“Are you a consenting adult? Wish to look at pornographic, adult or ‘harmful’ material? No problem. Please tick the pervert box over here. Oh, it’ll just be stored on our system. Nothing to worry about. I mean, it’s not like you hear about security breaches.”
Ah, the beautiful future the Government hopes to impose on us! A world in which adults are obliged to opt-in to see the whole of the internet or find themselves surfing in a “safe zone” imposed by their ISP and helpful ministers.
The coalition is launching a national consultation today on an idea which would, they claim, “give parents more control over material their children view online”. Well, guess what? Parents already have that: it’s called the off switch.
Porn filter ‘censorship by the back door’ – Mic Wright – The Kernel
This makes me SO angry. I’ve been online since I was about 14 or 15. My parents didn’t supervise me at all. They had no idea what I got up to online and really, my mum still doesn’t. To a certain extent, the internet was still kind of young then, a PC in every home was still pretty new, and my parents, like most people over a certain age, weren’t that quick to understand technology at all.
My mum still isn’t, though now she knows about things like facebook and smartphones and twitter and I have to explain to her how, realistically, there’s no point in her getting a smartphone or an ipad or whatever, because she will never use it (I admit to being something of a technologically-literate luddite though – my laptop and phone are both 10 years old, my ebook reader about 4 years old… I don’t upgrade for the sake of upgrading).
They did, however, teach me right from wrong. They gave me access to knowledge and information and told me that certain things were aimed at adults and that I’d be ready for them when I was older. I knew not to give out personal information online (although I have no idea where from – might just be my own personal paranoia). I didn’t meet any of my internet friends without taking someone else with me (in fact, I think I met a fair number at music festivals IRL with my Dad). They took the responsibility for being my guardians seriously and didn’t expect anyone else to do it instead of them.
And filters will do nothing to stop determined teenagers from getting at what they want to online. Just stop their parents from knowing what things they’re exposing themselves to and remove the opportunity for discussion about the subject.