 in a billion images that are actually owned by the pintrest account holder.

 

I agree, but i do have to say if a teacher searches for "jugs" and gets some bad results, then it's not the fault of the ICT systems. The teacher in question should of had their lesson plan in place before hand and carried out the search before going "live". My view is the same as yours, in that ICT look after the systems and are just the actioners of the requests - Myself nor my team have been trained in e-safety, nor are we children safe-guarders either. Our unblock requests from pupils and teachers alike go to both the ICT team and our e-safety officer and head of pastoral care, the ICT team will give guidance on technical reasons on the unblock requests, and the staff can view the websites themselves to determine if the website is ok to be unblocked or not.

 

But it's certainly not my teams role to say yes or no to access to websites which have academic value within lessons.

 

B