McCain Attacks Unlimited Web Access

Randym sends this AP article: McCain Attacks Unlimited Web Access, or you may prefer the same article at the no-login Washington Post. Candidate McCain, proud sponsor of several bills which would censor every public library and school in the U.S., is now emphasizing his convictions as a way to win votes.

shocking pornography

[Greg W.]

"Yet a child can log on to the library computer and surf the Web for some of the most degrading and shocking pornography available."

I suppose Mr. McCain has personal knowledge of this pornography.

I have two children at home, and the older is old enough to use Netscape with very little assistance. I give him free reign -- no proxy, no filter.

Know what he looks at? Dinosaurs. And animals.

Why does Mr. McCain think that children are even remotely interested in "shocking pornography"? As far as I can tell, only adults and adolescents are interested in that.

Re:shocking pornography

[BMIComp]

I think that the filtering software avaliable is easy to get around, and works as a broad sword (it takes out what you want, but also much more). I think that children and parents should have a good enough relationship that the children can be trusted not to look at it, otherwise they can still get around, if its hacking software, or going somewhere else.

Although, I do feel that a child could mistakenly access pornography. For example, if you goto lyricssearch.com (notice thats not a link), you will find pornography. Also, children could be mislead, since many sites decieve you to going to pornography sites. And also, children could mistakenly access these sites through search engines.

Although, I still won't let you look at my history/cache. =P. Just kidding.

Re:shocking pornography

[Paul Johnson]

Why does Mr. McCain think that children are even remotely interested in "shocking pornography"?

I recall a couple of years ago my wife and I visited the new Amsterdam science museum (sorry, can't recall its proper name). They had a number of public access internet terminals. While we waited in line we watched a couple of 10 year old boys competing to see who could find the hardest porn. It wasn't too easy: the museum home page had no links to general search engines and no way to type in a URL. Also the boys English was obviously not too brilliant. But they persevered, and eventually managed to navigate to Alta-Vista and type in some relevant keywords in English.

Actually I suspect that the net effect on them was benficial, since it required them to practice their English and the pictures they found could be seen by wandering down an Amsterdam street. But Mr McCain is on pretty solid ground when he says that children (which can reasonably include anyone up to 16, or even older if you pin it down to legal definitions) will go out of their way to access the most shocking pornography they can find.

Hmmm. I've just looked at my .sig again. I wrote it with technical standards in mind, but it has an interesting double meaning in this context.

Paul.

Re:shocking pornography

[radja]

Well... the harder you tell kids that something's bad, the harder they will try to do it anyway.

//rdj

Re:shocking pornography

[Scott Wood]

While we waited in line we watched a couple of 10 year old boys competing to see who could find the hardest porn. It wasn't too easy: the museum home page had no links to general search engines and no way to type in a URL.

Heh, that reminds me of contests I've had with my roommates in the past, where the goal is to navigate, in as few clicks as possible, from yahooligans to porn. No typing was allowed, either URLs or into search engines. I believe the record was around 7 clicks.

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