Seems that once again, Prime Minister David Cameron jumps on the moral bandwagon. Pity it doesn't extend to cheaper fuel and other essential, less tax and liveable wages but still, give or take a few decades and a miracle or two.. Forget all that; let's just 'defend the people' with one hand in advance of smacking them in the face just before Christmas with another.
With him out the way, I do feel minors have too easy an access to adult content on the Internet. I also feel the best filter is the human firewall: Mom, Dad or other responsible guardian. I do not mind opting into this system at all, but whether it will work or not really does remain to be seen. Show me any automated system that has worked thus far. My view is that even with the best filtering software, the moment they go online kids are vulnerable.
Let's take games. How many kids do you know play online games? I meet many of them, playing adult-orientated content. Any game that has a chat-box can circumvent filtering software, and some of the content I've seen..it just makes me wonder what the child's parents would think if they actually saw it. Then there is the issue of kids given admin rights, and having to deal with issues they have neither the maturity nor experience to deal with in the first place. How do they get these rights? Well, on some servers they throw money at the site owner..
So I think any such system would be fraught with technical issues and vulnerabilities, the likes of which many children would be able to exploit to their advantage.
It also makes me smile when I read about the aforementioned PM taking a 'stand' on this issue, because he makes it sound as if the Internet is the only potential danger to their well-being. All I can say is, switch on the TV, including the BBC channels. It's not just the Internet that's being used a means of conditioning them, and not just after the watershed..
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