What's pessimistic about preserving freedom of speech and expression?
So write some better ones. Put in a firewall. Filter the sites you know exist, and watch his or her history for the other ones you didn't know about. The tools exist, and the government certainly isn't going to suddenly come up with better ones if you're convinced the ones we have now aren't satisfactory.
Smoothwall is only as effective as the IP's it has or ones it knows to block. It isn't the IP's that need to be blocked but the content on them. That is what I'm saying, pornography should be tagged if only within our borders. Once that is done, then you can easily block it.
Please enlighten me if I'm wrong about smooth wall.
Snarkasm, there is absouloutly nothing wrong with freedom of speech or expression of said freedoms, it is when it can cause irrecoverable damage to a minor that it becomes a crime. Children cannot handle porn. It plants seeds that sticks with them.
If you look for studies that show the effect porn has on children and adolescents, you'll quickly come to the conclusion that children need be kept away from it because the odds of things like molestation and others become too high.
If you guys don't mind, the kids are asleep and the wife and I have some porn to make before bed.
No, kids that watch porn and don't have the parenting to teach them that it's only for diversion and they're not allowed to rape or molest are the ones that rape and molest.
Personal responsibility.
Let me put it this way. Everybody's walked in on their parents doing it. By your logic, at least, what, 4 billion of the 6.5 billion of us should be pedo molesters and rapists. Sometimes it's not just the sex.
Is the idea of having a 7 year old child, daughter or niece, viewing a scene of an 18-year-old gagging on a @ock while his buddy pops her brown cherry in the rear that acceptable to you? If so, then nothing. The current Over 18 yes/no system is enough for you.
If that is not acceptable to you, then you should at least come to the conclusion that something should be done.
1) Don't let a 7 y/o have access to internet without supervision.
2) ???
3) profit.
or
1) block *porn*.com (among other obvious filternig)
2) supervise child on internet
3) ???
4) Profit.
none of these require uniquely identifying myself, requiring tagged porn, or anything more than a time commitment and interest in what my 7 year old child is doing on the internet.
Man I had to come back for one last peek. There is one good thing about our current situation that does play into my best interest. The voice of this country is largely controlled by an active minority. And I'm not talking Black or White. I'm talking those with political involvement vs those that don't. Right now you have the porn industry, putting tons of money into lobbying against any sort of tagging or filtration suggestions. But in the end, I do believe porn will be tagged. I mean it's not like I'm suggesting we elect a black president or anything.
And trust me guys, I wouldn't be having this conversation if I wasn't a good and very observant parent. At least, I hope I am. I do want my kids to be able to google till their hearts content. There is so much good that can be gained from the internet.
I think that we can probably divide "the children" into two groups.
Children who we are worried about accidentally stumbling into porn. This is the type that netnanny and those other programs / hardware solutions will protect. They're not old enough, not interested enough in porn to circumvent what you've put in place. They're also of the age where you should probably be supervising them.
Teens who are actively trying to find porn. They've had sex ed at school. They know what sex is. Their friend jimbo showed them some porn, and it was awesome. Now, they're gonna try to get to it. By this time, you should have talked to them about what sex is. What porn is. Why a lot of porn is disgusting or debasing to women. These kids are going to get porn. They're net savvy, they have friends with porn. They're going (or have gone) through puberty. They're horny and jacking it feels ****ing awesome. These kids are of the age where, after talking to them about sex and porn, I have no problem letting them loose on the internet.
There's obviously a continuum there, not a hard break. When I talk about a "kid" being able to bypass whatever you put in place, I mean the latter group. A 7yo isn't after porn, so netnanny-type protection is adequate. A 14 or 15 yo who is after porn is going to get it. Somewhere in between (lets say around when they have sex ed (i had it at 12/13)), you should talk to your kids about sex and porn.
If your goal is to keep porn out of your child's life until they are 18, you are going to fail. Any measure put in place will fail. I was in _college_ when I turned 18.
Some background for those who don't know: I have two kids. Both boys, they are currently age 9 and 11.
I am extremely socially liberal. I believe many problems at the core of our national culture stem from our general vilification of sex and the remnants of Victorian culture that we adhere to.
I think it is deep shame that porn is considered by mainstream culture to be "negative" and "harmful" to children, while at the same time we glorify toughness, violence, and murder. I'd much rather my nine year old accidentally see a blowjob video than one of those "soldier gets beheaded" videos.
I could spend hours talking about how screwed up our idiotic culture is in this respect, but I'll keep it topical.
I agree 100% with shwaip. First of all, we arbitrarily determined that "18" was the magic number of when it was okay to see nudity and sex. This is completely moronic. It's like this: Kids are going to WANT to see porn after they hit puberty. This is a biological urge. Kids who are not interested in porn do NOT want to see it, therefore they will not go looking for it, and it will be "ewww gross!" if they accidentally see it. You can easily prevent the "ewwww gross!" moments with current technology.
You cannot, under any circumstances, prevent a 12,13, 14 year old who has hit puberty and is furiously whacking it at every opportunity, from seeing porn. They will find it. Whether it be on the internet, or from Shwaip's friend Jimbo, they'll find it.
It is our job Komete, as dads, to make sure that our kids have the right ideas about respect, kindness, love, sexiness, and maturity BEFORE they hit puberty, so that when they do become interested in sex, it's not some insane, alien, uncharted world.
Now, if you take the idea that the government should "protect" your kids, you are going down a dark path of information control that you probably don't _really_ want to go down. What we really should be asking is this: What are we afraid of? What do we want to be protected from? What's so bad about sex?
I agree with prime 100%. Even though I don't have any kids when the day comes that I do have kids I don't want to portray sex as something taboo. instead I'd rather it be something two loving adults engage in.
As for porn, young kids could care less (except for maybe some boob action) , but trust me, I'm basically the first generation that grew up with the internet as it is today from a young age and as soon as I figured out their were pictures (no videos when I was young, damn) of girls getting railed by O.G. mudbone I was on that like a college student is on beer on drown night.
And yeh, I'm all about not letting the gov't regulate me any more. cause I don't want the gov't telling me how I should raise my future kid.
I'm sorry guys but the data and research conducted says otherwise. Look for studies and it is overwhelmingly negative for children to be exposed to pornography. Every boy is not going to molest a younger girl because of porn. Neither will every 11-year-old girl will allow herself to be raped by some 25-year-old gym teacher because she saw porn either. But when exposed, more will become sexually active younger, even at the point where they are not emotionally or mentally ready for sex. Also it does feed into non sociably acceptable behavior in teens including rape.
I'm not about regulating pornography. I'm about making it so that it is easier to block out when it needs to be. We have the technology, we just need the implementation.
The common argument is where are the parents in all this. Well frankly, a lot of parents are lazy idiots but because of a bad parent a child should not have to go through psychological issues when they don't need to.
I would argue that those statistics could be misleading. For example- are the kids seeing this porn ones that sought it out? I would argue that if the children are looking for this porn then they are already interested in sex, and hence, are more likely to have it earlier than students that do not seek out porn. There's no way that any study about kids watching porn could be controlled, and hence, a variety of variables could have factored into the situation. Kids that want to find porn will, and kids that want to have sex will. The best thing that parents and schools can do is teach kids about sex, how it works, the ramifications of it, how protection works, and then keep the lines of communication open.
The common argument is where are the parents in all this. Well frankly, a lot of parents are lazy idiots but because of a bad parent a child should not have to go through psychological issues when they don't need to.
Regulate parenting then. People should need to pass a rigorous battery of physical and psychological tests to get a breeding license. It should be expensive and paid for entirely by the prospective parent, that way we know that they are financially able and more importantly willing to care for the child.
I'm not going to argue the morality of porn one way or the other. What I AM going to argue, is legislation that puts the burden of parenting on other tax payers, when the cost should be borne by the parent.
You gave the example of alcohol and tobacco earlier. Those industries are indeed regulated, and there are laws in place to make sure children do not access them, much like porn you buy in the shops. However, once they are inside your house - is it not YOUR responsibility to make sure that your kids don't have access to it? There is no government mandated age verification system on the liquor cabinet, nor should there be. Yes, there is a key, and that key is about as effective as the encrypted chip / tags / whatever system - once someone finds a way around it, it's useless. You can fortify the cabinet, build a cage round it, bury it in a concrete bunker if you want. What's important though, is that the rest of the populace, aren't made financially or morally responsible when you decide your level of protection.
I highly question the validity of a lot of those "studies" that gauge reaction to porn. First of all, there are often religious institutions behind many of them, or other organizations with an agenda to "protect the children". Second of all, the term "molest" is thrown around and highly misused. Any of us who has made out with a boyfriend or girlfriend when we were under 18 have participated in molestation. A 17 year old kid who fingerbangs his 17 year old girlfriend has just "molested" her, even when she put his hand there and kissed him the whole time.
One of the major problems in vilifying sex is that kids who have sex (and many will, no matter what you tell them or show them—again, see "biology") are doin' it rong: they're having unprotected, clumsy, idiotic sex because they've never been talked to about it or shown the right way or been encouraged to use birth control.
And regarding teen pregnancies: Here's an idea: Teach girls about masturbation in middle school, or at least permit the encouragement of masturbation in our culture. Girls who masturbate after puberty and become confident and comfortable with their own bodies (You mean I DON'T have to stick a dick in there to have an orgasm?!) learn to be a bit smarter about what goes on down there, and are less likely to "just lay there" when their dumb idiot 16 year old boyfriend tries to convince her that it "just feels better" without a condom before he humps her for 30 seconds and dumps his load in her. Who should teach this stuff? Parents.
You're looking for a technological solution to a sociological problem.
These types of cross-solutions never work, and never will. People
will continue to try, however, because they'll have a point of
influence in one area, and feel this enables them to control all other
areas with their advantage. The problem is every area has their
influencers, and they're all trying to do the same thing.
Unfortunately, by the time kids become curious enough to want to find
content online or otherwise, it is the parents responsibility to
instill a sense of morality in them so they make decisions that are
healthy for themselves.
The reason this doesn't happen for the most part is because parents,
despite the illusion of 'doing everything they can to protect kids'
are typically trying to limit their kids' exposure to reality in an
effort to make parenting easy. Unfortunately, parenting by this
walled garden approach only works until the kids leave the walled
garden woefully unprepared for the world. Even more unfortunately,
most parents take a 'not my problem' approach to this, since 'their
adults now and can make their own decisions'. ...but they were never
taught to do so...
First off..why not use openDNS to block what is accessed on your home network? The federal government has enough problems without having to worry about trying to regulate something on the internet. While many porn companies do operate in the US and could fall victim to this if it occurred, just as many or more sites are operated outside of the US, and would not fall to any US regulation about the internet.
Secondly, who really pays for their porn/adult entertainment? Most of the stuff that is accessed can be easily accessed via streaming video sites/boards that are free sites.
If you find that your children seeing pornography is deplorable, why not create a home where women aren't objectified. Remove all such material from your home. That would be the best place to start.
Comments
Smoothwall is only as effective as the IP's it has or ones it knows to block. It isn't the IP's that need to be blocked but the content on them. That is what I'm saying, pornography should be tagged if only within our borders. Once that is done, then you can easily block it.
Please enlighten me if I'm wrong about smooth wall.
Snarkasm, there is absouloutly nothing wrong with freedom of speech or expression of said freedoms, it is when it can cause irrecoverable damage to a minor that it becomes a crime. Children cannot handle porn. It plants seeds that sticks with them.
If you look for studies that show the effect porn has on children and adolescents, you'll quickly come to the conclusion that children need be kept away from it because the odds of things like molestation and others become too high.
If you guys don't mind, the kids are asleep and the wife and I have some porn to make before bed.
Catch ya l8r.
Personal responsibility.
Let me put it this way. Everybody's walked in on their parents doing it. By your logic, at least, what, 4 billion of the 6.5 billion of us should be pedo molesters and rapists. Sometimes it's not just the sex.
1) Don't let a 7 y/o have access to internet without supervision.
2) ???
3) profit.
or
1) block *porn*.com (among other obvious filternig)
2) supervise child on internet
3) ???
4) Profit.
none of these require uniquely identifying myself, requiring tagged porn, or anything more than a time commitment and interest in what my 7 year old child is doing on the internet.
And trust me guys, I wouldn't be having this conversation if I wasn't a good and very observant parent. At least, I hope I am. I do want my kids to be able to google till their hearts content. There is so much good that can be gained from the internet.
Children who we are worried about accidentally stumbling into porn. This is the type that netnanny and those other programs / hardware solutions will protect. They're not old enough, not interested enough in porn to circumvent what you've put in place. They're also of the age where you should probably be supervising them.
Teens who are actively trying to find porn. They've had sex ed at school. They know what sex is. Their friend jimbo showed them some porn, and it was awesome. Now, they're gonna try to get to it. By this time, you should have talked to them about what sex is. What porn is. Why a lot of porn is disgusting or debasing to women. These kids are going to get porn. They're net savvy, they have friends with porn. They're going (or have gone) through puberty. They're horny and jacking it feels ****ing awesome. These kids are of the age where, after talking to them about sex and porn, I have no problem letting them loose on the internet.
There's obviously a continuum there, not a hard break. When I talk about a "kid" being able to bypass whatever you put in place, I mean the latter group. A 7yo isn't after porn, so netnanny-type protection is adequate. A 14 or 15 yo who is after porn is going to get it. Somewhere in between (lets say around when they have sex ed (i had it at 12/13)), you should talk to your kids about sex and porn.
If your goal is to keep porn out of your child's life until they are 18, you are going to fail. Any measure put in place will fail. I was in _college_ when I turned 18.
Some background for those who don't know: I have two kids. Both boys, they are currently age 9 and 11.
I am extremely socially liberal. I believe many problems at the core of our national culture stem from our general vilification of sex and the remnants of Victorian culture that we adhere to.
I think it is deep shame that porn is considered by mainstream culture to be "negative" and "harmful" to children, while at the same time we glorify toughness, violence, and murder. I'd much rather my nine year old accidentally see a blowjob video than one of those "soldier gets beheaded" videos.
I could spend hours talking about how screwed up our idiotic culture is in this respect, but I'll keep it topical.
I agree 100% with shwaip. First of all, we arbitrarily determined that "18" was the magic number of when it was okay to see nudity and sex. This is completely moronic. It's like this: Kids are going to WANT to see porn after they hit puberty. This is a biological urge. Kids who are not interested in porn do NOT want to see it, therefore they will not go looking for it, and it will be "ewww gross!" if they accidentally see it. You can easily prevent the "ewwww gross!" moments with current technology.
You cannot, under any circumstances, prevent a 12,13, 14 year old who has hit puberty and is furiously whacking it at every opportunity, from seeing porn. They will find it. Whether it be on the internet, or from Shwaip's friend Jimbo, they'll find it.
It is our job Komete, as dads, to make sure that our kids have the right ideas about respect, kindness, love, sexiness, and maturity BEFORE they hit puberty, so that when they do become interested in sex, it's not some insane, alien, uncharted world.
Now, if you take the idea that the government should "protect" your kids, you are going down a dark path of information control that you probably don't _really_ want to go down. What we really should be asking is this: What are we afraid of? What do we want to be protected from? What's so bad about sex?
As for porn, young kids could care less (except for maybe some boob action)
And yeh, I'm all about not letting the gov't regulate me any more. cause I don't want the gov't telling me how I should raise my future kid.
I'm not about regulating pornography. I'm about making it so that it is easier to block out when it needs to be. We have the technology, we just need the implementation.
The common argument is where are the parents in all this. Well frankly, a lot of parents are lazy idiots but because of a bad parent a child should not have to go through psychological issues when they don't need to.
Regulate parenting then. People should need to pass a rigorous battery of physical and psychological tests to get a breeding license. It should be expensive and paid for entirely by the prospective parent, that way we know that they are financially able and more importantly willing to care for the child.
I'm not going to argue the morality of porn one way or the other. What I AM going to argue, is legislation that puts the burden of parenting on other tax payers, when the cost should be borne by the parent.
You gave the example of alcohol and tobacco earlier. Those industries are indeed regulated, and there are laws in place to make sure children do not access them, much like porn you buy in the shops. However, once they are inside your house - is it not YOUR responsibility to make sure that your kids don't have access to it? There is no government mandated age verification system on the liquor cabinet, nor should there be. Yes, there is a key, and that key is about as effective as the encrypted chip / tags / whatever system - once someone finds a way around it, it's useless. You can fortify the cabinet, build a cage round it, bury it in a concrete bunker if you want. What's important though, is that the rest of the populace, aren't made financially or morally responsible when you decide your level of protection.
One of the major problems in vilifying sex is that kids who have sex (and many will, no matter what you tell them or show them—again, see "biology") are doin' it rong: they're having unprotected, clumsy, idiotic sex because they've never been talked to about it or shown the right way or been encouraged to use birth control.
And regarding teen pregnancies: Here's an idea: Teach girls about masturbation in middle school, or at least permit the encouragement of masturbation in our culture. Girls who masturbate after puberty and become confident and comfortable with their own bodies (You mean I DON'T have to stick a dick in there to have an orgasm?!) learn to be a bit smarter about what goes on down there, and are less likely to "just lay there" when their dumb idiot 16 year old boyfriend tries to convince her that it "just feels better" without a condom before he humps her for 30 seconds and dumps his load in her. Who should teach this stuff? Parents.
These types of cross-solutions never work, and never will. People
will continue to try, however, because they'll have a point of
influence in one area, and feel this enables them to control all other
areas with their advantage. The problem is every area has their
influencers, and they're all trying to do the same thing.
Unfortunately, by the time kids become curious enough to want to find
content online or otherwise, it is the parents responsibility to
instill a sense of morality in them so they make decisions that are
healthy for themselves.
The reason this doesn't happen for the most part is because parents,
despite the illusion of 'doing everything they can to protect kids'
are typically trying to limit their kids' exposure to reality in an
effort to make parenting easy. Unfortunately, parenting by this
walled garden approach only works until the kids leave the walled
garden woefully unprepared for the world. Even more unfortunately,
most parents take a 'not my problem' approach to this, since 'their
adults now and can make their own decisions'. ...but they were never
taught to do so...
Secondly, who really pays for their porn/adult entertainment? Most of the stuff that is accessed can be easily accessed via streaming video sites/boards that are free sites.
If you find that your children seeing pornography is deplorable, why not create a home where women aren't objectified. Remove all such material from your home. That would be the best place to start.