2/29/2008

Iain Dale has been banned

It is interesting sometimes to see which websites Norfolk County Council seek to block so that schools cannot access them.

The obvious things are blocked (anything vaguely risque), but Norfolk County Council do have a habit of blocking some very odd things too, including Iain Dale's blog.

A few years ago I went to a Norfolk County Council Education and IT conferences at the John Innes centre in Norwich, and to this conference, at great expense, they had brought someone to talk to us about using free software, unusual software and bring to life ideas that we my not have properly considered when bring IT to school children. one such concept was to set up Yahoo or Google groups that children could use to converse about homework (which the teacher could moderate). Unfortunately, and completely at odds with what Norfolk County Council had paid him to say, Google, MSN and Yahoo were banned and blocked by Norfolk County Council ?

Then we had the odd occasion earlier this week when a number of popular education sites were blocked by Norfolk County Council. Apparently due to a technical problem (or cock up) Norfolk County Council had blocked sites we were supposed to be able to look at (like the BBC and The National gallery), but had supposedly, according to rumours I have heard, allowed us access (if we had so wished) to banned websites. So it was in the wake of this error that I thought I'd see if certain "safe" sites were blocked, and to my surprise, when doing a particular web search, even after the problem had been rectified, a link to Iain dale's blog popped up as a match in Google. Slightly intigued to see how Iain's blog linked to my search, I clicked on to it only to find his blog was blocked. Perhaps it has been banned for some time. I don't know, but it does seem odd.

As for why Iain Dale's blog has been banned when so many others have not, I have no idea. So come on Iain, what have you done to upset Norfolk County Council ?

7 comments:

jailhouselawyer said...

The Great Firewall of Norfolk?

wonkotsane said...

He's blocked where I work too. Then again, so are blogspot.com and some other blogs as well. A lot of them come up as social networking or dating. Liam Byrne's website does as well!

Iain Dale said...

Nich, why don't you do an FOI?!

It was probably the article I wrote on my blog about the disgraceful rise in councillor expenses that did it!

Anonymous said...

In the meantime Essex CC HOST a blog for their leader...

Matt W

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Perhaps certain blogs are norfolk and good.

Anonymous said...

Despite Iain's critical comments I can still (and do) read him from county hall. And although a Conservative, I can always get through to your blog too Nich!

Where would bloggers be without conspiracy theories???

Nich Starling said...

But our school is also part of a different Norfolk CC network (administered by ICT solutions). Perhaps it is different in County Hall, but in schools Iain is still blocked.

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