Blocking Certain Content

ITRabbi

I am a teacher new to scratch in a school with very high content filtering standards. I would like my students to use scratch, but not to have access to the tutorial videos. Does anyone know a way to block them (or the underlying URL for the videos to block)? We also would like to block the clip art for sprites.

I apologize if this is not the right place to post this. It doesn't quite fit any of the categories here. Thank you to anyone who can help.

Last edited by ITRabbi (Dec. 22, 2021 16:53:14)

skymover1239

Ask the guy who operates the network to block YouTube videos?

Chiroyce

You would have to block certain URLs, which is hard to do unless you install a browser extension on all of the users' devices. Is that possible?

So if you can install an extension, you'd have to make your own or install one that can block certain URLs. According to this, I cannot mention the names of any of them, but I can tell you how you can make one.

Your first option is just to remove the tutorials button in the editor, but if the students are smart enough, they could just disable the extension or just copy the URL to the tutorial.

Your second option is to block the request for the video, so when the Scratch Website sends a request for that particular URL, you could block it from reaching the server. You can search up extensions that do this, there are a few of them on the stores for Chrome, Edge and Firefox.

Your last option is to block requests to the entire domain name, this can have other consequences, like if sometimes a different video from that URL has been loaded, it wouldn't play, sort of like a false positive. You can do this from your router if you administer the router, so that's a good thing, and your students cannot bypass it. This is quite a tricky one so I advise you to get some more info from others in this topic.

So the main URL you would want to block would be the script that loads the video, which is https://fast.wistia.com/assets/external/E-v1.js

The domain would be fast.wistia.com or even wistia.com

Also if you just want them to use projects and not interact with the community, they can download Scratch.

Last edited by Chiroyce (Dec. 23, 2021 03:06:23)

god286

Tutorials: I think blocking all subdomains of wistia.com would work. There are also some thumbnails in https://scratch.mit.edu/static/assets/ too.
Sprite clipart: seems to be in https://cdn.assets.scratch.mit.edu/internalapi/asset/ although I don't know if it could break Scratch (note this also blocks the preselected sounds, if you can, you may exclude .wav files if you want the preselected sounds).
I'll add more if I can find them.

Last edited by god286 (Dec. 23, 2021 03:04:03)

Chiroyce

god286 wrote:
I think blocking all subdomains of wistia.com would work. There are also some thumbnails in /static/assets too.

Yeah but then

Chiroyce wrote:
Your last option is to block requests to the entire domain name, this can have other consequences, like if sometimes a different video from that URL has been loaded, it wouldn't play, sort of like a false positive. You can do this from your router if you administer the router, so that's a good thing, and your students cannot bypass it.

If another site uses wistia.com, which I think it highly does since

Last edited by Chiroyce (Dec. 23, 2021 03:04:14)

god286

Chiroyce wrote:
(#5)
god286 wrote:
I think blocking all subdomains of wistia.com would work. There are also some thumbnails in /static/assets too.
Yeah but then
Chiroyce wrote:
Your last option is to block requests to the entire domain name, this can have other consequences, like if sometimes a different video from that URL has been loaded, it wouldn't play, sort of like a false positive. You can do this from your router if you administer the router, so that's a good thing, and your students cannot bypass it.

ITRabbi wrote:
very high content filtering standards

If they really want to block Scratch tutorials, then they probably block a bunch of stuff…

ajsya

Chiroyce wrote:
Also if you just want them to use projects and not interact with the community, they can download Scratch.

Yeah, your best option may be to just use Scratch offline.

kccuber

ajsya wrote:
Chiroyce wrote:
Also if you just want them to use projects and not interact with the community, they can download Scratch.
Yeah, your best option may be to just use Scratch offline.

Yeah but that still has the sprites and costumes

mybearworld

There is no in-scratch way of blocking the built in sprites – the best way of doing that is using custom css. I can't tell you how to set this up because of Scratch's rules, but a web search should help.
Here's a style I made:

This also blocks tutorials, but also mentions “using an asset”. To avoid this; you can hide the tutorial button altogether:

Edit:

Chiroyce wrote:
but if the students are smart enough, they could just copy the URL to the tutorial.

This is also possible to be avoided, you just hide the tutorial as well.

Combining these, the style looks like this:

.library-item_library-item_1DcMO, .library_filter-bar_1W0DW, .divider_divider_1_Adi, div[aria-label="Tutorials"], .card_card_3GG7C {
  display: none;
}
.library_library-scroll-grid_1jyXm:after {
  content: "Instead of using an asset from Scratch, try using your imagination!";
  font-size: 28px;
}

Edit Edit: This category is the best category for questions like these, so you put it in the correct one.

Last edited by mybearworld (Dec. 23, 2021 20:51:26)

ajsya

kccuber wrote:
ajsya wrote:
Chiroyce wrote:
Also if you just want them to use projects and not interact with the community, they can download Scratch.
Yeah, your best option may be to just use Scratch offline.
Yeah but that still has the sprites and costumes

They also want to block the sprites?

At this point maybe use Snap? idk

kccuber

ajsya wrote:
At this point maybe use Snap? idk

That also has a sptire library

MagicCrayon9342

I think they may mean is user-generated sprites, being the offline Scratch app there would be none of this. The default sprites are completely safe, all though students/kids can make their own sprites which could also be what they mean.

Last edited by MagicCrayon9342 (Dec. 24, 2021 02:51:52)

Chiroyce

mybearworld wrote:
This is also possible to be avoided, you just hide the tutorial as well.

They can copy the URL from home (where they aren't restricted) and use it at school. Maybe.

thr565ono

Would removing the tutorials and sprites, then building it as an electron app work??

god286

thr565ono wrote:
Would removing the tutorials and sprites, then building it as an electron app work??

Probably, I could make a fork without those if you would like.

mybearworld

Chiroyce wrote:
(#13)
mybearworld wrote:
This is also possible to be avoided, you just hide the tutorial as well.
They can copy the URL from home (where they aren't restricted) and use it at school. Maybe.

Well okay but that's literally impossible to avoid. Every block in school can no take effect at home.

mybearworld

Did you find a solution?

ITRabbi

Thank you for all you help. This is very useful, and I think I will be able to work things out based on it. I will post back again if I need more help.

Z3nKa1

my brothers friend made me somehow made me a blocker so if i come in i can't touch anything no anything really

BigNate469

Z3nKa1 wrote:
my brothers friend made me somehow made me a blocker so if i come in i can't touch anything no anything really

Please create your own topic instead of posting in an old and inactive one.
To answer the OP's question, there is no way to do this in Scratch. You have a couple of options, though. As mentioned above, you could use a browser extension to block URLs or implement custom CSS code into the website. Alternatively, you could use a DNS sinkhole.
If you don't want them using the social aspect of Scratch, use the offline editor.

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