On April 11 Senators Max Baucus from Montana and Mark Pryor from Arkansas announced that they will introduce the Cyber Safety for Kids Act in the United States Senate.
The bill will require pornographic websites to "flag" their website, making it easier for filters to identify and block such websites.
That filters are not a solution is no secret. Children can easily turn filters off or bypass them using any number of methods, including open proxies. Any solution that relies so heavily on a home-based filter is no solution at all.
While CP80 applauds efforts to protect children from Internet pornography this particular attempt is flawed. Even both Senators admitted this bill is not a cure-all. "They didn't build Rome in a day" explained Senator Baucus.
True. They also didn't build Rome by using methods they'd already proven to be problematic.read more
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Helen Coonan, the Communications Minister of Australia, announced that the government is set to introduce a new wave of laws to protect children online.
Senator Coonan indicated that the Internet needs some "regulatory framework" just as the print and broadcast media do. Protecting children from exposure to harmful material will be a critical part of that framework.
In China the Ministry of Public Security announced that over the next 6 months 10 departments of the Chinese government will work together to tackle activities associated with pornography on the Internet
"The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds." according to Zhang Xinfeng, a Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Public Security.
Mr. Zhang also validated concerns that this is a global problem stating that the inflow of pornography from abroad is at the heart of China's Internet pornography problem.
Internet pornography is a global problem and is of great concern to many countries around the world. The nature of the problem demands a global solution that will enable nations, communities, and families what is appropriate and acceptable in their environments. - read more
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There have been several reports in the media recently about the pornography dangers associated with the Nintendo Wii, Video Games and Porn. One police officer in Louisiana described it this way: They are actually accessing Wii consoles through their sites and enticing people to come into their sites." He indicated that "they had some really hard core stuff."
Video game consoles are the latest platform that pornographers want to use to trap children. The article indicates that filtering is available, but is of course not 100% effective. The police officer indicated that parental supervision is the only surefire way to protect your children. While this is true, it is unrealistic. Are we supposed to sit with our children while they do their homework on the computer, and then spend more time supervising them playing video games? When pornography becomes available on cell phones will we be told we are to monitor every child's phone use as well?
The Internet pornography industry places an undue burden on families. To compete in today's world children must have access to the Internet. Pornographers know this, and take advantage of every Internet connection children use to serve them unwanted and dangerous pornographic content.
While most parents would love to supervise their child's activities time and other responsibilities do not permit us to do so. We rely on societal rules and norms to provide our children with a safe environment in which to learn and play. Internet pornography now violates that trust at every turn. - read more
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In "The Brain That Changes Itself" Doidge, who is on faculty at Columbia University and the University of Toronto, discusses neuroplascticity or the notion that the brain can rewire itself to overcome deficiencies, even after serious brain damage.
This ability also makes the brain especially susceptible to outside influences, like drugs and, as Doidge discusses, pornography.
When an individual views pornography the brain releases dopamine, which associates feelings of pleasure and reinforcement with viewing pornography. As the individual continues to regularly view pornography the brain is rewired and addicted.
Dr. Doidge: "Plasticity is like snow on a ski hill . . . Because the snow is pliable, when you first get on that hill you can take many paths down the hill. But because it's pliable, it also means that if you choose to take the same path over and over, you'll get stuck in tracks and locked into a rigid path."
Pornography hijacks the higher functions of the human brain. Yet we continue to allow the Internet to serve this unwanted material in our homes and schools where our children live and play.
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The Korea Times cited a recent report from the South Korean National Police Agency saying that there 1,810 teenage sex crimes in 2006, up from 567 in 1999. The same report indicated that the age of perpetrators is going down.
Experts are concerned that easy access to pornography through the Internet is to blame. It stimulates "curiosity to dangerous levels at a time [children] aren't fully aware of their basic responsibilities."
South Korea has taken great steps to ensure that all its citizens have access to the Internet. The Internet opens up a world of communication and connectivity previously unavailable to many nations. However, as currently structured, the Internet also forces users to deal with damaging and harmful content.
This is the most recent in a series of reports reports and articles about the growing concerns around Internet pornography in South Korea.
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