urgh so yesterday at college there was a whole lecture on how the pmrc back in the 80's tried to get certain music banned because 'the kids might be disturbed by the content', and we had this huge debate and i got seriously pissed off at the fact that it would have meant that adults wouldn't get a choice in what they could and couldn't listen to because parents didn't want to take it upon themselves to monitor what their kids were listening to and just passed it off onto the government as their problem. (in the end they lost and the government just stuck parental advisory stickers on everything.)
and then today i read this, and eventhough it won't affect me in any way (hopefully), it pissed me off all over again because it's like exactly the same thing! and yeah okay, there are a lot of dodgy things on the internet that kids shouldn’t see, but parents can block those sites from home. schools are supposed to block sites with content that is inappropriate for minors (when i was in school they had bans on myspace, facebook and youtube as well; i don't know how it is in australia but they are pretty strict about that in britain, there are blocks on like everything in schools) so i don't understand how kids could access such content if the parents were doing their job properly. i don't think an adult's choice over what they can and cannot view should be made for them just because some children might accidently find their way onto it.
also my argument is, if the kids wanna find it, they will. even if they have a filter on the internet they will always find a way around it. nevermind the fact that nowadays sex is literally everywhere.
as for taking away the slash, i think it's ridiculous. i mean you don't get images with it. it's not like porn in that sense. it's just words, and in my experience if a child doesn't understand a word they tend to skip it or ask an adult, not go online and google it or whatever; besides i'm pretty sure i knew what sex was when i was like 7 and i didn't need the internet to find that out. anyway back to the whole slash thing, lets just say hypothetically, i was an australian and this filter was in place right now okay, and i decided to read a fic about two 17 years olds 'getting it on' and i got caught, from what i've read i gather that i would probably be prosecuted for possession of child pornography, when 2 weeks ago i was still 17 and would be deemed a minor. does that mean that 2 weeks ago it would have been okay for me to be reading that? or could i still have been prosecuted?
for me the whole thing has too many grey areas and would be a completely ridiculous thing to pass, and i swear if the british government ever tried to install anything like this on us i would be straight down to london hammering on gordon brown's front door and telling him where he could stick it.
/rant.
sorry about that, i just read that and like, my brain exploded. i think i'm too opinionated for my own good sometimes. :(
no subject
and then today i read this, and eventhough it won't affect me in any way (hopefully), it pissed me off all over again because it's like exactly the same thing! and yeah okay, there are a lot of dodgy things on the internet that kids shouldn’t see, but parents can block those sites from home. schools are supposed to block sites with content that is inappropriate for minors (when i was in school they had bans on myspace, facebook and youtube as well; i don't know how it is in australia but they are pretty strict about that in britain, there are blocks on like everything in schools) so i don't understand how kids could access such content if the parents were doing their job properly. i don't think an adult's choice over what they can and cannot view should be made for them just because some children might accidently find their way onto it.
also my argument is, if the kids wanna find it, they will. even if they have a filter on the internet they will always find a way around it. nevermind the fact that nowadays sex is literally everywhere.
as for taking away the slash, i think it's ridiculous. i mean you don't get images with it. it's not like porn in that sense. it's just words, and in my experience if a child doesn't understand a word they tend to skip it or ask an adult, not go online and google it or whatever; besides i'm pretty sure i knew what sex was when i was like 7 and i didn't need the internet to find that out.
anyway back to the whole slash thing, lets just say hypothetically, i was an australian and this filter was in place right now okay, and i decided to read a fic about two 17 years olds 'getting it on' and i got caught, from what i've read i gather that i would probably be prosecuted for possession of child pornography, when 2 weeks ago i was still 17 and would be deemed a minor. does that mean that 2 weeks ago it would have been okay for me to be reading that? or could i still have been prosecuted?
for me the whole thing has too many grey areas and would be a completely ridiculous thing to pass, and i swear if the british government ever tried to install anything like this on us i would be straight down to london hammering on gordon brown's front door and telling him where he could stick it.
/rant.
sorry about that, i just read that and like, my brain exploded. i think i'm too opinionated for my own good sometimes. :(