Think of the children,... again
During October's Conservative party conference, it was widely reported that PM David Cameron was meeting with the Christian lobby group, Mothers' Union, to discuss access restrictions designed to protect children from the internet. The reports included a plan requiring ISPs to block adult material by default and to force the person who pays the broadband bill to sign up to an "opt in" list if they wished adult content to be available over their connection.
This was gesture politics at its best rather than any well-thought out piece of legislation. An obvious problem is that in many households, a whole range of ages use the internet through one connection. Combined with that, what exactly does "adult" content mean? Does it mean images that which would already be considered illegal to view in the UK? Hard core porn? Soft core porn? The rather sad adult channels broadcast on Freeview? Page 3 of the Sun? Nicole Scherzinger's performance on Britain's Got Talent? The episode of Torchwood where Captain Jack is seen in bed with his boyfriend? Overtly sexual pop videos like Lady Gaga's "Telephone"? Medical sites giving advice on contraception or gender identity? Sites which sell condoms and pregnancy testing kits? Sites about beer and cigarettes? Gambling sites? Sites which promote strong religious views? News websites which which may report scenes of violence?
Whether or not something is considered only suitable for adults is far from being a black and white issue. Equally, it is wrong to think that we can conveniently classify people into either impressionable vulnerable children or adults capable of using their own judgement and just ignore the difficult teenage years in between. In all of this, you need to ask where do we draw the line, and just as importantly, who appoints themselves as the person who decides for us where that line should be?
The big four ISPs, (BT, TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky), were quick to refute the idea that they had agreed to implement any such technical solution or opt-in register. They said that a meeting had taken place, but the outcome was that thy had agreed to implement a code of practice and had committed to improve communications with customers so that parents were more aware of the parental control software which is available to them.
If you are a concerned parent, there are already some excellent protection packages readily available at zero cost. These packages can typically be individually configured for each user in your household, so that the parent can choose appropriate settings for each family member. For example, a product called K9 lets you choose whether to block or not from over 60 categories of website content. Many of the products let you record transcripts of chat logs, limit times of access, and force safe-search modes when using search engines such as Google. A couple of the better known ones are:
www.k9webprotection.com (Free Download)
www.kidswatch.com (Free Download)
You should also check with your ISP as they may have one which they especially recommend. Of course, even these solutions may be too much trouble for some parents who think that knowing what their kids are up to and protecting them from the world's ills is someone else's problem. Politicians who make unrealistic headline-grabbing demands for technical solutions from ISPs, (and without any proper public or parliamentary debate) only serve to reinforce that way of thinking.
28th October 2011
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.