In UK, Search Engines Urged To Block More Online Porn Sites

An anonymous reader writes "Search engines such as Google should do more to restrict access to online pornography, a government adviser on child internet safety has said. John Carr said increasing the number of sites automatically blocked by search engines would make it more difficult for paedophiles to get images of abuse. It comes after Mark Bridger was found guilty of the abduction and murder of five-year-old April Jones in Powys." It sounds like a continuation of the blocked-by-default porn white-listing plan that's been going around in the UK for a few years now.

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Ridiculous

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Both John Carr and I have been involved in the foundation of Inhope.org. But ever since hotlines and online child protection came into fashion, there's been differences in policies in various countries in Europe. In the Netherlands, policy makers, service providers and volunteers have always had their focus on preventing and fighting (pictures of) online child abuse (aka "child pornography"). In the UK, the focus has been on protecting childrens poor souls from seeing things that policy makers think children should not see. Hence, they block the obvious porn sites, leaving only the more hidden and nasty sites for children to visit. Even the EU in the early 90's quickly switched from preventing online child abuse to blocking porn. There was plenty of subsidy from the EU to local hotlines (of which Meldpunt was the first and the Internet Watch Foundation second), but as the focus shifted, Meldpunt was party left out from the subsidies, because it kept its focus where it should be: preventing and fighting child sexual abuse.

Sex is part of life. Educating children about sex makes them better prepared for life as an adult. You can easily see that by comparing stats for porn intolerance and teen pregnancies. Holland has a very low teen pregnancy number. And if parents don't want their kids to see online sex, why can't we just leave that to parents?

Governments should spend tons of money catching the guys who sexually abuse children. They should not interfere with sexual education, let alone censor the internet.