Gov't Report on Youth, Pornography, And The Internet

Frisky070802 writes "I don't recall seeing this already, nor am I finding it when searching for it ... the National Academies commissioned a report on how youths are affected by child pornography, predators, and other threats on the net. They've issued a 400-page report on their findings, which are very extensive, and were used to support the argument for the new kids.us domain."

Comments

Wrong report

[GuyMannDude]

From the conclusion in section 14.1:

The Internet has enormous potential to contribute to public welfare and private well-being. One dimension of that potential involves the use of the Internet to enhance and transform education for the nation's youth, and many public policy decisions have been taken to provide Internet access for educational purposes. Easy access to the Internet (and related online services) has many advantages for children--access to educational materials; collaborative projects, publications, online friendships, and pen pals; access to subject matter experts; recreation, hobby, and sports information; and so on.

It might be useful for someone to produce a 400+ page report examining the above stated and widely-held belief that Internet access is going to magically "enhance and transform education for the nation's youth". I, for one, am not sure that filling cash-strapped schools with computer equipment is somehow going to result in brighter children than if we just stuck to the basics.

GMD

Filtering and .kids.us

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to troll here, but I think that .kids.us sounds like a better idea than the alternatives. For example, it sounds like a hell of a lot better solution than (poor) internet filtering. IMO, young children (10-12), shouldn't be exposed to ridiculous stuff online and a parent shouldn't have to watch what they do every second they are online. At the same time, we (everyone older than the first group, shouldn't have to suffer, because of fears the first group will see the questionable content. I realize there are a lot of /. zealots who would yell at the prospect of any potential filtering, but as long as it isn't implemented in a way that censors (even implicitly), it'll get my attention.

Re:Filtering and .kids.us

[GuruJ]

The biggest problem with the idea of .kids.us is that you would have to take away one of the biggest advantages of the Internet in the first place -- its ability to interact with other people.

Things you couldn't do on .kids.us:

• Run chatrooms
• Allow postings to forums
• Run personal webpages

... at least without 24-hour moderation of all materials that would be posted. And who will pay for those expenses?

How excessive!

[L. VeGas]

Youth, Pornography, And The Internet

Well, these are all things that I like. I don't need 400 pages to talk about it though.

Whitelist

[Henry V .009]

The main problem raised with filters isn't that they filter too little. It's that they filter too much. Internet whitelisting does not improve that at all. It only amplifies the problem.

kids.us is a humungous, unwieldy, unworkable, whitelist. (But at least it's .us, gotta keep them foreigners from corrupting our youth.)

Sex vs. Violence

[suricatta]

I'm all for providing a safe haven (?) for kids on the internet, after all there is a lot of filty stuff out there. However, one thing I've always found interesting is that society goes to a lot of lengths to hide young people from sex and yet no where near as much effort is spent on hiding them from violence. It seems to give the message that sex isn't OK while violence is fine. Any other thoughts on this?