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Once again, the British government may try to get Internet service providers to be the babysitters charged with keeping online porn away from children. A similar effort in late 2010 failed, but now it's back in a different form.
The previous plan would have required adult, at-home Internet users to ask their ISPs for access to porn. That went over well with the Brits (not): "Yes, please, may I have my daily dose of Internet porn now, and thank you."
The revamped approach is only slightly less humiliating for adults: They would be required to "opt in" with their Internet service provider if they don't want all adult content blocked. And, as many of us know first-hand, opt in/opt out lingo can be mighty confusing, with the user often inadvertently picking the "wrong" choice.
There are other concerns.
"Forcing ISPs to filter adult content at the network level, which users would then have to opt out of, is neither the most effective nor most appropriate way to prevent access to inappropriate material online," said Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of Britain's Internet Service Providers Association, in a press statement.
"It is easy to circumvent, reduces the degree of active interest and parental mediation and has clear implications for freedom of speech. Instead parents should choose how they restrict access to content, be it on the device or network level, with the tools provided."
Ah, the parents.
Britain's Independent Parliamentary Inquiry into Online Child Protection said in a recent report that the problem is too overwhelming for parents alone to deal with:
Many children are easily accessing online pornography and ... this exposure is having a negative impact on children's attitudes to sex, relationships and body image.
This is of great concern to parents and professionals who worry about older children deliberately accessing hardcore and violent pornography as well as younger children accidentally finding inappropriate content online.
Many parents report feeling left behind by the evolution of technology and that they lack the knowledge and skills to educate their children about internet safety. Parents are also concerned about many other forms of disturbing internet content including cyber bullying, extreme violence, self-harm, suicide and pro-anorexia websites.
ISPs, the report said, "act as a gateway between consumers and the Internet and generate substantial revenues from providing this service and they should share the responsibility of protecting under-age consumers from accessing inappropriate content."
The Daily Mail said Thursday the "opt in" plan is a "significant step forward" for its own "Block Online Porn" campaign, as there is "growing alarm about the impact of sexual content on the Internet on Britain's children."
Research suggests as many as one in three under-10s has seen pornography on the Web, while four in every five children aged 14 to 16 admit regularly accessing explicit images and video footage on their home computers.
Only 3 per cent of pornographic websites require proof-of-age before granting access to sexually explicit material, and two-thirds do not even include any adult-content warnings.
Those are dismaying statistics. And while everyone knows it takes a village to raise a child, will it take government intervention to keep the kid away from porn?
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