Do your children use EBSCO?
Whether they go to public or private school, there’s a good chance they do. Because EBSCO is one of the largest online educational databases in the country! Kids use this “curriculum appropriate” resource to do research and reading for school. Great, right?
WRONG.
Turns out, EBSCOÂ is not “curriculum appropriate” at all.
Our research has demonstrated that many of EBSCO’s K-12 products are unequivocally filled with softcore pornography, links to hardcore pornography websites, sexually explicit written descriptions, and advice and tutorials normalizing and glamorizing risky sexual behaviors including sexual violence. (See proof here.)
EBSCO was first listed on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s Dirty Dozen List in 2017, at which time EBSCO took action to clean up their elementary school databases so that 6-13-year-olds wouldn’t be exposed to this graphic content.
This was a big improvement! However, they did not clean up the middle school and high school databases.
What audience does EBSCO want to provide with pornographic and sexually graphic content? Why would college students, or law students, need to access pornographic content within the research database, let alone middle school or high school students? After all, if this company is basing its value on providing academic, substantive curated content, why is it including sexually graphic content at all, for any age? The articles we are referencing and taking issue with are not academic.
Aren’t erotically depicted stories of rape via gun (found on EBSCO products) harmful for users despite any age? Are links to, or articles about, torture pornography suddenly an academic resource for someone over 18?
Even worse, elementary school students are still not safe from explicit content on EBSCO.
These products are often sold through libraries so they automatically allow children from any age range to log into databases meant for older students with just a simple click of a button.
This failure to appropriately age-gate content renders much of the improvement in elementary school databases insufficient.
Take action and tell this corporation it’s time to clean up its act!
.@EBSCO take action to get porn and explicit material off your databases! Kids are being exposed to porn, & articles normalizing prostitution & sexual violence on your educational resources! #PornFreeSchools #ParentingTips Share on X
