I am boycotting all search engines that allow access to child pornography

[glendatheveryexcitedwitch]

And urge everyone else to do so too - how do I find a search engine that blocks access for everyone and not just through parental settings?? Surely if there is a search engine their usp would be this?? Am I being naive that it could help protect children - especially the children that have no one to protect them!!

Well fromparis you just wrote down "naked little girlies" so MN would be blocked in the scenario you speak of.

I refer to searching for it on google, bing, yahoo etc

what I want is that when people use so called reputable search engines and search for "naked XXXXX" that if the term is judged to be risky and have a high risk of depicting child abuse they get a

"this is not permissable" you fucking pervert

is that so hard???? No, I dont think so

and yes its censorship

By typing "naked little girlies" you have given MN the profile that would ban the page if that phrase was used as a content indicator. So it would no longer be discoverable on search engines in your scenario.

fuck knows

lets just give up shall we?

I see you know more about IT than I ever will, but your tone depresses me

I've just risked my cyber profile and googled it.

Yes, there are some vile looking sites. There are also parenting and anti-porn campaigning sites, and what looks like pages posted by families.

If you ban all those sites, then there would be a lot of totally unobjectionable content lost.

Those looking for general controls of internet access / content:

Who should decide what is suitable for general access? Who do you trust to be the moral arbiter on such issues? Some will find the Daily Mail website perfectly acceptable, whilst others are disturbed by their hypocritical habit of interspersing moral crusades with photographs of scantily clad "celebrities".

Do you really think that pedophiles just carry out Google or other standard searches to find such content? - Most of it is accessed via "peer to peer" file sharing sites and is not generally accessible.

When sites with illegal images are discovered, particularly those of child abuse, they are blocked by the ISP's. However, the people responsible keep moving the servers, url's, etc.

You can't block indecent images totally, no machine will ever be able to decide what's in a picture as a human can.

You can block sites known to be central servers of child porn, but you can never keep track of peer to peer sharing.

You can't search every flicker picture or email attachment. Computers can't tell if it's your grandchildren playing on the beach or somethink you absolutely didn't want to see. It can't be done.

RT, good point -difficult to say who could be an effective moral arbiter. For me, it's not so much the fear of what paedophiles cd access/share, far more the normalisation of a v skewed sexuality. I don't want my dc to think women are mere sex objects.

so we just say "it can be stopped" , "its impossible"

fromparis it's our present reality.

All we can do is protect our children and report any criminal content.

I am a bit upset by it all to be honest, so maybe not being very realistic. I guess everyones upset

I am still staggered that you can acess via google et al though, I thought it would only be dodgy search engines

wrong!

Salbertina

Flatpack, is there a problem?? I am perfectly familiar with the internet, thanks and my decision if i choose not to supervise every single second of my teenager's screen time. No idea how old yours are but no need to lecture.

Clearly there is a need to lecture, because you don't seem to understand how the internet actually works.

fromparistoberlin

so we just say "it can be stopped" , "its impossible"

It can be stopped. What you need to do is hand over control of the internet to the government. You need to let David Cameron and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and all their spin doctors and all MI5 and the Police all decide what is suitable material for you to look at.

So let's imagine that people like me, who still value freedom, lose the battle to people like you, who want Nanny to protect them from all the dreadful bad things everywhere. What happens next?

Well, all the bad people who want to hide from the government will buy themselves a secure VPN connection to nations who don't restrict what you look at online. A VPN connection hides and encrypts everything you're looking at, and it is (as the Chinese secret service have discovered) impossible to trace and impossible to crack.

So you're no further on from where you were before you destroyed the freedom of 60 million people.

Flat pack never used this before but "did you mean to be do rude?"

You are being quite unnecessarily nasty to a complete stranger for no reason at all. You may be well suited to a v back-office IT role . I never claimed to be an expert (so shoot me) but came on here in good faith to debate. Back off.

oh sod off flatpack, no need to be so fucking rude and condescending

I am upset, its been a fucking horrible week. I happen to be shocked that this shit is readily available. so shoot me, I am NOT an IT expert

But yes go ahead and insult and patronise me, I dont want Nanny to protect me. I amk just really upset at some of the shit thats been going on this week

From, hear, hear, with you on that v understandable sentiment! As a user and a parent I have valid concerns. What the solution is, who knows. Reasoned debate seems far more productive than attack. Like you've, I've had a hard week and got kids to sort.

China and Iran have managed to block internet acess in some/many areas

No....they think they have. Actually China has blocked a LOT of stuff. But look at the length's they've gone to and ask yourself if that is really the direction you want our country to go to? Do you really want Youtube for example to be blocked just in case someone uploads a dodgy video?

And Iran has blocked the Internet entirely and not really for anything as noble as anti-porn or child safety. They've blocked it to avoid dissent.

I remember the last time this debate kicked off and someone said that they live in the UAE and that their block was great. I asked a mate of mine who lived out there what he does to get his dodgy TV/films from and he laughed and just said everyone here knows which proxies to use to bypass the government filters.

The bottom line is there is no magic solution. It's like demanding someone do something about world peace. All very noble but unlikely to happen because there is no simple answer.

The best solution available right now is for parents to educate themselves and take the actions they deem necessary to protect AND educate their kids. Blocking porn then sticking your head in the sand isn't a clever way to bring your kids up. They need to be able to discuss it and openly admit if they've stumbled across something.

Don't wish for someone else to do it for you. Do it yourself. The buck stops with us as parents.

Agree, Niceguy. We're proxy users ourselves as overseas. Schools here got a lot of catching up to do as regards Internet safety (but then less a priority when many schools HAVE no computers (or even desks). Even well/educated people here tend to be much less questioning.

Interesting article here on the BBC website.

There is a site to report porn, but it doesn't seem to be widely known.

It's the one I linked earlier: Internet Watch Foundation

I'm obviously very naive that there is a way - we as a majority could protect our children but it looks like even if we all stand together there are ways they can access what they want

Sorry if I got the terms wrong - fortunately I'm not clued up on what each term covers.

I'm with those who are saddened by all of these cases and just hoped we could protect children - I can protect my children from finding anything nasty on the Internet and as much as my 7 yr old daughter would love to go out to play with her older brothers (13-16) and as much as these things don't happen everyday I can't protect her if I can't see her!

Worth raising awareness about, certainly. Is MN doing anything?

Maybe there should be a web chat with someone from IWF?

Excellent idea!

i am not so bothered around my children, I know when the time comes I can manage the PC/put controls in place etc.

April was virtually unpreventable, almost light a strike of lightening. who the fuck knew mark was so evil, what he was?????

what does sadden me are the children getting abused and its on the web, and anyone can acess it

and I am naiive, I know. Reading about Tia and April (RIP) made me realise how vast the issue is, and how easily acessible

I genuinely thought this data was only found in some deep cavern managed by IT savvy evil pervs

but it appears its quite easy to find it

and what freaks me out out is this reporting (ie sharing their web seearches, sharing some of the materials the jury saw) will educate, shall we say less nice people too

This will sound cheesy, but as Christian I REALLY hope there is a heaven, and I really hope they are there, having a great time, surrounded by love

Yeah right