Internet Protection – How Filters Fail to Protect Children Online
Access to pornography, violence, and strangers online is a lot easier than you may think. Internet protection is a must for parents looking to safeguard their family from the dangers on the web. However, filters simply are not accurate or nearly enough. In fact, parents have more to worry about than if their child were to come across a pornography website. Social networking sites, video sites, and gaming sites, are a major concern to parents looking to protect their child online. The very nature of these sites (large, anonymous, and accessible) makes it hard for the site administrators to remove adult rated materials or ensure an adult age of the audience.
The Problem…Social Networking, Pop Ups, and Banner Ads
Some websites, including popular social networking websites, attempt to keep children from viewing adult content material by asking for the user’s age before admitting entrance, however, this can be easily bypassed by a child. If a child does post a profile on a popular social networking site, he or she could be giving out his name, address, phone number, e-mail, hobbies, schools, etc. Your child may think it is not acceptable to hand out this information to a stranger, however, if a child predator gains your child’s confidence; your child might not view him as a stranger. Also, many popular social networking sties host third party applications which display inappropriate images and give out your child’s personal information.
Pop-Up and banner ads are out there waiting for your children. You may visit a site where you feel you spend more time dodging pop-ups rather than viewing the actual site. Gaming and video sites are often times some of the worst sites when it comes to pop ups. Some of these ads will even download spyware or viruses onto your computer. Many of these pop-ups are sexually explicit. Banner ads can be just as bad. Many online networking sites use ads for online dating services. The ads produced for these are often soft-core pornography. The ads are embedded onto the page, so it is impossible to remove them.
The Problem…Filters Don’t Block Porn
Filters work by blocking access to known pornography websites. Pornographers learned this right away and quickly came up with a solution. When a pornographer develops a website, he or she buys more than one URL name for the material. After learning that a URL has been blocked by a filter, a pornographer simply redirects the material to a new URL address that a filter is unaware of. Simply put, filters cannot keep up and search engines can display pornography with a touch of the mouse. Pornographic websites also capitalize on the search engines use of keywords to sort websites. Often pornographers will use names of popular toys and TV shows in their keywords, boosting their ranking in searches for these items. What comes up in the search might sound completely harmless, but could lead to your child accessing pornography.
The Solution
Keep your computer in a room that everyone in the family uses. Enable parental controls that allow you to monitor what your child is doing online and who they are communicating with. Set time limits as to ensure that your child is not online late at night or in the early hours in the morning. Also, research and invest in software that allows you to block access to specific websites. There is even software available that blocks up pops and banner ads – this is a necessity.
Take the time to protect your children online. You will never regret it.
*Looks like SeeNoEvil just might be the solution – offering parental controls, the ability to block banner and pop-ups, and monitor social networking sites.*
4 responses so far ↓
Barbara Martin // July 2, 2008 at 5:03 pm |
I am a mother of six and am homeschooling my children. We have been using Bsafe Online for over two years and have never had a problem with inappropriate material. I think it is a filter. I don’t understand why you say there is a problem with it. If anything it blocks too much! That’s fine by me though as erring on the side of caution is a good thing.
seenoevilonline // July 3, 2008 at 6:56 pm |
I am glad that you have found a filter that is working for your family.
Filters work by only blocking known pornographic sites. If a new pornographic site is created, a filter will not block it.
We worked hard to develop a product that does not work that way, and wanted to help those whose familes had been exposed despite a filter.
SeeNoEvil hopes to protect children everywhere.
jthor9292 // July 28, 2008 at 11:01 pm |
I have a question…..
Is it possible for a parent to be over protective??
I am a 16 year old, I weigh 205 lbs., and I’m 6′ 4″, i play football.
I am compeltely aware of the dangers there are on the internet. I’m not some pervert, I don’t wanna look at porn… i just want to to talk to my friends from out of state, family, and be in a network that is mostly used by my friends and family, like facebook and myspace. I’m not in to talking to random peoople I never heard of and meeting up somewhere that is pure stupidity. I’m not trying to rebel, i get good grades, i’m in Honor courses, and i’m in top ten percent of class.
seenoevilonline // July 29, 2008 at 6:09 pm |
It sounds like you are on the right track!
That is the great thing about SeeNoEvil, it allows for custom security settings for each member of the family. If a strong relationship of trust has been built between a parent and child, the parent can choose a lower security setting and choose not to monitor activites. However, if need be, the parents can change the security level and monitoring.
SeeNoEvil puts control in the hands of parents! We know moms and dads know their children best and can choose what settings will best serve their children’s neeeds.