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Porn Nightmares
The Internet is full of shady characters soliciting
pornography. Without some sort of protection like a computer monitoring or blocking program, online sexually explicit
material is everywhere. It can easily find it's way to your, or
your child's computer screen even if you were not actively looking
for it. Realizing that the online porn industry is one of the few
"Dot Coms" that are surviving and making money, over $1
Billion a year from adults that pay for content, it's no wonder
that the material Is everywhere. The industry will try every marketing
and/or email scheme ever known or unknown to get you to come to
their site and spend a few dollars. Here is an example. Your son
needs to do some research on President Bush. The best place to start
would be www.whitehouse.gov
. But what if he didn't know that the extension was .gov, what if
he typed in .com? For years, the .com address was an adult site.
It seems to have changed hands but it is still a classic example
of how kids could accidentally come across the undesirable sites
on the Internet. There are still way too many sites out there that
are not fit for the average person, let alone our children. How
do we protect ourselves from these characters, how do we protect
our kids on the Internet?
We could call the Internet police but there are no
laws that work. If these shady characters were walking the streets
handing out pornography, they would be arrested for their behavior.
There is very little protection against these characters on the
Internet. Laws have been tried. Laws have been overturned. Over
the last six years, Congress has made many attempts to regulate
porn on the Internet. The result is a bewildering assortment of
laws that, at least in theory, protect children from material that
some communities consider unsuitable.
Pornography is so prevailant on the Internet that
it is difficult to search for anything without some of the results
linking to undesirable material. Your kids could be innocently searching
for something and come across some very explicit images. Here is
a search page that will filter out
the majority of the undesirable material on the Internet.
The problem exists. The problem is real. According
to a survey done by the National Academies, one in four children
reported at least one unwanted exposure to sexually explicit pictures
on the Internet during the past year, and one out of five reported
that they had received a sexual solicitation. The scary part is
the fact that the majority of children won't tell their parents
about what they have seen for fear of the computer being taken away.
One out of every four or five children have been exposed to something
sexual in nature while on the Internet, can we let this go on? What
can be done to stop it?
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