Safeguard the Web for Children
FACT: Children today are often left alone with a computer and sometimes visit pornographic sites accidentally. I'm not a parent but exposure to sexual images can warp their innocent and delicate minds to an extent that could affect their future behaviour. Something had to be done about this and my blogger friend Mihaela Lica has my full support for this great initiative. Basically, Blogger Power, is an open letter to all adult website owners:"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."
Protect the innocent. As a graphic designer, I have previously shown my support by creating a special artwork (favicon) for this just cause, but that isn't enough to make me sleep in peace at nights. Like Jon Harmon said "These web site operators are not the kind of people who are easily shamed out of bad behavior." We need all bloggers to encourage adult sites to do the right thing and keep children safe.
Your voice matters. As you might already know, I'm not a fan of blog memes because they usually don't refer to relative content but are merely created to have search engine optimization effects. However, this is not a campaign against pornography as a whole. Nor it is not about restricting legitimate free speech and legal commerce. This is just a common sense request to protect the kids. For that reason, I urge the following 20 bloggers to help with their support entries:
Liz Evie Amit Jane
Alex Jean Rose Tisha
Paula Daria Jason Nyamo
Yoichi Saboma Dariana Phoenix
Danielle Franciov Elizabeth Wellington
You can join this campaign by writing about it on your blog and tag 20 others, even if you haven’t been tagged. Let's show them the Blogger Power!Alex Jean Rose Tisha
Paula Daria Jason Nyamo
Yoichi Saboma Dariana Phoenix
Danielle Franciov Elizabeth Wellington
17 thoughts:
I know 20 sounds like a little too much but some of these bloggers don't have a heart, or would not like to participate, or are notorious for being the dead ends of blog memes.. but I tagged them anyway. This campaign is for a good cause and it needs our support in order to be effective.
Ilker,
Mihaela is working hard for this cause and it is a wonder way to protect children on the net. I spoke to her in an interview on skype for an hour earlier this wek she's a most sincere and dedicated woman who deserves our help.
Thanks for making me aware of this great cause. My post is up!
this is a great campaign. I blogged about it already.
First I want to say that I support protecting children and that I think adult webmasters should be a little bit more responsible with the selling of their wares. At the same time, I have mixed feelings about this initiative. However, I will work on a post today to explain myself further. Thanks for the tag.
Going to dissent here..... Why blame innocent children for your dislike of porn?
Peeps always say they're doing this or that "for the children", but they're really doing it for themselves and are in denial of it.
I'm not knocking what you're doing, but let's be honest here. Call it "Safeguard the web for me" instead.
@Dharma: I am being honest. Being an adult, seeing pictures and videos of other people engaging in sexual acts are not going to affect me. (Unless, I accidentally visit such sites at the office but that is a different story.)
The concern here is children because they might not be familiar with what they see and what they should be thinking. And children these days start using the computers at a much more younger age. Can you imagine the confusion a 4-5 year old girl/boy would have seeing two adults having sex? Don't you think their behaviour would be affected?
I always watch young ones with awe when they imitate their elders in doing things. "Good" things. We wouldn't want them to be posing nude / having sex now, do we?
@ilker
I guess my response comes from watching parents and children interact. If a child is innocent, it has no judgment about things. He/she can pull up some porn or a chainsaw massacre movie and not have any reaction to it outside the moment they're viewing it. (Which may be no reaction at all.)
It is the parent that is having the reaction, which is typically fear of something in the future... (omg! my little girl is now going to be a porn queen when she grows up)
The parent now tries to control everything in the child's perception so that they (the parent) doesn't have to feel their own fear of the future. And that fear is total BS, cuz we don't know what will be in the future.
Something for the thinking bloggers to chew on.
ilker.. thanks for highlighting this. i think it's a good cause to support. I feel safer to let my kid surf if there are such additional safeguards in place...
.. after all, it's not going to affect the porn sites' business anyway... they're for adults.
Well I put up my post but, um, mmm, I had a different take on this. I wish I could agree that this is a good idea but I don't.
I have to agree, and partially disagree.
I agree that children don't need to be seeing porn, at all.
However, I disagree about the effects of a child under 8 seeing porn (accidentally). They pass it off, or think it is gross. It is the continual exposure (ex: the father's hidden stash the child stumbles upon) that is a problem. This effort cannot address that, as the problem there is the father's (or perhaps older brother's, uncle's, etc) addiction being a bad example for the child. It is also the child who is molested that is a problem.
So, I agree with this cause, but only to some stated extent. Also, there is filtering software available to many (some free of charge, some open source) for parents, schools and libraries to use to protect children.
There is nothing we can do about people's habits on watching porn.
However, for caring parents out there, here are some
tips to protect your children online from Titania Starlight. I cannot agree more with tip number 1: "Spend time with your children online. Have them teach you about their favorite web sites and teach them about the responsible use of online resources."
That is important. Spend time with your children
Thanks for the TAG! After reading the transcript of the opening arguments in the Coeey trial this morning just makes me ill. I will get a post up on this important topic over the weekend.
Thanks again... Lizzy
Mihaela thinks I'm a power blogger! What more can I say that I haven't already said? Thank you Mihaela..
Hmm .. I can see where they’re coming from; but I’m not quite sure I agree with the sentiment. Would YOU password-protect your blog to make sure it’s only visible to a closed community? I wouldn’t, and wouldn’t expect other people to do it either.
Let us say, for the sake of argument, a webmaster DID password-protect his/her website; how would he/she know who to give the password to? Would you expect someone wanted access to post them a notarised copy of their birth certificate?
If under-18s want to get onto their website, they will anyway; I remember how ingenious I was as a curious teenager … I prefer focusing on educating my children, rather than trying to keep them in a padded cell to make sure they don’t hurt themselves.
A friend once told me that raising a child is like having a butterfly in your hand. You don’t want to open it, for fear that the beautiful creature will fly away. But if you hold it to tight, and don’t give it enough sunlight, the pretty butterfly will perish and die. Give your kids their due, they are might brighter than you think!
I completely agree with you Owen when you make the analogy (hope this is the correct term) of butterfly.
I know if a kid has the intention of checking out an adult website, there is probably nothing to stop him/her. Kids are really smart these days and they are getting smarter. What this campaign intends to do is prevent shocking those who don't have that intention and land in an adult site by mistake.
I wouldn't password protect my blog because there aren't any images most people would consider as "obscene."
I go to great lengths to ensure that my child is not accidentally exposed to adult sites but there is only so much you can do. I believe this is a just cause and would like to extend my support to it. Ilker is right in saying that the point of this initiative is to prevent accidental exposure and not come up with a strategy to not let a curious kid access it.
What do you think? Post your thoughts..