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> 10 Do you really think these plans will stop the ‘corrosion’ of childhood? question 10 is indeed the most important one, IMHO blocking porn on the intern

> 10 Do you really think these plans will stop the ‘corrosion’ of childhood? question 10 is indeed the most important one, IMHO blocking porn on the internet is not going to stop kids to have access to adult content so it's really pointless unless you want to have a start point for something bigger (censorship)

nicktelford 13y ago
With regards to "corrosion of childhood", I believe "access to adult content" is a bit of a red herring. More worryingly, kids are spending more time indoors, isolated (often on the Internet/games consoles, though that's missing the point). As little as ten years ago, you'd generally see kids playing outdoors, in the parks and in the streets, often unsupervised. Now, thanks (I can only assume) to paedo-paranoia, parents are unwilling to allow their children to play outdoors at all, let alone unsupervised. I'd consider this to contribute more to the corrosion of childhood than "access to adult content" - especially since they'd likely have less of the latter if they spent more time being kids.
- smackay 13y ago
  I think the delay in starting a family is also a big factor. Anecdotal evidence (including personal experience) suggests that older parents are more anxious about their kids since, from a purely biological perspective, replacing a lost one is no longer possible. That makes people paranoid about the dangers to the kids they have. The paedo-paranoia and (my pet peeve) endless stories of dead children in the media only go fuel parental anxiety further. So if Cameron want to stop the "corrosion of childhood", a crackdown on media outlets eliciting emotional responses to boost readership would be a better place to start.
- desas 13y ago
  It's not just parents. My local school (~500 metres away) doesn't let students walk to and from school unaccompanied by an adult until they are eleven.
DanBC 13y ago
I'm gently sympathetic to the "let's help children avoid accidentally stumbling across hard core pornography". I don't think this is the right way to do it, and I don't think it's nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, although the various porn-video sites don't seem to require any age verification at all. Google and DDG and others seem to be working hard to reduce the amount of pornographic content shown to people doing searches. (A Google image search for [vintage beef] largely returns the YouTuber and Minecraft player, and not vintage naked men. Even without filtering explicit results it's just a few naked men, and nothing "horrible".) Email is a lot better than it used to be, I think. It would have been nice if the UK had implemented a real anti-spam law when we had the chance. Existing law means it's only illegal to show porn to people under 18 if you do so for the purpose of sexual gratification. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/12 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/12)

nicktelford 13y ago

With regards to "corrosion of childhood", I believe "access to adult content" is a bit of a red herring. More worryingly, kids are spending more time indoors, isolated (often on the Internet/games consoles, though that's missing the point). As little as ten years ago, you'd generally see kids playing outdoors, in the parks and in the streets, often unsupervised. Now, thanks (I can only assume) to paedo-paranoia, parents are unwilling to allow their children to play outdoors at all, let alone unsupervised. I'd consider this to contribute more to the corrosion of childhood than "access to adult content" - especially since they'd likely have less of the latter if they spent more time being kids.

smackay 13y ago
I think the delay in starting a family is also a big factor. Anecdotal evidence (including personal experience) suggests that older parents are more anxious about their kids since, from a purely biological perspective, replacing a lost one is no longer possible. That makes people paranoid about the dangers to the kids they have. The paedo-paranoia and (my pet peeve) endless stories of dead children in the media only go fuel parental anxiety further. So if Cameron want to stop the "corrosion of childhood", a crackdown on media outlets eliciting emotional responses to boost readership would be a better place to start.
desas 13y ago
It's not just parents. My local school (~500 metres away) doesn't let students walk to and from school unaccompanied by an adult until they are eleven.

DanBC 13y ago

I'm gently sympathetic to the "let's help children avoid accidentally stumbling across hard core pornography". I don't think this is the right way to do it, and I don't think it's nearly as much of a problem as it used to be, although the various porn-video sites don't seem to require any age verification at all. Google and DDG and others seem to be working hard to reduce the amount of pornographic content shown to people doing searches. (A Google image search for [vintage beef] largely returns the YouTuber and Minecraft player, and not vintage naked men. Even without filtering explicit results it's just a few naked men, and nothing "horrible".) Email is a lot better than it used to be, I think. It would have been nice if the UK had implemented a real anti-spam law when we had the chance. Existing law means it's only illegal to show porn to people under 18 if you do so for the purpose of sexual gratification. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/12 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/12)