Online safety?
The Register has a good opinion piece about online safety. In particular, the current case in which a 14-year-old is suing MySpace because she was allegedly assaulted by a man she met in one of their chatrooms. Setting aside the merits of this particular case (for example, she lied about her age, and the man she’s alleging assaulted her was 19), the article makes some excellent points about the way some people treat the Internet.
Parents often think their teen is safe while using MySpace. It would be nice to see how long that argument lasted if your kids got into trouble in the local pub. The difference is that we know the pub is a dodgy place to be, and we don’t let underage people go there unsupervised.
So why are people trying to use the internet as a baby-sitting service? There are a lot of places where it isn’t safe to leave unsupervised kids. The TV isn’t a babysitter, the pub isn’t a creche, and the internet isn’t a safe place where innocent and naive people can be allowed to operate unsupervised either. Why are we trying to pretend it can be?...
Somehow, the seductive idea seems to have been accepted that the problem of dangerous criminals on the net can be solved by technology. A browser, people feel, can be programmed to ensure that innocent eyes see no naked skin – or at least, not skin covering certain parts of the body. Or a website can be programmed to check the birth certificates of people who claim to be 1(8) years old, and verify it.
Like most instinctive, intuitive approaches to computer security, this is insane.
Worth thinking about, I think.
pax et bonum
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but if someone has lied to get onto a chatroom then it is surely their responsability to deal with the issues should any arise.
xXx
Ruth () (URL)
3:04pm on 30 June 2006