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(Cory Doctorow) Thank you very much

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So I'd like to start with something of a
benediction or permission.

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I am one of nature's fast talkers

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and many of you are not 
native English speakers, or

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maybe not accustomed 
to my harsh Canadian accent

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in addition I've just come in 
from Australia

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and so like many of you I am horribly
jetlagged and have drunkenough coffee

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this morning to kill a rhino.

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When I used to be at the United Nations

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I was known as the scourge of the
simultaneous translation core

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I would stand up and speak 
as slowly as I could

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and turn around, and there they
would be in their boots doing this

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(laughter)
When I start to speak too fast,

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this is the universal symbol --
my wife invented it --

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for "Cory, you are talking too fast".
Please, don't be shy.

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So, I'm a parent , like many of you 
and I'm like I'm sure all of you

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who are parents, parenting takes my ass 
all the time.

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And there are many regrets I have
about the mere seven and half years

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that I've been a parent 
but none ares so keenly felt

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as my regrets over what's happened 
when I've been wandering

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around the house and seen my
daughter working on something

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that was beyond her abilities, that was 
right at the edge of what she could do

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and where she was doing something 
that she didn't have competence in yet

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and you know it's that amazing thing 
to see that frowning concentration,

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tongue stuck out: as a parent, your
heart swells with pride

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and you can't help but go over

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and sort of peer over their shoulder
what they are doing

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and those of you who are parents know 
what happens when you look too closely

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at someone who is working 
beyond the age of their competence.

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They go back to doing something
they're already good at.

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You interrupt a moment 
of genuine learning

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and you replace it with 
a kind of embarrassment

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about what you're good at 
and what you're not.

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So, it matters a lot that our schools are
increasingly surveilled environments,

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environments in which everything that 
our kids do is watched and recorded.

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Because when you do that, you interfere
with those moments of real learning.

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Our ability to do things that we are not 
good at yet, that we are not proud of yet,

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is negatively impacted 
by that kind of scrutiny.

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And that scrutiny comes 
from a strange place.

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We have decided that there are 
some programmatic means

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by which we can find all the web page
children shouldn't look at

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and we will filter our networks
to be sure that they don't see them.

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Anyone who has ever paid attention
knows that this doesn't work.

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There are more web pages 
that kids shouldn't look at

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than can ever be cataloged, 
and any attempt to catalog them

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will always catch pages that kids
must be looking at.

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Any of you who have ever taught 
a unit on reproductive health

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know the frustration of trying 
to get round a school network.

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Now, this is done in the name of
digital protection

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but it flies in the face of digital
literacy and of real learning.

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Because the only way to stop kids 
from looking at web pages

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they shouldn't be looking at

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is to take all of the clicks that they 
make, all of the messages that they send,

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all of their online activity 
and offshore it to a firm

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that has some nonsensically arrived at
list of the bad pages.

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And so, what we are doing is that we're 
exfiltrating all of our students' data

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to unknown third parties.

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Now, most of these firms, 
their primary business is

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in serving the education sector.

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Most of them service 
the government sector.

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The primarily service governments in
repressive autocratic regimes.

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They help them make sure that 
their citizens aren't looking at

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Amnesty International web pages.

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They repackage those tools 
and sell them to our educators.

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So we are offshoring our children's clicks
to war criminals.

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And what our kids do, we know,
is they just get around it,

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because it's not hard to get around it.

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You know, never underestimate the power
of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor

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to get around our 
technological blockades.

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But when they do this, they don't acquire
the kind of digital literacy

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that we want them to do, they don't 
acquire real digital agency

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and moreover, they risk exclusion 
and in extreme cases,

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they risk criminal prosecution.

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So what if instead, those of us who are
trapped in this system of teaching kids

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where we're required to subject them
to this kind of surveillance

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that flies in the face 
of their real learning,

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what if instead, we invented 
curricular units

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that made them real first class
digital citizens,

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in charge of trying to influence
real digital problems?

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Like what if we said to them: 
"We want you to catalog the web pages

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that this vendor lets through 
that you shouldn't be seeing.

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We want you to catalog those pages that 
you should be seeing, that are blocked.

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We want you to go and interview 
every teacher in the school

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about all those lesson plans that were
carefully laid out before lunch

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with a video and a web page, 
and over lunch,

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the unaccountable distance center
blocked these critical resources

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and left them handing out photographed 
worksheets in the afternoon

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instead of the unit they prepared.

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We want you to learn how to do the Freedom
of Information Act's requests

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and find out what your 
school authority is spending

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to censor your internet access 
and surveil your activity.

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We want you to learn to use the internet 
to research these companies and

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we want you to present this 
to your parent-teacher association,

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to your school authority,
to your local newspaper."

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Because that's the kind 
of digital literacy

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that makes kids into first-class
digital citizens,

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that prepares them for a future 
in which they can participate fully

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in a world that's changing. (5:18)