Protect your children on the Internet properly, not mandatorily
With the Family First Party making some pretty outlandish claims over the last few weeks to do with the safety and protection of children on the Internet, the issue lies closer to home.
I am surprised to see their claim that:
Family First believes that the Internet Industry should not be all owed to avoid their responsibilities on this important issue
Ridiculous claims like this have no backing, and are down right wrong. Imposing such mandatory filters on the middle-man is both flawed and unjust.
It is the same thing as imposing that the Post Office filter all mail to be delivered, ensure that it is appropriate and then continue its delivery process if it meets the guidelines.
Perhaps the sentence is better read:
Family First believes that the parents should not be all owed to avoid their responsibilities on this important issue
In lieu of mandatory filtering, there are a number of alternative ways to ensure that we can save the children!
Steps to protect the children
1. Talk to your children
The most fundamentally important thing that any parent can do when facing their child accessing inappropriate content, be it on the Internet, television or through friends is to take some steps to educate them on why the content is inappropriate.
Some simple things to cover with children is:
- Discuss the importance of remaining safe on the internet, the implications involved with choosing to ignore rules and regulations
- Teach you children about pornography, and discuss the social impacts that such content makes, allowing them to come to their own conclusions about why it is wrong with your supplemented material.
- Keep your computer in an area of the house that is public
- Discuss privacy, and the risks involved with broadcasting sensitive information on the internet. Even if it is just their name and school in a private chat. Some chat rooms publish their logs and such information is then readily available through search engines.
2. Get a Mac
Whilst this might seem like unusual instruction, Apple’s OS X software comes with some excellent parental controls already built in.
With out of the box ad hoc content filtering, and the allowance of white and black lists parents are able to schedule times. It also comes with extended logging, which will alert you of any websites it feels are questionable, and what applications have been used.
And added feature allows you to set the amount of time they can use a computer for, promoting a healthy use of computers and encouraging other activities.
3. Download free internet filters
The Australian Government offers NetAlert, which is a free content filtering application that enables parent’s to filter their incoming internet to allow a level of protection.
Whilst not a watertight solution, it does give parents the ability to set in place an amount of protection.
4. Report inappropriate content to ACMA
The Australian Communications and Media Authority administer a national regulatory scheme that includes the investigation of online content.
Any content that a parent feels is inappropriate can be directed towards the body to be investigated, and make subsequent action against an offending party. This will not only ensure that the content is removed from the internet, but will also result in fines for the offenders.
Why the filter is not such a good idea
With large ISPs publicly describing the many issues with an Internet filter, such as the ease of which they can be circumnavigated, it makes very little sense for the government to spend millions of dollars on such a flawed scheme.
Such money is much better spent on healthcare, education, or if it is to be wasted then it might as well be spent on free candy for all.
Senator Conroy, please think twice.
Comments
Twitter:
Very good.im working in primary schools. these kids in yr 3 have compuers in their own room and look up porn and bring it to school.
good times.
I totally agree to shift the onus of protection and responsibility onto the parents but, how effective do you perceive that strategy to be in situations where kids know waaaaay more about tech/comps than the parents ever will?
Am also a big fan of voluntary rather than compulsory use of filters. The govt has one available for free - if you wanna use it then do so. Did no-one give Family First the URL?
We're finally at the stage where the current generation of parents with young children also grew up with computers, so they are far less clueless than our parents were.
Even if they\'re not as clued up on how to stop it as they could be, they should at least be clued up to the potential dangers and have some contacts (or Google skills) to help them reduce the risks.
Even failing all this, what kid is going to look up porn with their parents looking over their shoulder? :P