Fighting the Online Porn Hydra
Surfing made safer.For the past year, newspapers have been reporting a global crackdown on internet child pornography resulting in the arrests of hundreds of paedophiles and child porn racketeers. Dozens of them have been located and arrested in Greece as well. Although I applaud the efforts being taken by law enforcement to rid these dregs of humanity from our society, I know it's not enough. The porn industry is a multi-billion dollar marketplace and even though the number of arrests have increased, the police and concerned citizen groups (click this link just to see what the freaks are capable of) can't keep up with the number of new online porn sites which appear every day. New heads on this perverted Hydra sprout up faster than they can chop them off which means parents, like me, have a dilemma on their hands. Do we forbid our children to access the internet and deny them the chance to become part of the Digital Age? Do we allow them access and then monitor their web surfing 24-7?
Both solutions are impossible. No parent can monitor their children around the clock. If you ban them from internet access at home, they will still get online at any of the numerous online Net cafes or even at their friends' houses. With porn spammers becoming more aggressive, software like CyberSitter, can greatly reduce the amount of garbage kids see from websites and instant messaging. Up until now, anti-porn shields relied on a database of known sites and spammers in order to block questionable content from your child's eyes. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.
Soon, a new product will be on the market to help concerned parents and educators. It's called Filter X and was developed in Greece by information technology experts at Democritus University of Thrace. What makes this filtering software so special is its ability to scan text and graphics of sites BEFORE your child accesses them and it does it all within a fraction of a second. The software has been tested over the past 2 years in a pilot program in schools across Greece and the EU and will soon be available for purchase. Since brainpower is about the only growth export sector in Greece these days, I only hope that it's release won't be delayed by bureacratic red tape and will pave the way for more Greek hi-tech products to hit the market in the near future.
I guess I don't think about these things as much since I don't have children, but it nice that Greeks are developing something good for a change.
The child porn rings and all that crap really sickens me. I just don't get it. And it disturbs me more that these psychos think of their behavior as "normal". That they just have a fetish, like wanting to be peed on or something. Ugh.
I really like your hydra comparison. Good one.
Posted by
melusina |
10/11/05 15:41
I wrote a blog on pornography last year and I mentioned in it that once you watch enough of something, it becomes 'normal' to people. You become desensitized. Remember the Nick Berg beheading? Headline news for weeks. We were sickened, disgusted, couldn't stop talking about it. And then we did stop. Why? Because too many were happening. We became less outraged with each one to the point where we became complacent.
I believe the child porn phenomenon is the same thing. When people only view child porn, associate with other paedophiles online, then they soon start to think it's normal. They justify it. Then we see ads where children wear makeup, stand in provocative poses to sell a backpack or wear suggestive clothing like an adult, we reinforce this twisted thinking. I've seen billboards in Greece where a teenager appears topless with a pair of strategically placed boots to promote that shoe brand. Since when is did it ever become "OK" to advertise "Teenagers!" on the front cover of a popular men's magazine? As this perversity becomes more mainstream, I believe we'll be seeing more and more of our children becoming victims of these depraved people.
We owe it to our children to become more vigilant in combatting paedophilia. Filter X is a start. Arresting them and giving them harsher punishment is definitely a plus. But I think the only way to really make an impact is to eliminate all movies, ads and publications promoting the idea of underage sex. We cut down on alcoholism and smoking by removing ads promoting it. We should also be banning publications and movies promoting the idea of underage sex.
Posted by
The SeaWitch |
10/11/05 16:39
I agree completely. I am always so shocked by how "grown up" advertising images of children are. And how ironic is it than in an age when we are living longer - when children can afford to be children longer - they are expected to be grown up younger. They are allowed make up, provocative clothing - started by the corporations, permission by the parents.
Fed right into the pervert brains.
People bitch and moan so much about protecting their children, yet I see very little evidence of it on a day to day basis. How about not letting your 9 year old daughter wear makeup and dress like a tiny whore? Who cares that it is "fashionable" now? Why can't we stop these trends???
Posted by
melusina |
11/11/05 15:20