.. to be shocked at the hardcore nature of the hits when you google porn

[ElenorRigby]

Try it, type porn into google.

I had no idea you could access porn so easily, there's tons of it and its really nasty too.

Seriously I thought you had to pay and download this stuff!

silverapples yes.

friday - yes and? Keep an eye on them, talk to them, I do all of that yet you were the first person to tear apart my own "inadequate" measures.

We are getting onto 2 different topics here. One is the accidental viewing of porn through a fairly innocous search phrase, like "blue tit nesting sites" which google safesearch will filter out. Some of these innocent phrases can be prevented by these "inadequate" measures although, as I earlier stated and which got ignored, the porn industry has started to target innocent phrases as just one way to bypass any filters.

The other topic is that of children accessing porn deliberately and this they will do with or without turning your pc into Fort Knox.

The only thing you can do about that is as I said, allow schools to tackle the subject of porn, the unrealistic expectations it can put on relationships, the unhealth attitude it creates, the exploitation of women and the misogynistic nature of it.

You argue that a false sense of security is bad. I don't disagree however my opinion is that these simple measures can and so filter out some of that content in a way in which parents understand. So they can help to prevent accidental viewing of porn and other disturbing images.

Therefore if they are doing a GCSE project on medieval torture methods, they won't be inundated with bondage porn.

Again, you have to educate parents to understand that these measures can help tackle some of the problem but they are by no means a complete safeguard.

I think friday that you have presumed I believe the measures like safesearch are all you need to keep kids safe. I have not said that and in fact if you read some of my earlier posts you will see where I have stated that the porn industry knows how to bypass such filters.

But this thread was about the OP who had nothing at all in place. Those simple measures are something the OP could do now, today and with those in place she probably wouldn't have had all those 'shocking' results when she googled "porn".

But it is possible for someone who knows what they are doing to lock things down so that Google SafeSearch is locked and there is no way for children to get round it.

You see, this is the problem. "no way". That's what I'm struggling with.

Let's suggest a few.

I see if there's a copy of IE available, as there almost certainly is ("Registry" implies you're assuming Windows). Has that been locked down for Safesearch? It has? Can I access InPrivate mode browsing mode?

Are there other user accounts on the same machine to which I know the password? Let's try those.

OK, that's defeated me. So I download a copy of a different browser. OK, I could be being denied the ability to install applications, but in most households that's not a reasonable model. It's not a call centre, after all, and few houses run with Group Policies (do the home versions of most of the Windows distributions even support them?)

If all that fails, I download an Ubuntu Live Image into a USB memory stick and reboot the machine off it. No home user will have a BIOS password set.

Setting up perimeter security is not a trivial task. Securing endpoints within the organisation, without the controls enterprises have (apart from anything else, the threat of dismissal) is harder. It's an arms race, and the defender has to win every time, by closing every avenue, while the attacker only has to win once.

friday please do make it clear that your quote was not one from myself.

To do what you have suggested in that scenario means that you are dealing with children who actively want to get round the security measures. So we are not talking about children accidently coming across content are we?

This thread was talking about children stumbling upon porn. The OP didn't realise it was so accessible. Many people advised her that if she put up simple measures, that porn would not be so easily accessible. It would still be accessible by children who wanted to view it badly enough, but then so would anything.

My point is, why would children go to such measures to access porn at home? You say porn is a solitary thing and with adults it may be, but children largely view it out of curiosity, they share images with friends, etc. So if as a child, you couldn't view porn at your house then you'd go to a friend's house.

Or they would use a mobile device.

There are ways and means. The only defence you have when faced with such determination is education.

But to prevent most - not all - accidental exposure then safesearch and other filters provide a service that most parents can access and can set up very easily themselves without needing any tech knowledge. The porn industry can bypass these filters and they do. That is why adults tell children to report anything they see which is upsetting because we all know that sometimes these things can and do get through. I don't think anyone believes it's a 100% safe and that is not what parents are told.

But there wouldn't even be those inadequate filters had there not been any pressure put on internet corporations who at first denied they could do anything about it, and then admitted that they could. Their efforts don't go far enough and please don't say that they can do no more, they certainly can. That was the point of the Telegraph article which I clearly stated at the time.

If they want to block accidental access to porn by 8 year olds, it's one problem. If they want to block less accidental access to porn by 13 year olds, it's a completely different problem. The former is, within limits, soluble. The latter is extremely difficult. Making out that they're facets of the same problem is disingenuous and unhelpful to parents.

I completely agree with pretty much everything that Friday has said.
It is really important that parents approach these two very different problems, very very different strategies.

SafeSearch and simple filters, are fine for young children and adults, who don't want to accidentally come across something pornographic. They are not 100% by any means, but they are a useful step. Definitely keep the computer in a family room, to you can supervise, answer questions and guide your children.

Once they get a bit older, pretty much every attempt to limit what your child is able to access, will be easily bypassed. There are very few parents with the technical ability needed to make it virtually impossible to get past. Even for those parents who are that skilled, it still doesn't solve the problem, as the internet can be accessed in so many other places that don't have that level of control or supervision. At this stage, the only answer is education. We have to teach our children the skills they need to be able to grow up into a happy, well balanced, functioning adult. That means we have to have discussions with them about the stuff that is on the internet. We have to talk to them about porn, chat rooms, social networking, illegal downloads, phishing, viruses etc. That means we need to better understand it ourselves.

Any notion about pulling the plug on the porn industry are completely delusional. Of course we need to clamp down on sex trafficking, but porn is such a huge business, because there is so much demand for it. It cannot be stopped. There will always be people, who want to film themselves having sex, and share that with other people.
People try to put all porn into one lump and claim that it is all bad. It isn't. Some of it is consensual and enjoyed by millions of people.

Try Bing OP, I can't ever find anything using it.

Yeah, friday16 has put in sterling work on this thread. The media and politicians are only interested in saying there's a terrible problem, there's an easy solution, and anyone who "refuses to cooperate" is seeking to corrupt the nation's children.

It's fascinating and riddled with contradictions. Like this thread:

This thread was talking about children stumbling upon porn

children largely view it out of curiosity, they share images with friends, etc. So if as a child, you couldn't view porn at your house then you'd go to a friend's house.

Which is it? Inadvertent exposure or controlling kids' curiosity taking them to places where they'd be better off not going? Because, as has been discussed above, solutions to mitigate these problems are quite different and are probably not what's being peddled by the politicians.

That is the problem nauticant - which is it?

I disagree quite strongly with friday when she says that the measures in place are useless and actually dangerous when you tell parents about them, because parents might think they stop 100% of porn.

As mostwicked has said, they are there to stop children from accidently accessing porn. If you had Google SafeSearch on then you would not bring up links even if you googled the term "porn". They serve a purpose for young children who don't want to search porn. They are never going to be 100% and I really don't believe anyone thinks they are. Quotes have been taken out of context - quotes which state that such filters are fine for young children have been used to villify an argument about older children.

Older children who want to access porn, largely out of curiosity, will do so no matter what blocks you put up.

Ridiculing the preventative measures like SafeSearch do not help, all that does is make parents think that there is nothing they can do. That is wrong. Those filters are something all parents can do with very little knowledge of the internet. They help. No one on this thread said that they are 100% effective or that they are a solution for children who want to search for porn. friday has struggled to find any evidence of anyone saying that.

As for the porn industry, again I find the attitude that "well there's nothing we can do so why even try" utterly repellent. Imagine someone telling Nelson Mandela that about apartheid, or Emily Pankhurst about women getting rights. It might seem an uphill struggle but doing nothing about the porn industry is not an option. If we all had such a defeatist attitude then we'd be in a right old mess. Luckily not everyone does and there are some remarkable people out there, fighting back, making a difference. It might be a drop in the ocean but it's bloody better than sitting on your hands and ridiculing those who want to try.

Education, education, education. It's one of the answers. Attitudes can be changed. It's happened with gay rights, with apartheid, with women's rights, etc. The porn industry can be beaten and we can tackle this at its source.

As for porn being enjoyable, well that depends on if you like mysogynistic crap. There have been countless Mumsnet threads on the truth behind the porn industry - more threads than have been discussing Raspberry Pi, so if you use Mumsnet regularly you will be aware of the issues and of the debate.

100% agree with this last post ^^ of CliffRichardSucksEggs. If you've got safe search in place when you've got young children, then that's a preventative measure.
You've got strict google safe search in place, and when you're sat behind them/in the same room as them when they're on the 'net, you know they're not able to access anything horrible by accident.
Why try to discourage people from putting safe measures in place for young children?
It's a huge difference to having strict measures in place than feck all measures in place.
In 5 years time when he's 15 I'll have to revue my stance and up my game, but at the age of 10 and under strict search settings are adequately what you need!

I hardly read beyond the op usually and in this case.
OP, don't google porn. As far as I know it is banned from our provider.
I put in gun instead of guardian and got an online gunship. I just cancelled it and retyped Guardian. Just get some filters.

Or just don't google porn.

Don't google porn, switch the safe search on.

If they are old enough to switch the safe search on, time for 'that' chat :D

If your with VM, some info:

my.virginmedia.com/discover/protecting-children-matters?buspart=Portal_51

I think someone upthread suggested "blue tits" as an example of when Safesearch was a necessary protection.

Out of interest, I've just googled for that term, with and without safesearch.

With safe search on, the list is headed by the website of a band called Blue. The next entries are a Wikipedia entry for the same band, a Wikipedia entry for the colour Blue, a couple of things to do with Blue Peter, a microphone company, an Italian dance band, a review of Blue is the Warmest colour from the Guardian (probably not a film to take your children to), a marine conversation outfit and the Blue Flag programme for beaches. Not a lot of use for the young bird watcher, I'd suggest.

This is hardly surprising, because the page is headed "The word "tits" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active."

Turning off Safe Search, I get:

The RSPB's page on Blue Tits, Wikipedia on Blue Tits, the BBC Nature people on Blue Tits (with a nice picture, too), British garden birds site, British Trust for Ornithology times two, Malcolm and Elizabeth's Bluetit pages ("5 Nov 2013 - This web site is a diary of the breeding behaviour of blue and great tits in our garden in Mayford, Surrey since February 2001."), a factsheet about blue tits, a hair salon in Stoke Newington and Peckham Rye, and the birdguides.com page on blue tits. And it carries on, entirely about birds, for the next ten pages of hits.

Images? Without safesearch, the entire first page, all the way down to the "Show More Images" button, is cute little birds, plus five odd pictures of wrapping paper for no obvious reason. Hit "Show More images"? More pictures of little birdies, all the way to the end of the results.

With safesearch it's mostly blue wallpapers for computers of various stuff, and luckily the "Blue Thanatos" for the rather indicatively named "Deviant Art" isn't one of their racier images.

With safesearch: a useless collection of pages about blue, and no porn (although it's a pretty racy trailer for the film by some standards), and a really odd collection of images.

Without safesearch: a load of pages about the thing I was looking for, plus a rather trendy looking hairdresser, and no porn. And lots of pictures of ickle pretty birdies.

So the main effect of Safesearch is to protect me from the thing I was searching for, while not protecting me from porn because there wasn't any to be had. What was the point of it again?

Taking my life into my hands, let's consider "Therefore if they are doing a GCSE project on medieval torture methods, they won't be inundated with bondage porn."

Safesearch off, "medieval torture", images. Nothing pornographic, depending on your views on porn (I find all that sort of stuff rather nasty). For some reason, there's a page of 1950s lingerie from a Sears Roebuck catalogue in there too. Turning safesearch on doesn't make any different: it may be that detailed study would be repaid, but at first and second blush it's exactly the same results. Flicking over to the "Web" section it's the same: I can't see any immediate difference between "medieval torture" with or without safesearch.

So, scores on the doors:

With or without safe search, you can get a load of leery stuff about medieval torture.

But in order to get pictures of little birdies and find out what their eating habits are, you have to turn safesearch off. If mummy and daddy have locked it on for your own safety, you just won't be able to get at them at all. It's left as an exercise to the reader how useful that actually is.