Disturbing Examples
Among the examples uncovered was an incident in which an 11-year-old girl was trying to find photographs of Adolf Hitler for a school project. She logged into a website labeled “Adolf Hitler pictures”, but found herself faced with child pornography on a site carrying the rubric “gaysexfreepics”. In another case, two brothers, aged 10 and 12, found homosexual images instead of the pictures of the pop band Boyzone that they were seeking.
Further cases involved a family with an eight-year-old boy and a girl of 10, in which the elder child found pictures of topless women after attempting to log on to a website about the Spice Girls. A 13-year-old girl researching the White House found herself looking at a porn magazine site, while a 15-year-old girl researching “money” found a prostitution website.
Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics, who conducted the research, said that such experiences were common. “From my research, nearly all – 90 percent – of the children had seen some kind of pornographic content. The numbers engaging in chat with people they had never met was about half. I observed one long flirtation between a 15-year-old girl and a man of 32 that seemed to be the kind of communication that could easily go wrong.”
Editor's Note: In early April Catholic Exchange will unveil a new family-friendly, pornography-filtered ISP called Catholic Exchange Connection. Stay tuned to our website for details.
This article reprinted with permission from Freedom ISP.
About Half Are Approached by Strangers
Nine out of 10 children between the ages eight and 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, according to research set to be published soon by the London School of Economics.
The research, by academics at the London School of Economics, also found that about half of those in the age group had been approached by strangers inside of Internet “chatrooms”, sometimes with a view to an under-age relationship. In most cases, the sex sites were accessed unintentionally when a child, often in the process of doing homework, used a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures.
Safety v. Literacy, a Quest for Balance
Professor Livingstone emphasized, however, that there was a danger of overreacting to the hazards of the Internet. Although some children deliberately sought pornography, most young people swiftly shut down sex websites if they came across them.
“The concerns about safety, which are very much at the top of the public agenda, need to be balanced with concerns about computer literacy,” said Professor Livingstone. “What we don't want to do is create an environment that is so sensitive to safety that we don't give children the encouragement and freedom to develop the Internet skills that are becoming a prerequisite of everyday life.
Professor Livingstone's research will be published in a report for the Institute of Public Policy Research. It is based on a year-long study of 30 families and responses from pupils and teachers in 10 schools.
