Porn and Pancakes
Carol over at My View of It has “tagged” me. For those who aren’t familiar with tagging, it is a way to spread an idea or meme, hoping to garner attention for a particular cause or idea. In this case the cause is to Help Make the Web Safer for Children. It was begun by John Harmon and Mihaela Lica, and here is the message they would like to spread:
Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information.
My name is Brian, and I approve this message.
But here’s the thing: It won’t work. Every single webmaster on the planet could adhere to this noble cause, and almost nothing would change.
Time for a little honesty. I looked at pornography as a young teenager. I had a couple of Playboy magazines in my possession at the time, and I could have gotten much more had I wanted to. This in an era where pornography was printed on glossy paper, hidden in crevices in your bedroom, and traded and shared between friends while discussing the early bloomers in homeroom.
In an age in which pornography could only be accessed by purchasing it through strict filters and had to be transported physically I had ample access to pornography. And here’s the important thing to note: The filters didn’t impede my access in the slightest. I didn’t need to gain access by shoplifting or purchasing it with a fake ID because there was plenty of access just between friends. Fast forward to today, where megabyte files can be copied and transferred in seconds, and can be stored as a hidden folder on your ipod. Children today can file-share movies and music right under the nose of a film and music industry desperate to prevent piracy. Purveyors of adult content face the same challenge.
Despite my pessimism, I do think the cause is a good one. I just think it is a cause that deserves better than a simple meme or lobbying congress to make it into law. It merits serious discussion. I think we should have Porn and Pancakes. (Don’t worry, the link is safe for work.)
So Carol, tag back to you. Tell everyone you’ve tagged, and who have tagged you that I would like to do more than simply spread the meme. Tell them I’d like to get into the details and discuss how you really reduce children’s access to pornography. I’ll pose a few questions just to get the ball rolling:
- The Porn and Pancakes approach is to classify pornography as a sin, and look to religion as the path away from pornography. I’ll broaden that simply to personal accountability. Is this enough? Do we simply encourage parents to talk to their children about pornography and leave it at that, or are there things society can and should do to reduce access?
- Should a requirement such as this be given legal teeth? If so, how strong should the penalties be? How do we determine what is and isn’t worthy of being behind the wall?
- What about a .xxx domain? Would that make it easier to block pornography from children, or would it simply make it easier for them to find?
- Should this approach be extended to other controversial topics? If so, who decides?
- How might this be applied to non-U.S. internet sites?
Well, that’s enough for a start. Must go and heat up the griddle.
Be Brave. Be Human. Discuss.
Brian
February 27th, 2007 09:47
1) what does classifying it as a sin accomplish? such a classification only reduces the issue and the act to a simple religious issue. that does not work towards any meaningful end-goal.
2) AOHell as a feature whereby you can set up the screen names according to age and maturity. It worked here until herself gave the Teener the MS security password and allowed him to get his own hotmail email account. In addition, you can see where the youngster went by checking your computer’s history log. I also run weekly adware checks; the results show cookie URL’s and the sex sites almost always have “sextracker” cookies.
3) if you run most recent MS products, you can set up your computer to block objectionable websites. I do that here. I can also block the cookies which get put on the computer as the websites open. In most instances, if the initial cookie is not accepted by your computer the website does not load. No load, no images, no problem.
4) I see nothing needing filtering in the same way as porn.
5) see #3, above.
February 27th, 2007 09:57
As with all issues of morality, I think the best thing a society can do is educate young people at home, in schools, in religious or other local communities. Give them a strong foundation. Sure, they’ll dabble in things that are “bad” for them, as all kids do and have done since the dawn of humanity. Hopefully, though, they’ll have a moral or ethical compass that will guide them back to a more savory path.
Recently, the “experts” have decided that young girls are being negatively impacted by their role models (Britney, Lindsey, Paris) who party with no underwear, fall down drunk in public, and end up in rehab. How do we combat the negative influence of such pop star antics? By talking with our girls, giving them good role models to look up to, etc.
We do what we always do - try to take over the wor– Oops, wrong answer. We try to instill the values we believe in, try to keep a flow of communication with our youth, all the while knowing that our kids will have to make decisions for themselves.
That said, I don’t think it would hurt to instill another layer of controlled access to internet porn. Just because it’s always been around doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up in the air and say “oh well, my kid will find a way to access it anyway, so may as well just bookmark it for him.” I like the .xxx, and perhaps computers can pre-set to disallow .xxx, with the option to allow with a password. That way Mr. Smith can look at his porn at 2 in the morning and keep Junior from accidentally or deliberately finding his favorite sites. All public computers would be able to screen out .xxx sites. Sure, some computer whiz kid will figure out a way around it, just like Brian’s childhood cohorts had access to printed porn. But it would still reduce the amount and ease of access.
February 27th, 2007 11:35
Asking the owners to Require a password for websites is not even a half-measure. There are many other ways to get your porn; Usenet, BitTorrents, etc etc. Websites are only one part of the equation.
On to the questions:
#1 - Families are the basic block of communities and society. Families have to set, maintain, and teach standards to their kids. Communities (made up of families etc) need to set via the ballot what their community standards will be.
In the case of the family, the standards can mandate filters, blocks, and monitoring. In the community, the standards can only apply to brick-and-mortar porn shops and serve as a public example of highly esteemed personal morality in it’s residents. In other words, a community could make it illegal to have porn stores and web sites run from within it’s borders, but could not make it illegal for others to have porn sites elsewhere.
#2. - Community standards. If, in step #1, the community has determined and set a standard via ballot, then yes, give it teeth. Should the Federal Government have legal teeth on this? No. (My contribution here is based on the assumption that we are talking about conventional, consensual porn.)
#3. - A special domain would depend on the civic-duty mindedness of the purveyors of the material. Are your porn shop folks responsible, self-policing citizens of the community? You’d need them to be to get themselves on that TLD. The Internet and the computers attached to it are private property, therefore I don’t believe you could force the TLD upon them.
And again, what about other sources? .xxx only affects websites/email.
#4. - Community Standards.
#5. - It can’t be. I really don’t think it can even be mandated to US based sites. You don’t have any right to a clean Internet. You are free to “change the channel” as it were.
If families and, by extension, societies would treat these things as important, and actually discuss them and the *reasons* for their standards, things might be different.
Unfortunately, as with so many other things, it is put aside for vicarious living through TV and other “stuff.” Families today are too much like roommates or, worse yet, hotel guests. Individuals know that there are other people in the building, they’ll even talk to them sometimes, but they are largely disconnected in the details of daily life. Youths are given the “opportunity” to “decide for themselves” on every topic under the sun. Parents want to be their children’s’ “buddies” instead of their parents. Discipline is practically non-existent.
Consider another important issue: Participation in our own governance via elections. What percentage of eligible people register to vote? And what percentage of registered voters actually show up??
In the year 2000 (a Presidential election, so numbers are higher than mid-terms) 70% of the voting age population registered, 60% of those registered actually went to vote. That comes out to about 54% of all voting age citizens bothered to come out and vote for President in 2000. All the hype leading up to it, and you still got barely more than half. In 2004 the election was even more contentious and hyped, and the percentage of voting age people who went to the poll soared! to 55.3%
I just cite that as an example of the raging apathy in this country. If the numbers are that low on a subject as important and hyped up as a presidential election, what are the numbers of parents who talk to their kids about porn?
February 27th, 2007 12:24
Brian, this is a great post, but you’ve missed the point. This is not against pornography. Pornography is a matter of personal choice and we should respect that. Whether that is a sin or not, we are not here to judge. We do not even talk about teenagers! They have a mind of their own.
I was once a teenager. I remember. Parents are often helpless with teens.
We just try to avoid undesired accidents. We try to protect the little ones. To make their access more difficult. To slow it down if you want. That should give parents and schools the time to face the real problems of the Internet and educate the kids.
The password protected login on legal sites is a precaution. Illegal sites will still have their ways. We cannot stop all of them. But if the legal sites will respond will have less to worry about. A small step. Maybe…
When politicians are able to give a law against smoking in public places no one seems to make such a big fuss. We are even able to react quite aggressively when smoke bothers us…
A teacher is facing 40 years of jail because of an online porn related accident.
http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6153487.html
And we still hide after “parents should”, families should… etc. It is easy to blame just the parents for what it should be a common responsibility!
February 27th, 2007 15:38
The cited court case is a mockery. I certainly hope the appeal is heard by more reasonable judges.
And besides, THAT type of operation will never accede to the plan suggested above.
Regarding the anti-smoking (and anti-trans-fat) laws, everyone I know with a hint of common sense and love of freedom and private property rights was completely up in arms.
Lastly, parents indeed “should.” Regardless of Mrs. Clinton’s opinion, it doesn’t take a village to raise a child. It take mature, responsible parents to raise a child. Sensible grandparents help.
Legislating and institutionalizing does nothing but grow the government and trample more liberty.
Internet porn a problem? Then put the computer in a common room in the house. Don’t let kids use computers all locked up in their bedroom for hours a day. Get software that reports their activity. Get hardware that blocks access to sites and domains based on your criteria.
*Don’t* issue a prescription for every household in America.
February 27th, 2007 19:38
Miheala,
You said, “Parents are often helpless with teens.” I agree that teenagers can be a handful. I was a teenager once, and I was old enough to drink and drive when I was. I was old enough to be grandfathered through each drinking age law change, too.
I had friends who had easy access to marijuana before I was old enough to drive. I almost succumbed to peer pressure once, but after that, never did.
The question is: do your kids have control over you, or do you have control over your kids? I don’t mean in a lording over type of way. I mean, do you set boundaries and set consequences when those boundaries are crossed? Do you differentiate between “educational opportunities” and times for discipline? Do your kids fear your wrath, whatever the “wrath” might be?
The problem is, this boundary setting has to start when they are elementary education ages. But, starting now is better than never.
I won’t even discuss the loss of liberty by legislating that people cannot use legally purchased substances. That just rubs me the wrong way.
Rick
February 27th, 2007 22:06
Welcome to sauerkraut and Mihaela!
Mihaela,
Your call to action DOES talk about teenagers. In fact, I would say your call to action specifically focuses on teenage behavior, for example:
My reading of it was that your goal was to limit access to teenagers, hence my response.
If you want to prevent the “little ones” from accidental exposure, such a solution already exists. Both Microsoft Vista and Apple OS X have the ability to set up child accounts on the system whereby web-browsers will never load any page unless it has been specifically approved by an authorized adult. Such a mechanism is completely effective for schools and libraries. All it takes is for us to fund them to cover the cost of training, support, and modern equipment.
The case of accidental exposure you mentioned was specifically due the use of outdated equipment which was not supported properly. If the teacher had been given training on a modern system properly configured, it would not have happened. Perhaps a better call to action would be to call people to fund their local schools for proper computer equipment and support.
But that is an easy solution to a straight-forward problem. The issue of reducing willful exposure to pornography is an entirely different issue, and for me an interesting one.
The password option is a good idea, but it doesn’t address the issue in my opinion, as I have said. I also don’t think the .xxx solution is workable either. Would we make it voluntary? Then we are in the same situation as with the password, except that now kids know they can type “anything”.xxx and a find porn site. If we make it mandatory, then where is the cut-off point? Do bare breasts count? How about sketches of nudes? Suppose you have a site on the holocaust, which contain images we probably don’t want small children viewing. Would such a site have to be placed in the .xxx section?
The thing about the internet is that it frees us from getting information from controlled channels (governments, news media, universities, libraries), but it also frees us from the protections those controls gave us (such as in limiting child access to pornography). It means we have to take a serious look at how we use the internet, and how the internet uses us.
February 28th, 2007 00:12
Porn sources that blindly send out spam e-mails and trick Web surfers to land on their sites are engaging in criminal behavior. They should be caught and prosecuted, the same way someone who went through a parking lot placing lurid porn fliers under people’s windshield wipers would be.
Even porn sites that don’t engage in those practices should take reasonable care to ensure customers are 18 or older. Or else, at least if they’re based in the U.S. If they’re elsewhere, little can be done about them.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with Elena. It’s vital for parents to instill decent, wholesome values in their children. Tell them about porn, about drugs, drink, violence and other harmful things. Take care to tell them things that are honest and accurate. Kids are smart and have a way of telling when they’re being handed over-the-top scare stories.
It’s probably better to discuss porn with a kid in terms of cheap thrills and low-grade entertainment than to apply a heavily religious guilt overlay. The religious guilt thing won’t stop most kids from being curious to see some porn. What it may well do is convince them guilty pleasures are the most exciting of all, both for their inherent content and because the kid is getting away with something strictly forbidden.
Parents naturally want to protect their kids. What that means depends. When Junior is 18 months or 2, it’s OK to put the sharp things and breakables up where he can’t reach or in a locked closet. If parents are still having to do those things when Junior is 11 or 12, something’s drastically wrong. And if when he’s 16 they do those things and demand relatives and his friends’ parents do those things, too, Junior and his folks will be considered mental cases, and rightly so.
The truth is that it’s simply not possible to rid the world of potentially harmful people, influences and things, to make it 100 percent safe and wholesome for your kids. A key part of raising kids is helping them know right from wrong, good from bad and the trashy from the worthwhile.
Realize, though, that as exemplified in Brian’s admission, with 999 kids out of 1,000, you won’t get 100 percent compliance. At some point they’ll look at some porn, sip some beer, puff on a cigarette and drive too hard and fast for anybody’s good. Fortunately, 997 kids out of 1,000 will suffer no lasting harm from these experiences. They will just be part of trying things, getting away with things and, over time, growing up.
One final note. Elena is also right to point out the potential harm to kids that can come from seeing Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and their male counterparts as cool. Britney, who is supposed to be a mother now, never grew up. She has wealth, fame and is stuck in early adolescence when she desperately needs to be an adult, one who can share a lasting adult relationship with a man.
Sometimes, those who seem so cool are more to be pitied than anything else. Kids who emulate them do themselves no favors.
February 28th, 2007 10:34
I’d like to comment on the notion that “It’s probably better to discuss porn with a kid in terms of cheap thrills and low-grade entertainment than to apply a heavily religious guilt overlay. ”
I disagree. When you assign value like “cheap” and “low grade” to porn, you’re telling the kid “this is my valuation.” He will then come up with his own.
Discussing how porn fits (or doesn’t) with your religious morals does not have to be heavy, nor all about guilt. When you go that route, the kid can be taught that porn is not compatible with the standards adhered to by the family.
It takes porn from the subjective to the objective. “Cheap” and “low grade” are subjective opinions. “Wrong because of our holy writ” is objective; it comes from a standard that is outside of the self.
February 28th, 2007 16:33
Scott, given that you say applying religion to the discussion with a kid doesn’t have to be heavy on guilt, I agree with your assertions — for a good many kids and families. With others, mileage will vary greatly.
I get what you’re saying about objective, immutable right/wrong judgments, as opposed to a parent weighing in with his or her judgment. If that works best for you and yours, fine. If that works consistently for you and yours all the way through adolescence, you are blessed beyond most parents’ wildest dreams. That’s because a big feature of adolescence is insisting if mom or dad says tomayto, junior’s going to say tomahto, and so on.
However, when you say, “When you go that route, the kid can be taught that porn is not compatible with the standards adhered to by the familym” you’re saying the same thing I said, only applying religious beliefs to do it. What I said asserts standards adhered to by the family, too.
Can nonreligious families have and instill moral and ethical standards in their kids? You bet they can, and they should.
March 1st, 2007 08:39
“you are blessed beyond most parents’ wildest dreams.”
Yes, I am. I am also involved beyond most parents wildest nightmares. I say nightmares because when people find out how involved we are with the kids and homeschooling, scouts, church, etc. they recoil in horror as if being a family is a scary thing! (And I know folks who are more involved!)
But my point was the objective, external standards. Sure, they’re both standards, subjective and objective, but it seems to me that when the standards come from outside, then they don’t rely on me. If the standards are subjective, based on me, then when I inevitably get caught in a “do as I say, not as I do” situation, that brings into question all the standards I have introduced.
With objective standards, when I fail, everyone can see that the standards apply to everyone, and we all have our moments of failure. But the standard itself is not any part of that failure equation.
March 7th, 2007 09:00
I also did this post because I was tagged to do so. However, when I posted it, I also added the following:
Children are curious, theu will certainly want to see what they are not supposed to, it’s just a fact.
Pornography is available everywhere these days NOT just on the internet.
Keep computers in a room of the house where you can at least try to monitor what your child is doing on the net.
Use blocking software and block as much as you can. (it is impossible to block all people)
I think we as parents have to take some responsibility for what our kids are doing on the internet. Pornographic sites are not to blame. Just the facts.