We are very familier with internet pornography just now i was serving Internet, suddenly i found A SuperKids Special Report prepared by Andrew Maisel, It attracted me much because of the 1st line "Is there really that much pornography (or other objectionable content) on the Internet? " Unless you've been living under a rock, the availability of porn on the Net is very old news. And while the amount of porn on the Net is staggeringly large, as a percentage of total web pages, it appears to be declining.
Here's a quick look at three snapshots in time: 1999 using AltaVista, one of the then largest search engines, and 2004 and 2007 using Google.
Number of pages
Subject........... 1999.............. 2004.......................2007
sex 14,896,710 347,000,000 425,000,000
politics 2,996,060 62,900,000 247,000,000
wine 2,324,620 57,000,000 230,000,000
dogs 1,893,440 35,600,000 158,000,000
Clearly, there are a lot of sources for someone seeking pornographic materials on the Internet. Nonetheless, many parents trust their children not to go looking for this material. "Oh, my kids wouldn't be interested in looking for that," was a common reaction among the parents we spoke with. A debatable point, according to some of our teenage reviewers.
But what was not debatable was the reaction we found among a group of parents SuperKids recently invited to search the Web. Most expressed significant surprise -- not at the availability of pornography on the Net -- but at the frequency of unintentional exposures any Web searcher or surfer will receive.
How easy is it to accidentally encounter pornography?
For example, a shopper's search for young boys clothes on Excite! produced four objectionable sites in the top ten search results. Click here to see an example of what we encountered. Similar results were obtained using all the other search engines we tried: AltaVista, HotBot, Infoseek, and WebCrawler.
OK, you say. But my kids aren't likely to look up "young boys clothes." Here's another reasonable search for a young student -- zoo animals. This search produced a result on HotBot that was even more(!) objectionable than our previous search.
Parents, therefore, need to consider not only whether their children really have no interest in seeking out pornography, but also whether they want their children unintentionally exposed to age-inappropriate materials.
What should parents do?
Banning all access to the Internet is one solution. Unfortunately, this draconian approach carries with it a huge educational disadvantage; the Internet today is the greatest single educational reference resource available. More information, from more sources, is available here than in any library in the world.
Personally supervising all Internet access is another solution. This is great, if you have the time.
Installing a software filter, to provide a technology fix, is another possiblity. SuperKids has reviewed a selection of the these programs. They range in effectiveness from near-total, with programs that limit access to sites pre-selected by parents (e.g. KidDesk Internet Safe), to programs that screen all website addresses against massive lists of known objectionable sites (Cyber Patrol, Surf Watch), to one that uses heuristics to analyze a page's characteristics (WebChaperone).
Government regulation is another possiblity. Twice in the last three years, the Federal Government has passed laws trying to prevent minors from accessing pornographic materials on the Internet. These attempts, however, have been ruled by the courts to violate the First Amendment to the Constitution. An injunction was issued on February 1, 1999, blocking the most recent attempt, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), and the injunction was upheld by the Supreme Courth in 2002 and again in 2004. Bottom-line: There is a vast amount of pornographic material easily available on the Internet. At a minimum, make sure your children know your feelings about it, and what your expectations are for their behavior.
Perhaps more importantly for most parents, is the reality that frequent unintentional exposure to pornographic sites is unavoidable. Once again, making sure your children know how to handle this is crucial. If you have young children, you may want to seriously consider using one of the software filters SuperKids has reviewed.
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12 comments:
i think internet is spoiling our children and at the same time its spreding violence as well. so govn should come with new cyber law other wise parents should use filtaring software.
i think there is too much pornography on internet nowadays..And even thou many of us not interested in this web sites,its affecting us.For me internet pornography and VIRUS is the same think!!I,myself was affected by this kind of web site,even thou i never visit them..
There is no way that the internet can restrict pornography to be shown on the web. Parents should take control and restrict such websites to be accessed to their kids. Probably, you should recommend certain types of software that could help parents to detect and control kids activities on the internet.
i do wish that the internet should restrict the surfers especially the ones under age not to view their web sites. By doing this it would be better for the kids not to see all this kind of things and get expose to all this in a very young age as this might give them bad or negative effects. Other than that parents also play an important role in watching what their kids are doing and what are the websites they are visiting and so on....
Your article is true to a extent that parents do play an important role in controlling their children from accessing to pornography sites..Good work and keep the blogs rolling man..
i do wish that the internet should restrict the surfers especially the ones under age not to view their web sites. By doing this it would be better for the kids not to see all this kind of things and get expose to all this in a very young age as this might give them bad or negative effects. Other than that parents also play an important role in watching what their kids are doing and what are the websites they are visiting and so on....
I don’t like to see those things appear in my computer! It just like an evil always intrude into my computer even I didn’t visit its page. I think the reason why most of the parents do not allow their children to touch the computer is because of too much pornography on the internet. Government should come out with a rule or software where people must have certain requirement just can enter into that website, or parents have to restrict their children by blocking those website popup in the computer.
Child pornography can be placed in the same category with other destructive habits and traps. Children who fall into the trap of becoming objects of pornography tend to have a need for love from an adult. This need can come from neglect of parents or problems at home or school. Teachers can play a strong role in such situations. If children feel there is an adult who cares and who is available to listen, feelings of self-worth grow stronger.
Avoidance of pornographic magazines and Internet sites is crucial from the earliest age. Educators with Internet access in their rooms and buildings must make it a priority to supervise children on the Internet.
Swagata, Pornography websites have been the most popular websites among all the youngsters but we have to think that it is really worthful for us to have such things in our life. Our mind will be diverted and exploited by these sorts of sexy websites and helps to copy in the real life that makes rather disgusting. Still the world looks for it,
Bikash
well, internet is for public which don't have any boundary.every user can get information in whatever feild.so i don't say ponography is bad and should be banned because there are many groups which are getting good informations useful to them.Though ponography is a controversial topic when comes in ground of family and social areas,it has both good and bad effects.well done swagata,keep it up.
"I'm against pornography. This is an industry that has turn in into employment to many people around the world. This is a huge industry in IT era. How ever a 'tight' real tight control must be imposed especially to minors. Imagine when 'Playboy" started by Hugh Hefner (founder) the whole world society were against him. What happened now? It is acceptable world wide!
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