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BLOCKED AT SFCC

KATHY WATERS/HIGHLANDS TODAY

South Florida Community College freshman Sommer McGhee works on the computer between classes on Monday. McGee, who uses MySpace, thinks students should be able to access the Web sites on campus.

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By MANDY SHEETS | Highlands Today

Published: November 20, 2007

AVON PARK — Social-networking Web sites are one of the most popular ways for college students to keep in touch with one another, but it can't be done on South Florida Community College campus.

The college has blocked sites like MySpace and Facebook from being accessed on the campus. Even YouTube, a popular Web site for watching and sharing video, is not accessible.

"It's really frustrating when we are here waiting for class and we can't get on those sites," said SFCC freshman Justin Platt. "We use them for communicating with our friends, and I don't understand what's wrong with that."

SFCC President Norm Stephens said the blockage is not a censorship issue.

"Our students are adults, and they should be able to visit any Web site, as long as they are not doing something that disrupts others," Stephens said. "We would not block a site based solely on content."

But the college's network doesn't have sufficient bandwidth to run Web sites that have a lot of video and audio streaming. Bandwidth refers to amount of data that can be transferred to or from the Web site or server.

Because Web sites like YouTube and MySpace are not directly related to courses and have a lot of video and audio streaming, they have been blocked.

The blocking of sites is only a temporary solution while the information technology department installs more bandwidth.

Stephens said he hopes to have the problem resolved and the Web sites accessible before the start of the spring semester.

Meanwhile, many students say they are frustrated by the situation.

"It's definitely uncool of them to block us," said Sommer McGhee, SFCC freshman.

She hit an error message when she tried to access a YouTube video for a research paper. Even with her personal laptop, she cannot access the Web sites because she is using the college's network.

"We are all adults here, and we aren't doing anything wrong or bad," McGhee said. "There are so many different networking things you can do on MySpace, and you can even meet people that are also students."

Tyler Awbrey, SFCC freshman, said his professor tried to show an example of a procedure with a video clip from YouTube but was unable to.

"There is a lot of instructional videos and stuff that we could watch on YouTube, but we can't access it," Awbrey said.

Stephens said faculty members can notify the information technology department before class and receive permission to use YouTube for a specific circumstance.

Thomas Underwood, SFCC freshman, said he understands the college's decision.

"I see why they decided to block the sites because it makes sense for the computers in school to be used for research and not personal entertainment," Underwood said. "Most people probably have the Internet at home if they want to use those sites."

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