And just how in the HELL do you know that no suicides were caused by this little crackdown, hmm? Kids who were willing to admit that life isn't all sweetness and light for them were branded by teachers, administrators, society in general, and sometimes THEIR OWN PARENTS as would-be brutal killers, and in many cases cut off from the net or from their "bad influence" friends, the things that were probably all that was saving their sanity in the first place! But since it doesn't happen in a big flashy all at once noteworthy way, nobody cares. That's just typical.
"Well, if we can prevent even one death...." OK, fine. Some people are deathly allergic to bee stings. Therefore, we should exterminate all bees, RIGHT? AFter all, if it will prevent even one death... who cares if there's no more honey, no more mead, and a lot of flowers that can't be pollinated anymore? We can come up with synthetic substitutes for all that, RIGHT?!
Irreparably damaging our brightest children via emotional abuse makes as little sense as irreperably damaging our ecosystem by exterminating something "dangerous" like honeybees.
Yes, in a lot of places, things *have* gotten worse. That's (to say the least) unfortunate, and we need to do what we can to support the kids in places where it *has* gotten worse.
But getting these stories out on the net has gone a lot of good. Even when Katz was still in the middle of the Hellmouth series, parents and teachers were responding with "I had no idea it was that bad," and were printing comments out and taking them to the school board. I am also fortunate enough to live in a large-ish and very tolerant city, and to be long out of high school, so I know it's not as bad for me as it is for the kids still stuck in the mess. It might seem as if us geeks talking among ourselves doesn't do anything. But, even if NOBODY else takes notice (and some people have), at least the kids know they aren't alone, and that it does get better for most people most of the time.
"The scary thing about all those charges above, is that they give people who are clearly abusing children an out."
Exactly. And while I don't have hard numbers for unfounded accusations vs. accusations with *some* cause, and while some of these accusations don't make it into court, they are still pretty darn common. And for the most part, we have homophobia and most of all the great SRA scare to thank for that. The bigger problem is that (in my experience) the *real* abusers will more often than not fit few-to-none of the stereotypes. You know, your basic God-fearing (supposedly), married, professonal man who's got a dirty little secret or several involving little kids. *sigh*
Whether or not the kids at Columbine actually went over the edge specifically due to mistreatment by their peers, Katz and the Hellmouth series still did a lot of good.
Kids who are different take abuse from their peers far too often. Yes, I mean ABUSE, not "just teasing." Five guys coming up to me and threatening to steal my bike and hit me on the head because I was the only one on the block wearing a bicycle helmet is not "just teasing." Death threats at 3 AM are not "just teasing." One of the five black kids in my high school returning to his locker to find it broken into with most of the contents damaged and racist graffiti everywhere is not "just teasing." Being sexaully assaulted (or threatened with same), telling the administration, having them NOT BELIEVE you because the guy "is just a flirt," and having the guy find out you told on him and follow you around threatening to kill you for the next three weeks... that goes beyond mere teasing or flirting.
And even the "milder" things add up after a while. Try being the kid that people don't want to sit with until test day, when they copy your paper. Try having a teacher who SEES this go on and does NOTHING about it. Try being out sick and returning to school and hearing that all the girls in your class think you were out because you were having an abortion, when you've never even had sex! And all the teachers looked the other way....
I don't CARE if peer harassment was the "root cause" of Columbine or not. It's about damn time that people realized what really goes on in schools if you aren't one of the golden kids. I'm still sorry that a mass murder had to take place for this conversation to begin, but it is LONG overdue.
Well, if you have to draw the line somewhere, what's wrong with the "sliding windows?"
My problem with your original post was twofold: Two years is NOT a big deal to most people, in fact a one-to-two year age difference is considered the norm in most high school relationships. And, taking your post to its logical conclusion, either people shouldn't be involved in relationships at all until they turn 18 (male or female), or you'd only better date someone with the exact same birthday as you. What about one person who turns 18 four months before the other? Should they break up for four months? That is patently silly.
Of course, there's never going to be a perfect solution, but if a two-year age difference is OK when he's 16 and she's 14, why is it less OK when he's 18 and she's 16? Makes no sense.
And yes, a loser-meter would be nice, but if I had a fifteen-year-old daughter, I'd trust her more with someone a few years older (as long as he didn't have a known pattern of dating ONLY younger girls) than I would with the average fifteen-year-old boy. *grin* So there is also that to consider.
NEWSFLASH: Girls, on average, mature faster than boys. If I had been restricted to under-18 guys when I was 16, I'd've been bored silly. (Of course, I was also in college.)
I've never met or talked to anyone before, even a PARENT, who thought two years was a big deal. And the AOC laws in my state allow for (IIRC) up to a five-year age difference. At that age, for most kids, five years *is* probably pushing it (it wasn't for me; I was a college sophomore). But there's a big difference between an 18 year old dating a 16 year old, and a 28 year old dating that same 16 year old. *shrug*
Perhaps your sister *is* coloring your opinion here. But have you ever asked HER how she feels, or are you just being overprotective because you think she needs it?:P
Sorry, but I do have to take issue with this. There are a LOT of unfounded accusations of this nature out there. Just ask anyone, particularly any male adult, who has tried to start a support group for gay teenagers. Oh yes, and I had completely forgotten the long list of Satanic Panic influenced cases.
Go spend some time over at www.religioustolerance.org especially in their section on "Sadistic Ritual Abuse." This epidemic DOES NOT EXIST. Innocent people's lives were completely ruined by this, both the alleged offenders who have at best had their reputations destroyed, and at worst are still rotting in jail. And the kids who now believe thanks to improper questioning by well-meaning therapists that they HAVE been abused are going to be screwed up probably for life.
I know, I'm ranting. But since I am bisexual and pagan (two strikes against me, right?), and I am also a survivor of sexual assault, this issue puts me on a reallllly short fuse. Hell, I'm supposedly more of a risk to kids because I *am* a survivor. This is insane.
Admittedly, the content of THIS story makes me think that the alleged offender, if he truly did these things, needs to be locked up with the key thrown away.
I can't bring myself to consider a 37-year-old having sex with someone he *knows* is a young teenager as anything other than predatory.
However, a lot of organizations are losing a lot of good volunteers these days. A lot of schools are losing a lot of good teachers. People are scared to work with kids because they might fit the fictional profile of a molester. (Never mind that this almost never meshes with the actuality -- and yes, as a matter of fact, I *am* speaking from personal experience that I would rather forget.)
Are you gay or bisexual? Are you online a lot? Are you ANYthing other than Protestant? Are you a single male working with children not your own? Guess what, if the answer to any of those questions is "yes", you're a real nice tempting target for a false accusation of child molestation, something that could completely ruin your life.
What drives me still nuttier is this: Suddenly, giving an upset kid a hug could easily become a federal crime. ALL touch from an adult other than a parent is sexualized -- now what kind of fucked-up message does THAT send to kids, hmm?
I'm considering whether or not I'm going to respond to the survey. On the one hand, I'm not the typical/. geek. On the other hand, I'm not the typical/. geek.
(Yeah, that made sense.) What I'm saying is that I don't want someone to see me as a typical reader/poster/member of/., but I *do* want to show that/. has grown in such a way that it is capable of appealing to someone who doesn't fit the stereotype. As the above post mentioned, you're probably going to get the extroverts (like me! ENTP right here) responding, and extroversion is not a trait of the (stereo-)"typical geek." I'm also female. I'm also a technical writer, not a programmer or a CS student or even a helpdesk person (though I feel like one sometimes). And horror of horrors, I like most of Katz's stories.;)
And unlike what most people have said thus far, I have made friends here. I have an invite to come over for some post-Y2K homebrew from a/.-er who lives in my city, and I've gotten to know a couple of people who have been mailing me privately about things that would have been off-topic had we continued to discuss them here. I look at/. as a combination news source and debate forum, and I enjoy the atmosphere of discussion with intelligent people, whether or not I agree with their opinions. And as I've posted before, I am a hardcore info junkie, so of course I love Slashdot.:)
OK. I need to do work and find caffeine. I'll quit babbling now.;)
Let's see. First, there are the stupid laws that are still on the books (consensual sodomy, anyone)? These get selectively enforced as a rather nasty harassment tactic. IMHO, this applies to non-violent drug offenses as well.
Secondly, there are those who are maliciously accused of crimes-with-victims, who are actually innocent but are just assumed to be guiltydue to Satanic Panic, the belief that "women/children never lie about being abused," or some combination thereof. A close friend of mine's father was accused of sexual abuse by my friend's psychotic alcoholic mother, and damn near had his life ruined even though he hadn't done anything and my friend steadfastly maintained that he hadn't done anything of the sort to her. This has actually become a depressingly common tactic in custody battles. Imagine, if you will, being a non-custodial father and having every communication between yourself and your children "supervised" or tapped and having some very misguided "experts" misinterpret perfectly innocent statements as signs that you are a child molestor. DON'T LAUGH. It happens more often than you think. And it is a *major* problem.
Then, there are folks like me, who are dead if there is ever another McCarthy-type situation in the USA. Like I've said before, the FBI's probably got a file on me, but it hasn't ruined my life yet. I'm probably in their "harmless anarchist" bin right now.;)
Thanks to TV, politics have become more about image and personality and charisma (and some people's ideas of living a "moral" life) than about any issues of substance.
Given the free flow of information on the net, and the scandal-addicted culture, I'm not so sure that having politics transformed by the Internet would be a good thing.
Of course, I could be being unnecessarily pessimistic. The more intelligent folks online tend to value substance over style. But are there enough of them to make a difference in the way this country is run?
If you check out http://www.ecis.com/~alizard/y2k.html, which is admittedly a bit more pessimistic (though only a bit) than I am, and click some of the links, you can see some bad test results. Like the Y2K test failure in California that caused tons of raw sewage to overflow. Yuck.
Admittedly, the nuts are likely to be more of a problem than the computers where *I* live, but I'm not sure that holds true everywhere. In any case, I'm spending New Year's Eve with my SCA friends. That way, just in *case* something goes wrong, I know I'm around people with the brains and resources to deal with the situation appropriately.
To sum up: Yes, silly people panicking and doing stupid things is a more pressing problem than the computer problem itself, but there are legit computer problems. And the legit problems and the panic feed off of each other in ways that are very not-good.
I think the problem here is the moderating up of "funny" one-liners, or "funny" posts that are borderline flamebait. One example that comes to mind, despite my completely having forgotten the context, was a "They Killed Kenny!"-type one-liner going all the way up to 5, and being the top post in the thread for those of us who sort by score. (Like me.)
However, the one time I can recall being moderated up for amusement value (I think the post in question made it up to #4) was for a carefully-done parody of the article I was posting to. It was no one-liner, and it required about a half-hour of thought and editing on my part -- probably more raw effort than I've put into most of my/. posts.:) (For those playing along at home, this was my "How to Flame a Slashdot Post" guide. I'll have to dig that out of the archives, because I think that despite being silly and sarcastic, a lot of what I had to say there is pretty relevant to many of the discussions I participate in.)
Butanyway. The problem with "funny" is that it's easy to abuse, but I don't think the solution is to get rid of "funny" as a moderation option. I'm not sure how to encourage better-quality satire, however.
Given that we supposedly only use some rather low percentage of our brain capacity overall as it is, how exactly is this going to be helpful for most people? I can see, as some others have posted, why it might help in restoring brain cells that have suffered some sort of traumatic damage (like the guy who took the fencing foil up the nose and is now a classic neurology case study). But why restore cells that died a "natural" death, especially if they are some of the large percentage of cells that we don't use?
Unfortunately, there are laws against permitting minors to have access to porn. The "Adult Check ID" is a way for a distributor of porn to ass-cover, pun slightly intended.:) And the folks who put together the Adult Check concept saw a way to make a fast buck.
The only ways I can see around this are either changing the law to permit porn distribution to minors (not bloody likely) or setting up a free Adult Check service of some sor that was considered valid. Otherwise, it's going to be pay-to-play, in the name of protecting the children, the Church, and the Holy Spirit, world without end, amen.;)
First of all, what everyone else said about Thurow. He is NOT a credible source.
Secondly, what ALL attempts to regulate the Internet in any way, shape, or form ignore is one simple yet important principle: The interplay between laws, traditions, and customs.
To clarify what I mean by this, I'm using roughly the same definitions Isaac Bonewits uses in his writing: A law is something that is written down, that a group is supposed to obey, and if the law is disobeyed, various "punishments" can be meted out by members of the group. Traditions are "how things are done," and they may or may not be written down, but there is no *formal* penalty for breaking them (though there is more often than not an informal one). Customs are common behaviors within a group that develop of their own accord, and they tend to be relatively (though not entirely) flexible.
In my experience, of the three, traditions are actually the strongest regulator of behavior. The law against under-21 folks drinking doesn't do much to curb the tradition of college frat parties, which are largely attended by those who are under 21. There are a lot of silly, stupid, and essentially unenforceable laws on the books -- remember "I Can't Drive 55?" What about laws against consensual sodomy? What about the supreme silliness of outlawing the hemp plant?
The point of this little rant of mine is that governments and corporations can pass all the laws and "regulations" they like, but they aren't going to get anywhere. Aside from a few cases that will be prosecuted to "make an example out of," I expect enforcement to be lax and most people to disregard whatever ends up put together.
Why? Simple. The most important tradition here on the Net is that freedom of information must be maintained at all costs. And we've developed plenty of ways to fight back against those who would try to break that tradition -- everything from black-background web pages up to and including cracking the "bad guy's" system. (Remember the "Department of Injustice" page?)
This is not to say that I won't fight against any attempt to impose these irrelevant laws -- I'd hate to be, or know, an "example," and I don't think anyone should have to go through that.:)
[Speaking of moderation, someone moderate that up please??]
Of course, there is the slight potential problem of moderators who can't otherwise post to the discussion trying to get their two cents in that way, but limiting it to one line will cut down on that.
In addition, it would help pick out problem moderators. If, for instance, someone is moderating a post down and puts as a comment "You're a loser. Go away!" or something similar, we might have a clue that there's some personal bias going on. Well, that's not quite universal. I used to be a sysop on a YAWC BBS, and we used to put comments on people's Aidelines like "twitted for bad info." One such comment by another 'op was "Abusive Loser. I hate that."
Perhaps a better example would be the inevitable "Go away Katz" posts, if they were being moderated up with a "Yeah! Katz sucks, heh heh heh," or something similarly unproductive. Or moderating a Linux criticism down with "Are you nuts? Linux r00lz, dude!" You get the idea. Also, I know that a few times when I've moderated, I've wished for a "misinformation" category with which to mod something down,sort of like the opposite of "informative."
Like I said, though, the above poster has an excellent idea!
Lately it seems as though every time someone says "and of course I'm gonna get moderated down for this" or something similar, the comment gets moderated up. Either moderators are trying to prove how good they are by moderating up self-described "controversial" comments (so nobody will think they are biased), or posters are really overdoing the false-modesty thing. Or perhaps a little bit of both.
In any case, it's getting a bit tedious IMNSHO. It's not that I generally have anything against the comments contained in posts that also have this statement, but the statement would make me, personally, less-inclined to moderate the post in *either* direction.
I'm going to try not to lose my temper here, but it is going to take a lot of effort. This brought back the bad memories of my earliest Hellmouth experience (private school pre-K teacher insisting that I was autistic because I couldn't, at the ripe old age of four, tie my shoes -- supposedly this meant I didn't care about my classmates).
OK. Here goes.
I am really tired of trendy diagnoses, and the "dilution" of legitimate problems into the latest label to slap on a deviant kid. I don't want this supposed "autism" thing to go the route of ADD for boys or clinical depression for teenage girls.
I am also tired of people not understanding the difference between someone who is just different and someone who is functionally impaired and needs help. The best line I can think of from I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is "Please, Doctor, my difference is not my sickness." If someone is absolutely unable to function in society, is a danger to self or others, or recognizes a mildly self-destructive behavior pattern that is getting worse, then by all means get that person some help.
But enough with the armchair diagnosis. And if someone is merely "different," but can hold down a job and isn't running around with an Uzi threatening to destroy himself or anyone else, what the hell is the problem?
The other fun part of all this is that someone who has something about them that makes them seem superficially crazy and ALSO has an underlying problem that has nothing to do with the superficial one will have a hard time finding help because the superficial problem-that-isn't-a-real-problem will outweigh the real problem that they came to get help for in the eyes of the therapist. And yes, I'm speaking from (somewhat) personal experience here, both my own and that of those close to me. *sigh*
That's how my parents handled me, and I'd like to think I turned out relatively OK. I'm 21, have a college degree and a full-time job, a boyfriend I'll probably marry in a couple of years, a nice apartment in the city, two well-cared for cats, etc.:)
I was never told "You can't read/watch that." I was VERY rarely told "I'd prefer you wait on that one until you're a bit older, but I'm not going to stop you." And I listened because I trusted their judgement. (Well, Mom and I didn't see eye-to-eye on music or movies, because she doesn't like to be depressed by her entertainment, but Dad was no problem.) Heck, my parents were going to take me to Last Temptation of Christ when it came out... I was a young'un then, and *I* didn't want to go. *chuckles* But my family is pretty open about this sort of thing, and my father is VERY anti-censorship.
Also, I generally had better things to do than watch most TV, whether it was going to the library, swim team practice, drama club and band rehearsals, or (now) SCA practices, meetings and events. I don't watch much television now: a few comedies I like *if* I happen to be home and not busy, the news (sometimes), the occasional PBS special, and a movie here and there if I wanted to see it anyway.
Mindless acceptance of ANYthing, "kid-safe" or not, is unhealthy. A caring parent is going to make that very clear to the kiddies.
Sheesh. Sorry I wasn't as clear as I could've been, but you don't have to bite my head off for it.
What I was trying to address is the overall unlikeliness of completely free porn being available on a widespread basis. As A. Lizard says on his excellent Child Safety page, free access to dirty pictures is EXTREMELY popular, and most sites can't afford that kind of bandwith unless they charge the free-porn folks extra money. And I don't think most free-porn folks will stay in "business" for long unless they have "better" things to offer to their paying customers. Or at least *more* pictures.
In other words, you wouldn't be likely to get much free porn even IF nobody objected to it. (At least, it's not the direct cause. I suppose you could and probably will argue that it is an indirect cause. *shrug*)
The networks will never support it, because the advertisers pay their bills. Violence, dirty words, and especially sex are much easier to point fingers at and filter out than mindless commercialism.
More's the pity, too. From a business perspective, they shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds them, but from a helping-the-kids perspective... well, let's just say that I think banning TV commercials would do much more to prevent future Columbines than banning violent TV ever will.
But because TV stations and most politicians can't afford to bite the hands that feed them, kids are being indoctrinated with the keeping-up-with-the-Jonses mentality at younger and younger ages. I'm surprised advertisers aren't trying to set up ad-screens a fetus can watch in vitro.:P
I was bothered by both things because they had nothing to do with what I was looking for. And the first one showed up in the top 20 on the search engine. As for the KKK site, the actual site had not one thing to do with Thor. Thor et al were never MENTIONED on the page, but were still used as meta-tag keywords. In both cases, someone putting in time to look for something ends up with results that have nothing to do with what they're looking for. In the KKK case, the misinformation was deliberate.
And while I'm not saying that porn or the KKK site should be *banned* or anything of the kind, having this junk that I'm not trying to access show up because I did an "innocent" search doesn't exactly thrill me. And I can certainly understand why it would not thrill a parent.
I understand what free speach means, thankyouverymuch. Show me where I said that the pages should be taken down or made inaccessible? Anyone who is looking for the KKK (odious as I find it) can still type KKK or "white power" or whatever into the search engine, or just type www.kkk.com into the browser and see what happens. But having the KKK page meta-tag "Thor" so search engines will pick it up is about as annoying as XXX spam on a pagan newsgroup because someone happens to be discussing skyclad rituals. Is there, in theory, a connection? Sure. Is it a connection any sane adult would make? Probably not. Does it end up being lovely ammunition for the Christian Right? You betcha. Is it a waste of bandwith? Yep.
First of all, porn sites don't charge money because of "restrictions" -- they charge money a) because they can and they know people will pay, and b) because porn is very popular, and eats lots of bandwith.
Secondly, a workable "first step"/compromise along the lines of what the original AC was proposing would be something like this:
1. Have the.xxx domain for porn pages. I don't think most porn pages would really mind going there -- they know what they're selling, and that way folks who want to find porn know where to go.
2. Have a.kid domain for sites that are not only child-safe, but also child-oriented. I'd also like to see some sort of minimal-to-no advertising rule in place along with the "child-oriented" criteria.
3. Leave the rest of the net alone.
Folks who wanted ordinary net-access, which would include access to.kid but not.xxx, would pay the normal price. Folks who wanted access to.xxx would have to prove that they were over 18 (or 21, as the case may be in some states) and either pay extra or realize that some of the.xxx sites are probably going to spam them.:)
Folks who wanted the.kid sites only (along with the currently existing.k12.us), or a filter to switch on and off, would ALSO pay extra. The extra money would help defray the cost of having.kid, since advertising beyond perhaps a simple "sponsored by (insert normal.com or.edu site here)" would be prohibited, and those with the.kid filters on couldn't access the advertising.
On the one hand, censorship is a very bad thing. I think we can all (for the most part) agree on that. And even most "voluntary" systems have the potential to become de facto censorship (look at what's happened to movies thanks to the MPAA rating system, which BTW doesn't tell you anything about what's actually IN the movies... is an R-rated movie a political satire that happens to contain a few F-words and some minor violence like Bob Roberts, a serious war movie like Apocalypse Now, an historically fascinating movie with lots of sex in it like Dangerous Beauty, a high school slasher flick like Scream, or what? And why shouldn't kids under 17 be able to see any of the above? Oh well.)
On the other hand, two recent incidents from my own web-surfing make me wish there was something that could be done so that, at the least, search engines don't spit out something that isn't what you're looking for (and that you definitely wouldn't want to BE looking for). And both of these give me some understanding as to why a parent would *want* to use blocking software (silly as I think the stuff is).
Incident #1: I had forgotten the URL to a particular Amber fan-fic page that I like, and I remember that I had found it in the first place using the keyword "Bleys." I somehow ended up with several porno sites in my search results because the url was "http://www.pornsite.xxx/hotpics/bleys/corwin/teen 1.gif" or some such nonsense. There were three or four of them on the first search results page. *sigh*
Incident #2, which I'm actually much more irritated by: I'm a pagan who follows the Norse gods. It's bad enough that some of the Norse pagan sites have a "racialist" slant, but it's even worse when the KKK has Meta-tags on its web-page that include Odin, Thor, and Freya. Can you imagine the impression that some kid doing a research project on Norse mythology would get if he did a web search for Thor and came up with the KKK home page?? (My boyfriend and I discovered this via 2600's web page, which talked about the past hack of the KKK site.)
I have ratings tags on a few of my pages, and I'll put them on ALL of my pages when I finish my move to drak.net. I've got no problems with voluntary standards as long as they remain truly voluntary rather than coercive. And I'd much rather have to self-rate than have the government step and rate for me.
But as far as setting up a standard goes, it's damned if we do and damned if we don't, so to speak. The "chicken breast" problem has already been mentioned, but if you want something more sophisticated, you're going to have to deal with the more "complex" rating systems, and even those won't give you all the info you'd like to have. (Case in point: someone rating the KJV Bible using SafeSurf. *chuckles*)
On the surface, the VCR seems like a good idea, but it was come up with by Solid Oak, a company I wouldn't trust farther than I could throw my station wagon. (They make CyberSitter. Nuff said.) How would they actually like to see "suitable for 13 and up" vs. "suitable for 18 and up" defined? I don't think I want the answer. Again, godhatesfags.com would probably be 13+, while godlovesfags.com would probably be 18+. *sigh*
I wish I could think of some way to cover all the bases here, but there just isn't one. Any possible system (including no system) is open to abuse. Having no system makes it really easy to mis-inform the public or at least the search engines about your content (see above KKK example). OTOH, even a purely voluntary system is likely to cause problems for, say, the gay 15-year-old son of fundie parents, or the sexual abuse victim. (I've talked to plenty of these kids online, and it's not pretty.)
The problem I've always had with ratings meant to protect children is that the parents who have decent relationships with their kids don't need the standards -- they can just say that they'd rather their kids wait to see the movie, read the book, or check out certain kids of Web pages. It's generally the fundie, abusive, or otherwise scary parents who want to keep their kids from accessing certain content. And those tend to be the kids who need the alleged pornography or Satanic sites the most. (Gay teen support groups, Pagan info, sexual abuse survivor sites, you get the idea.)
*sigh* I wish I had a good answer. Unfortunately, I don't. But the questions are important to ask on *both* sides of the issue, rather than just making knee-jerk anti-censorship statements -- tempting as I know that is.
Slashdot Mirror
And just how in the HELL do you know that no suicides were caused by this little crackdown, hmm? Kids who were willing to admit that life isn't all sweetness and light for them were branded by teachers, administrators, society in general, and sometimes THEIR OWN PARENTS as would-be brutal killers, and in many cases cut off from the net or from their "bad influence" friends, the things that were probably all that was saving their sanity in the first place! But since it doesn't happen in a big flashy all at once noteworthy way, nobody cares. That's just typical.
"Well, if we can prevent even one death
Irreparably damaging our brightest children via emotional abuse makes as little sense as irreperably damaging our ecosystem by exterminating something "dangerous" like honeybees.
But getting these stories out on the net has gone a lot of good. Even when Katz was still in the middle of the Hellmouth series, parents and teachers were responding with "I had no idea it was that bad," and were printing comments out and taking them to the school board. I am also fortunate enough to live in a large-ish and very tolerant city, and to be long out of high school, so I know it's not as bad for me as it is for the kids still stuck in the mess. It might seem as if us geeks talking among ourselves doesn't do anything. But, even if NOBODY else takes notice (and some people have), at least the kids know they aren't alone, and that it does get better for most people most of the time.
Exactly. And while I don't have hard numbers for unfounded accusations vs. accusations with *some* cause, and while some of these accusations don't make it into court, they are still pretty darn common. And for the most part, we have homophobia and most of all the great SRA scare to thank for that. The bigger problem is that (in my experience) the *real* abusers will more often than not fit few-to-none of the stereotypes. You know, your basic God-fearing (supposedly), married, professonal man who's got a dirty little secret or several involving little kids. *sigh*
Kids who are different take abuse from their peers far too often. Yes, I mean ABUSE, not "just teasing." Five guys coming up to me and threatening to steal my bike and hit me on the head because I was the only one on the block wearing a bicycle helmet is not "just teasing." Death threats at 3 AM are not "just teasing." One of the five black kids in my high school returning to his locker to find it broken into with most of the contents damaged and racist graffiti everywhere is not "just teasing." Being sexaully assaulted (or threatened with same), telling the administration, having them NOT BELIEVE you because the guy "is just a flirt," and having the guy find out you told on him and follow you around threatening to kill you for the next three weeks
And even the "milder" things add up after a while. Try being the kid that people don't want to sit with until test day, when they copy your paper. Try having a teacher who SEES this go on and does NOTHING about it. Try being out sick and returning to school and hearing that all the girls in your class think you were out because you were having an abortion, when you've never even had sex! And all the teachers looked the other way
I don't CARE if peer harassment was the "root cause" of Columbine or not. It's about damn time that people realized what really goes on in schools if you aren't one of the golden kids. I'm still sorry that a mass murder had to take place for this conversation to begin, but it is LONG overdue.
My problem with your original post was twofold: Two years is NOT a big deal to most people, in fact a one-to-two year age difference is considered the norm in most high school relationships. And, taking your post to its logical conclusion, either people shouldn't be involved in relationships at all until they turn 18 (male or female), or you'd only better date someone with the exact same birthday as you. What about one person who turns 18 four months before the other? Should they break up for four months? That is patently silly.
Of course, there's never going to be a perfect solution, but if a two-year age difference is OK when he's 16 and she's 14, why is it less OK when he's 18 and she's 16? Makes no sense.
And yes, a loser-meter would be nice, but if I had a fifteen-year-old daughter, I'd trust her more with someone a few years older (as long as he didn't have a known pattern of dating ONLY younger girls) than I would with the average fifteen-year-old boy. *grin* So there is also that to consider.
I've never met or talked to anyone before, even a PARENT, who thought two years was a big deal. And the AOC laws in my state allow for (IIRC) up to a five-year age difference. At that age, for most kids, five years *is* probably pushing it (it wasn't for me; I was a college sophomore). But there's a big difference between an 18 year old dating a 16 year old, and a 28 year old dating that same 16 year old. *shrug*
Perhaps your sister *is* coloring your opinion here. But have you ever asked HER how she feels, or are you just being overprotective because you think she needs it?
Go spend some time over at www.religioustolerance.org especially in their section on "Sadistic Ritual Abuse." This epidemic DOES NOT EXIST. Innocent people's lives were completely ruined by this, both the alleged offenders who have at best had their reputations destroyed, and at worst are still rotting in jail. And the kids who now believe thanks to improper questioning by well-meaning therapists that they HAVE been abused are going to be screwed up probably for life.
I know, I'm ranting. But since I am bisexual and pagan (two strikes against me, right?), and I am also a survivor of sexual assault, this issue puts me on a reallllly short fuse. Hell, I'm supposedly more of a risk to kids because I *am* a survivor. This is insane.
Admittedly, the content of THIS story makes me think that the alleged offender, if he truly did these things, needs to be locked up with the key thrown away.
I can't bring myself to consider a 37-year-old having sex with someone he *knows* is a young teenager as anything other than predatory.
However, a lot of organizations are losing a lot of good volunteers these days. A lot of schools are losing a lot of good teachers. People are scared to work with kids because they might fit the fictional profile of a molester. (Never mind that this almost never meshes with the actuality -- and yes, as a matter of fact, I *am* speaking from personal experience that I would rather forget.)
Are you gay or bisexual? Are you online a lot? Are you ANYthing other than Protestant? Are you a single male working with children not your own? Guess what, if the answer to any of those questions is "yes", you're a real nice tempting target for a false accusation of child molestation, something that could completely ruin your life.
What drives me still nuttier is this: Suddenly, giving an upset kid a hug could easily become a federal crime. ALL touch from an adult other than a parent is sexualized -- now what kind of fucked-up message does THAT send to kids, hmm?
I'm considering whether or not I'm going to respond to the survey. On the one hand, I'm not the typical
(Yeah, that made sense.) What I'm saying is that I don't want someone to see me as a typical reader/poster/member of
And unlike what most people have said thus far, I have made friends here. I have an invite to come over for some post-Y2K homebrew from a
OK. I need to do work and find caffeine. I'll quit babbling now.
Secondly, there are those who are maliciously accused of crimes-with-victims, who are actually innocent but are just assumed to be guiltydue to Satanic Panic, the belief that "women/children never lie about being abused," or some combination thereof. A close friend of mine's father was accused of sexual abuse by my friend's psychotic alcoholic mother, and damn near had his life ruined even though he hadn't done anything and my friend steadfastly maintained that he hadn't done anything of the sort to her. This has actually become a depressingly common tactic in custody battles. Imagine, if you will, being a non-custodial father and having every communication between yourself and your children "supervised" or tapped and having some very misguided "experts" misinterpret perfectly innocent statements as signs that you are a child molestor. DON'T LAUGH. It happens more often than you think. And it is a *major* problem.
Then, there are folks like me, who are dead if there is ever another McCarthy-type situation in the USA. Like I've said before, the FBI's probably got a file on me, but it hasn't ruined my life yet. I'm probably in their "harmless anarchist" bin right now.
Thanks to TV, politics have become more about image and personality and charisma (and some people's ideas of living a "moral" life) than about any issues of substance.
Given the free flow of information on the net, and the scandal-addicted culture, I'm not so sure that having politics transformed by the Internet would be a good thing.
Of course, I could be being unnecessarily pessimistic. The more intelligent folks online tend to value substance over style. But are there enough of them to make a difference in the way this country is run?
I'm not so sure.
Admittedly, the nuts are likely to be more of a problem than the computers where *I* live, but I'm not sure that holds true everywhere. In any case, I'm spending New Year's Eve with my SCA friends. That way, just in *case* something goes wrong, I know I'm around people with the brains and resources to deal with the situation appropriately.
To sum up: Yes, silly people panicking and doing stupid things is a more pressing problem than the computer problem itself, but there are legit computer problems. And the legit problems and the panic feed off of each other in ways that are very not-good.
However, the one time I can recall being moderated up for amusement value (I think the post in question made it up to #4) was for a carefully-done parody of the article I was posting to. It was no one-liner, and it required about a half-hour of thought and editing on my part -- probably more raw effort than I've put into most of my
Butanyway. The problem with "funny" is that it's easy to abuse, but I don't think the solution is to get rid of "funny" as a moderation option. I'm not sure how to encourage better-quality satire, however.
The only ways I can see around this are either changing the law to permit porn distribution to minors (not bloody likely) or setting up a free Adult Check service of some sor that was considered valid. Otherwise, it's going to be pay-to-play, in the name of protecting the children, the Church, and the Holy Spirit, world without end, amen.
First of all, what everyone else said about Thurow. He is NOT a credible source.
Secondly, what ALL attempts to regulate the Internet in any way, shape, or form ignore is one simple yet important principle: The interplay between laws, traditions, and customs.
To clarify what I mean by this, I'm using roughly the same definitions Isaac Bonewits uses in his writing: A law is something that is written down, that a group is supposed to obey, and if the law is disobeyed, various "punishments" can be meted out by members of the group. Traditions are "how things are done," and they may or may not be written down, but there is no *formal* penalty for breaking them (though there is more often than not an informal one). Customs are common behaviors within a group that develop of their own accord, and they tend to be relatively (though not entirely) flexible.
In my experience, of the three, traditions are actually the strongest regulator of behavior. The law against under-21 folks drinking doesn't do much to curb the tradition of college frat parties, which are largely attended by those who are under 21. There are a lot of silly, stupid, and essentially unenforceable laws on the books -- remember "I Can't Drive 55?" What about laws against consensual sodomy? What about the supreme silliness of outlawing the hemp plant?
The point of this little rant of mine is that governments and corporations can pass all the laws and "regulations" they like, but they aren't going to get anywhere. Aside from a few cases that will be prosecuted to "make an example out of," I expect enforcement to be lax and most people to disregard whatever ends up put together.
Why? Simple. The most important tradition here on the Net is that freedom of information must be maintained at all costs. And we've developed plenty of ways to fight back against those who would try to break that tradition -- everything from black-background web pages up to and including cracking the "bad guy's" system. (Remember the "Department of Injustice" page?)
This is not to say that I won't fight against any attempt to impose these irrelevant laws -- I'd hate to be, or know, an "example," and I don't think anyone should have to go through that.
Of course, there is the slight potential problem of moderators who can't otherwise post to the discussion trying to get their two cents in that way, but limiting it to one line will cut down on that.
In addition, it would help pick out problem moderators. If, for instance, someone is moderating a post down and puts as a comment "You're a loser. Go away!" or something similar, we might have a clue that there's some personal bias going on. Well, that's not quite universal. I used to be a sysop on a YAWC BBS, and we used to put comments on people's Aidelines like "twitted for bad info." One such comment by another 'op was "Abusive Loser. I hate that."
Perhaps a better example would be the inevitable "Go away Katz" posts, if they were being moderated up with a "Yeah! Katz sucks, heh heh heh," or something similarly unproductive. Or moderating a Linux criticism down with "Are you nuts? Linux r00lz, dude!" You get the idea. Also, I know that a few times when I've moderated, I've wished for a "misinformation" category with which to mod something down,sort of like the opposite of "informative."
Like I said, though, the above poster has an excellent idea!
In any case, it's getting a bit tedious IMNSHO. It's not that I generally have anything against the comments contained in posts that also have this statement, but the statement would make me, personally, less-inclined to moderate the post in *either* direction.
I'm going to try not to lose my temper here, but it is going to take a lot of effort. This brought back the bad memories of my earliest Hellmouth experience (private school pre-K teacher insisting that I was autistic because I couldn't, at the ripe old age of four, tie my shoes -- supposedly this meant I didn't care about my classmates).
OK. Here goes.
I am really tired of trendy diagnoses, and the "dilution" of legitimate problems into the latest label to slap on a deviant kid. I don't want this supposed "autism" thing to go the route of ADD for boys or clinical depression for teenage girls.
I am also tired of people not understanding the difference between someone who is just different and someone who is functionally impaired and needs help. The best line I can think of from I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is "Please, Doctor, my difference is not my sickness." If someone is absolutely unable to function in society, is a danger to self or others, or recognizes a mildly self-destructive behavior pattern that is getting worse, then by all means get that person some help.
But enough with the armchair diagnosis. And if someone is merely "different," but can hold down a job and isn't running around with an Uzi threatening to destroy himself or anyone else, what the hell is the problem?
The other fun part of all this is that someone who has something about them that makes them seem superficially crazy and ALSO has an underlying problem that has nothing to do with the superficial one will have a hard time finding help because the superficial problem-that-isn't-a-real-problem will outweigh the real problem that they came to get help for in the eyes of the therapist. And yes, I'm speaking from (somewhat) personal experience here, both my own and that of those close to me. *sigh*
I was never told "You can't read/watch that." I was VERY rarely told "I'd prefer you wait on that one until you're a bit older, but I'm not going to stop you." And I listened because I trusted their judgement. (Well, Mom and I didn't see eye-to-eye on music or movies, because she doesn't like to be depressed by her entertainment, but Dad was no problem.) Heck, my parents were going to take me to Last Temptation of Christ when it came out
Also, I generally had better things to do than watch most TV, whether it was going to the library, swim team practice, drama club and band rehearsals, or (now) SCA practices, meetings and events. I don't watch much television now: a few comedies I like *if* I happen to be home and not busy, the news (sometimes), the occasional PBS special, and a movie here and there if I wanted to see it anyway.
Mindless acceptance of ANYthing, "kid-safe" or not, is unhealthy. A caring parent is going to make that very clear to the kiddies.
What I was trying to address is the overall unlikeliness of completely free porn being available on a widespread basis. As A. Lizard says on his excellent Child Safety page, free access to dirty pictures is EXTREMELY popular, and most sites can't afford that kind of bandwith unless they charge the free-porn folks extra money. And I don't think most free-porn folks will stay in "business" for long unless they have "better" things to offer to their paying customers. Or at least *more* pictures.
In other words, you wouldn't be likely to get much free porn even IF nobody objected to it. (At least, it's not the direct cause. I suppose you could and probably will argue that it is an indirect cause. *shrug*)
More's the pity, too. From a business perspective, they shouldn't be biting the hand that feeds them, but from a helping-the-kids perspective
But because TV stations and most politicians can't afford to bite the hands that feed them, kids are being indoctrinated with the keeping-up-with-the-Jonses mentality at younger and younger ages. I'm surprised advertisers aren't trying to set up ad-screens a fetus can watch in vitro.
And while I'm not saying that porn or the KKK site should be *banned* or anything of the kind, having this junk that I'm not trying to access show up because I did an "innocent" search doesn't exactly thrill me. And I can certainly understand why it would not thrill a parent.
I understand what free speach means, thankyouverymuch. Show me where I said that the pages should be taken down or made inaccessible? Anyone who is looking for the KKK (odious as I find it) can still type KKK or "white power" or whatever into the search engine, or just type www.kkk.com into the browser and see what happens. But having the KKK page meta-tag "Thor" so search engines will pick it up is about as annoying as XXX spam on a pagan newsgroup because someone happens to be discussing skyclad rituals. Is there, in theory, a connection? Sure. Is it a connection any sane adult would make? Probably not. Does it end up being lovely ammunition for the Christian Right? You betcha. Is it a waste of bandwith? Yep.
First of all, porn sites don't charge money because of "restrictions" -- they charge money a) because they can and they know people will pay, and b) because porn is very popular, and eats lots of bandwith.
Secondly, a workable "first step"/compromise along the lines of what the original AC was proposing would be something like this:
1. Have the
2. Have a
3. Leave the rest of the net alone.
Folks who wanted ordinary net-access, which would include access to
Folks who wanted the
Thoughts? Could this work?
On the one hand, censorship is a very bad thing. I think we can all (for the most part) agree on that. And even most "voluntary" systems have the potential to become de facto censorship (look at what's happened to movies thanks to the MPAA rating system, which BTW doesn't tell you anything about what's actually IN the movies
On the other hand, two recent incidents from my own web-surfing make me wish there was something that could be done so that, at the least, search engines don't spit out something that isn't what you're looking for (and that you definitely wouldn't want to BE looking for). And both of these give me some understanding as to why a parent would *want* to use blocking software (silly as I think the stuff is).
Incident #1: I had forgotten the URL to a particular Amber fan-fic page that I like, and I remember that I had found it in the first place using the keyword "Bleys." I somehow ended up with several porno sites in my search results because the url was "http://www.pornsite.xxx/hotpics/bleys/corwin/tee
Incident #2, which I'm actually much more irritated by: I'm a pagan who follows the Norse gods. It's bad enough that some of the Norse pagan sites have a "racialist" slant, but it's even worse when the KKK has Meta-tags on its web-page that include Odin, Thor, and Freya. Can you imagine the impression that some kid doing a research project on Norse mythology would get if he did a web search for Thor and came up with the KKK home page?? (My boyfriend and I discovered this via 2600's web page, which talked about the past hack of the KKK site.)
I have ratings tags on a few of my pages, and I'll put them on ALL of my pages when I finish my move to drak.net. I've got no problems with voluntary standards as long as they remain truly voluntary rather than coercive. And I'd much rather have to self-rate than have the government step and rate for me.
But as far as setting up a standard goes, it's damned if we do and damned if we don't, so to speak. The "chicken breast" problem has already been mentioned, but if you want something more sophisticated, you're going to have to deal with the more "complex" rating systems, and even those won't give you all the info you'd like to have. (Case in point: someone rating the KJV Bible using SafeSurf. *chuckles*)
On the surface, the VCR seems like a good idea, but it was come up with by Solid Oak, a company I wouldn't trust farther than I could throw my station wagon. (They make CyberSitter. Nuff said.) How would they actually like to see "suitable for 13 and up" vs. "suitable for 18 and up" defined? I don't think I want the answer. Again, godhatesfags.com would probably be 13+, while godlovesfags.com would probably be 18+. *sigh*
I wish I could think of some way to cover all the bases here, but there just isn't one. Any possible system (including no system) is open to abuse. Having no system makes it really easy to mis-inform the public or at least the search engines about your content (see above KKK example). OTOH, even a purely voluntary system is likely to cause problems for, say, the gay 15-year-old son of fundie parents, or the sexual abuse victim. (I've talked to plenty of these kids online, and it's not pretty.)
The problem I've always had with ratings meant to protect children is that the parents who have decent relationships with their kids don't need the standards -- they can just say that they'd rather their kids wait to see the movie, read the book, or check out certain kids of Web pages. It's generally the fundie, abusive, or otherwise scary parents who want to keep their kids from accessing certain content. And those tend to be the kids who need the alleged pornography or Satanic sites the most. (Gay teen support groups, Pagan info, sexual abuse survivor sites, you get the idea.)
*sigh* I wish I had a good answer. Unfortunately, I don't. But the questions are important to ask on *both* sides of the issue, rather than just making knee-jerk anti-censorship statements -- tempting as I know that is.