Kit Vaughan
:Reflecting on the Bonn Climate Talks: A Letter to my Son
Jonathan Tustain
:Don't Look Down - How Scary Will Virtual Reality Get?
Vivi Friedgut
:Too Much "Communication" Not Enough Talking
Andrew Ferguson
:Broadband Affordability - Watch Out for the Sneaky Offers
Grant Feller
:Internet Porn - Are We Being Conned?
At long last there is a reality check going on about the dangers children face on the internet from pornography. We read with horror of children as young as eight admitting to pornography addiction, or the 12-year-old boy who raped a nine year old girl because he wanted to 'feel grown up' after viewing explicit images. As with so many other things in life, it has had to reach crisis-point before people begin sitting up and taking notice.
Only last week the deputy children's commissioner, Sue Berelowitz, told MPs that online porn "is turning children into sex attackers, that the young act out depraved scenes they see on the web and there isn't a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited."
This came in the same week that Wikipedia's co-founder Mike Sanger, disclosed that "Wikipedia features some of the most disgusting sorts of porn you can imagine," "while being heavily used by children."
The awful thing is that once children see these images they are imprinted on their brains. Dr William Struthers, a neuroscientist and expert in sexual arousal who researches the impact of pornography on young people, said, ="You can't "un-see" something. These images are not easily erasable and become almost tattooed on the cortex. It is a powerful shock to the system." He describes his research in his book, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain.
In November 2010, Safermedia's Parliamentary Conference on the harm that pornography does heard evidence of growing exposure to internet porn and concomitant harm to children and adolescents from several expert speakers, including Pamela Paul, US journalist and author of Pornified.
Since then we have been running our Block Porn Campaign which backs Claire Perry MP's ideas for making the internet safer for children. The recommendations of her parliamentary inquiry (supported by over 60 MPs) into online child protection are the way forward. These include a proposal for a formal consultation on the introduction of an opt-in network-level filtering system for all internet accounts.
The default setting for pornography would be 'off', and it would be restored only after strict age verification for those over 18. This therefore is not censorship, despite howls of protest from some quarters about freedom of speech, and offers the best protection for children.
Network level filters are particularly important as most parents are just not up to speed with the pace of technological change or the type of hardcore, violent and abusive material their children can now access. With the best will in the world many struggle to install device level filters and are lagging behind their tech-savvy children. The problem will only get worse with the proliferation of the latest must have smartphones being used by children.
So far TalkTalk (with a female CEO) is the only ISP which is delivering a package that filters at network level, although the default is still on and parents have to choose to block pornographic content. TalkTalk have also recently decided to extend this service to all their existing customers, not just new ones as is the case with the other large ISPs such as BT, Virgin Media and Sky who are not catching the 70% of existing customers.
Sue Berelowitz has backed the proposal for ISP level filters with an 'opt in' for pornography; Mike Sanger is calling for Wikipedia to install a filter to protect children and now Louis Theroux has also added his voice to the need for network level filters. So pressure is mounting on the ISPs to do the right thing and put children's safety and well-being ahead of profits.
Follow Pippa Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@ Safermedia
Jon Brown: Are Your Children Watching Pornography Online?
Some time ago, while collecting for a charity, I witnessed a girl, not much more than seven, wearing a brightly coloured t-shirt with the word ‘Love’ emblazoned across the front. My colleague agreed this was unacceptable.
A few years ago I read of worried teachers ordering a cover-up at their school: teenage girls becoming banned from wearing low-cut shirts and tops .. because they are distracting boys. ‘It’s nice to have something left to the imagination’ said a school spokesman.
Over time I have noticed schoolgirls whose skirts seem to be becoming ever shorter, for which reason I have written to one local school that has assures me it is taking steps to address this, either on a one-to-one basis or in group discussions. Another school’s excuse was that its pupils simply outgrow their skirts ..
The other issue: the increasing permissiveness of womens' dress styles. Were the Ascot fashion police on patrol in our supermarkets and other public places they'd have their work cut out, so to speak.
Presenters in their teens and early twenties wearing tight jeans and, in the females' cases, microscopic skirts: what impression is that to give to seven- nine year olds?
Sexualisation of our society as well as the media.
http://wikipediocracy.com/2012/06/13/what-should-we-do-about-wikipedias-porn-problem/
It is free to share, so feel free to repost it online!
I believe that children are not being consulted about how to use their own knowledge and skills to keep themselves safe, for we are usually telling them what to do. I would like to see children talk with each other directly and pass on their tips to each other, worldwide, on how to keep safe in their own, individual environments.
Tayn, my granddaughter, has made a wee video and I would like to start a video/audio diary of children talking with each other. I’m just writing to see if anyone else thinks this might be a good idea, and to join hands with me to start things rolling.
Would you please watch the short (4 minute) video and let me know what you think about it? http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=402134663159661 (and, perhaps, give Taryn a thumbs up while you’re there?)
I might add that when I asked the head of Taryn’s school in London to show the video to the school, she refused. She said they could not agree with Taryn when she advises other children in the video that when an adult attacks you, you bite, elbow, kick and run away screaming ……. Children need to be polite, is what I heard the school say.
Oh dear! I would like to hear what other children think of that?
In the same way that extreme magazines are generally sold in specialist shops and are not readily available in newsagents and sweetshops, I see no reason why such material should not be separated in a similar manner on line.
Unfortunately as with so many other problems with on line behaviour, there is little chance that anyone visiting an 'adult' site will be spotted by a friend or neighbour (or worse a parent), something that would probably keep a child from even thinking of going into a so-called adult shop.
Taking the shop analogy a little further I think all of us could help by requesting sites that we deal with ensure that if they want to publish pornography, they do so on a separate site, just as we would if we encountered it in a children's toy shop.
The only people who really want to be able to buy pornography in the same shop as their children's comics are those that want to hide the fact that they are purchasing it. Perhaps this is also true of many who cry out about censorship anytime someone suggests access to porn should be restricted.
2. No one should be able to censor anything based on his/her own views. We are in a democracy that is supposed to empower people with responsibility. they have to exercise it individually.
3. If we block some content, where do we stop? shall we remind the whole world again that censorship is the beginning of dictatorship, regardless of the initial intentions? how to draw the line, especially when lines move?
4. People who want to block and censor are just affraid of changes. but changes are at the core of life, humanity, nature... let's embrasse the changes and guide it rather than try - desperately - to bar it
I don't see how people who want to put pornography a little further out of the reach of children are 'just afraid of changes'. I think if you substitute 'free access to pornography' in place of 'change' in point 4 you might see how silly this is.
You think that free access to porn is bad and thus conclude that it is bad. I assume that I don't know but that anyone should decide by themselves and that I have no rights whatsoever to decide for them, or them to decide for me.
No matter of silly or not silly here. Just a matter of logic (and logic, just to be clear is always only about the assumptions you make, not about the rationale walk from a point to another)
No internet provider block is going to keep teens from being curious. Our job as parents is to teach them to respect each other as human beings, especially where sexuality is concerned.
I can't see that anyone is targeting porn at Kids, chiefly because they've got no money
Yes, TalkTalk are almost the only ones peddling this discredited snake-oil (almost, but not quite: Perry failed to mention that the so-called "expert" source cited had commercial ties to one of the others).
Rather than trying to force filtering on everyone, forcing ISPs to add this expensive and unwanted "feature", why not leave us alone and focus on the parents who fail either to filter or supervise their children's Net usage - like Perry herself? Per her own anecdote, she had actually disabled the existing filter - and this justifies forcing others...?
Now then, who buys their daughter's 's clothes? Is it (a) fathers, (b) the internet or (c) their mothers?
OK, sometimes the girls buy their own clothes BUT who washes them? (a) the fathers: (b) the internet, (c) the daughters (unlikely!) (d) the clothes jump into the washer by themselves or (e) their mothers?
Need I say more ! ! !
Not because there's a paying market for it. Very impressive work, there. Can you now proceed to prove to us that women are the only ones responsible for rising gas prices?
A lot of children and adult of multiple ages live under the same roof with one internet connection. A blanket ban would mean that that an 18 year old is obliged to go through the bill payer in order to look at porn, even though they are over the age of consent. I doubt it would be just porn, all sexually related website, forums, support groups as I have experienced this on Three mobile.
If this had happened to me when I was a teen I would have gone insane. I have several sexual kinks, one of which is very important to me, that I would never want to share with my parents. If I hadn't had free and unfettered access to the internet, the ability to release my own sexual fantasies in a virtual environment, and the comfort that I was not alone in this world, it would have driven me into some sort of mental breakdown and psychological trauma and I would not be who I am today.
It is a parent’s responsibility to look after the interests of their child, not the state to the detriment of others.
Then we had the alcopops.
The marketeers know no limits[or morals].