The easiest why to avoid porn is to give it its own domain extention, like .sex or .xxx.
This has been proposed by members of Congress, but the influence of porn lobby with the Republican Party was so strong that they refused to pass this measure.
I think the porn lobby beleives they attract some accidental cross-over to their sites and don't want to be segregated from the .coms.
If all porn could only be found at .xxx sites, it would be easy to program a computer to filter out any site with a .xxx domain.
Perhaps now with Democrates in charge, the .xxx domain has a chance to pass.

I just found part of the press release.
March 16, 2006

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - At a press conference on Capitol Hill today, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) rolled out S. 2426 that will protect children from online predators and pornography by requiring Web sites with adult content to have a .XXX domain. It was called the Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006.

I hope those Democrates reintroduce this bill. Now that Republicans are the minority it should pass.

I use Alta Vista as my primary search engine. If you have family filter off and search for images, tons of common phrases turn up porn. Just about any girls name or common girls nickname will do it. So will the numbers, so will colors, so will adjectives like good, bad, big, small, better, best or anything. No, actually the word anything turns up porn.

Sometimes it's just one or two sites out of many. But often it's more than a dozen sites. I just go around them - but I make sure that the filters ar ON on my kids' PC's.

Sad to say, but the webmasters of porn sites are pretty much the smartest people on Al Gore's Internet. They know how to to googlebomb, and get their stuff out there for people to run across.

But, in Liberal World, people have a right to peddle smut, and make sure that everyone, including children, run across it. Heck, all the better for them to have children become decensitized to it at an early age, making them more prone to the "if it feels good, do it, and to h*ll with the consequences" liberal lifestyle.

Am I the only parent who sets the filters on their home computers so my kids don't "accidently" become exposed to porn sites? I'm not a fan about this decision, but I don't want the government sticking their nose into my kitchen about transfats (I'll feed my kids the appropriate food) so don't need them sticking their noses into other business that is MY PEROGATIVE AS A PARENT!

Unfortunately, the reality is there is nothing stopping any child from viewing any form of pornography they want to and they are smart enough to get around filters/blocks.

The question is,
Should government or public facilities have the right to prohibit porn viewing on their computers? Libraries? Schools?

Which for me, the answer is a simple yes..
If you can prohibit smoking, prohibit the use of trans fats, then yes, they should be allowed to block pornography to protect cildren.

if they can make it so that articles with a conservative bent are on page 40 while liberal articles are on the first page, even when the lieberal articles are older, then blocking porn can't be that big a trick

Reminds me of how plugging "miserable failure" or something like that into Google results in the first article being about George W. Bush. (Further evidence that it's Al Gore's internet? ;>)

in Liberal World, people have a right to peddle smut, and make sure that everyone, including children, run across it.

What gets me is that having porn available on library computers, even when minors can access it, is treated as a "freedom of speech" issue. Yet no one cries "freedom of speech" at our movie rating system, likewise designed restrict access to porn only to adults.

Free speech is subjective in Liberal World, much as the rest of the Constitution.

Not to jump subjects to much, but consider the protests from the weekend. Many were plainly unconstitutional, as they were not "peaceable." I have gotten into arguments with lefties all week long, saying such, and they keep saying they were Constitutional.

I invite them to read the Bill of Rights. They still do not get it.

To paraphrase Mark Twain..

Censorship is saying that a grown man can't have a steak because a baby couldn't chew it.

I don't think the government should get involved at all. They should also get out of prohibiting tobacco ads.

You don't want your kids smoking tobacco? Don't let them smoke tobacco. You don't want them looking at porn? Don't let them look at porn.

agreed Max.

I believe children do have to be protected - thats why they have parents. Putting this in place is not going to do anything to protect the children. This is one of those cases where you are doing the wrong thing for the right reason

When I start seeing soft porn removed from WALT DISNEY movies, then I'll believe America is starting to get serious about protecting children from porn.

I'm confused......

Free speech allows people to offer child pornography to anyone and people support free speech.. but

Tobacco companies are restricted from offering their products freely, without restriction...

Sounds more like selective free speech

and no I don't smoke

All of my children are grown and long gone. However I do have 6 grand kids that visit often.
We have two computers in the house: One in the family room and the other is in the kitchen.

None of my grand kids use the computers without being supervised. Kids are going to look at porn no matter what we do.
Its up to the parents to supervise their children/granchildren.

I just entered "barbie" on google, with filtering off. I went 8 pages deep and didnt find any porn links.

I think parents just need to parent. I do not want the Govt parenting me and how I should parent my child.

No porn viewing in this house. That is a choice. We also will have filters up for our daughter. She also will be monitored while on the computer.

I dont need the Govt to do that for me.

I have a question, and it's most definitely NOT rhetorical in nature, but one of those slippery slope type issues that lawyers use to get what they want. Anyone who wants to armchair lawyer is free to do so, and just offering up your opinion is great too.

If we say that we can't limit or move exposure to pornography by children on the internet, something many people refer to as a "community" then why are we allowed to keep porn shops/strip clubs, etc. a certain distance from schools and parks, etc?

If "parenting" is the reason to NOT do it one place, why can't "parenting" be the excuse of some porn peddler who wants to put an adult video store and/or a 18+ strip club right next door to a high school or jr. high or elementary school?

Anyway, I respect the free speech argument quite a bit, but I also acknowledge that in this day and age, government vis a vis schools are being asked to parent children and teach them things parents aren't.

What do all y'all think? Is there a worry?

Kahn-

I'm going to try to use my feeble knowledge of how porn works to answer your questions. First of all, there is the matter of plain sight. When you have porn on the internet, it is usually not on the screen unless you clicked something to bring it there (excluding popups, which often come from spyware, which I think should be illegal, that is usually downloaded from porn sites without the surfer's consent). However, if there is a porn shop or strip club in plain sight of a school, a place where children (arguably, considering homeschooling), have to go, there is nothing stopping children from seeing it. Secondly, there are tools that parents can use to block pornographic sites from being viewed on certain computers (they can be circumvented, but they are being made stronger and stronger), however, you cannot put a big bag over porn shops.

I believe that the whole state of Georgia mandates that windows of "adult establishments" have to black out their windows and limit access to the interiors of the store to people over the age of 18. So, kids can see the sign "Inserection", but not actually know what resides therein, they also probably won't get the pun.

I don't think that internet porn should be restricted (however I think that the .xxx domain is an interesting idea), but I do think that a lot of the problem of unintentional porn viewing can be stopped by banning spyware and mandating that all web browsers be equipped with a parental block feature.

Let the government govern; let parents parent.

that response was for wawilliyo... sorry

Actually it was me who asked the question...

And I have additional questions for you. I've only ever lived in three different states and have visited several others on vacation so I'm not going to claim to be a huge expert on this issue. In NYC, if you're not careful, you'll be looking at postcards, go too far into the store and discover it's an adult video store.

In the states I've lived in, there can be nothing "adult" seen from the street except the name of the store.

If this is a "normal" situation for most states, than how is it any different having a porn store "in plain sight, but covered up" and having access to adult material, whether graphic or verbal, via a search engine.

Regardless of the issue of porn, I am 100% in agreement about the spyware banning. I'd also like to ban Spam. If you're not careful, you could open up an email that then puts spyware or other programs that cause porn to just keep popping up.

Anyway, I agree with the theory of government governing, and parents parenting, except that doesn't seem to be what's ACTUALLY happening more and more. Talking to educators in primary and secondary education, they'll tell you that more and more kids are coming to school without the essential tools they should be learning from parent(s).

I actually had a friend's little brother who I talk to on occasion because he's more interested in social sciences and his brother is the chemisty guy and that's about it. Well he was telling me in a Freshmen level poli sci class that this instructor was berating the kids for not having learned how to write in high school because most schools are more worried about teaching social skills than they are teaching what schools should teach.

BTW... it's great to have a discussion every once in awhile that doesn't involve BLAMING of a political party (even though Christian Wright can't NOT do that for once. I note that he doesn't acknowledge who was in charge of Congress when COPA was actually passed, but whatever).

Further, the US Government doesn't "own" the internet. If we tried to force this change on them through the Department of Commerce, the International Community would have fought even harder than they recently did to change how the internet domain structure was "governed."

wawilliyo - good point about the government not owning the Internet. But sadly, many governments already severly restrict search engines and the Internet inside their borders. Saveral have strongly pbjected to sites OUTSIDE their borders.

We are the country with the Free Speech laws.

Much speech and many images are heavily censored all over the world. Here is an example, World War 2 German planes had swastikas on the tails. ALL of them did. Yet, buy a model of a German plane today and it will almost certainly NOT have the swastika decals. They used to, but not anymore. The swastika will be missing (usually) from the box cover art as well. That image is illegal in Germanny. As is ussung the letters SS together (even in words). They created a NEW letter to replace ss in words previously spelled that way.

China limits Internet access, Many Muslim countries limit it. Even many EU countries have restrictions.

Its sad and scarry.

I do type awful - sorry.

Very true Kahn. My comment was more to the Internet Naming Protocols (I think that's what they are called) that the Department of Commerce "controls" via an independent agency. I'd imagine that some sort of protocol to create new demains would and could cause issues of a international political level.

For instance... the United States is one of the few countries that doesn't have a "nation domain" after our usual domains (.com, .org, etc.)

Would other countries be responsible for having (xxx.uk or sex.fr) for instance? Would they be ready to rush out and adopt a protocol being mandated by the U.S. Government, who they already thinks is trying to control the internet to it's advantage.

I just hope everyone knows I'm just asking some interesting questions because I don't have an answer for any of this, beyond wishing children wouldn't be in a rush to grow up.

Kahn,

If you care to know,

The double "ss" isn't illegal in Germany, (that's one of the silliest things I have ever heard) where did you hear that from? The single glyph you are refering to is called an "Eszett", it looks something like this: "?" it has a history of use in German typeface since the middle ages. Go ahead, look it up, or better yet, go to Germany. When you can't use the eszett (if it isn't on your typewriter), it is very common in Germany to write "ss".

The Swastika is illegal as a political symbol, but Germany does have Hindus and Buddhist among others who use it just fine in public.

Walwilliyo,

The US does have a domain name, it's ".us".

I remember the first time I saw pornography as a child. Let's see, I must have been about ten. My friend across the street could get access to it in his parents' den, but only occasionally since the door was usually locked. When it wasn't locked, bingo: full hard-core action. To be honest, I don't remember feeling anything other than confusedly excited, but, you know, you have to go along with your buddies.

That was in 1980. Apparently the kid's dad was into the heavy stuff, not just Playboy. Of course, males my age will remember the age in the later in the decade called "the cool kids have Showtime at their houses."

This was in semi-rural Indiana. All of this "action" took place in some pretty conservative households, with the owner of the magazines of the punching-as-discipline ilk. Meanwhile, my liberal mom made me watch "Nova" and "Cosmos." We never even got cable!

In hindsight, I am glad I had my parents to raise me, rather than a bunch of conservatives on the internet.

IT,

Go to page 9.

Everyone,

Interesting debate - but I will add this:

The most splendid parents in the world cannot filter it all out - people who merely want to make money, and don't care how they make it, are relentlessly marketing sex to children. Its not just the hardcore porn sites - those are probably not the initial stopping place for a youth involved with porn.

It starts with the overt sexuality in movies, on TV, in music, in advertising. All of this has two effects - it makes a person used to it, and also bored with it...and when your bored with one thing, you go on to another, unless you are a person of strong convictions (and this excludes most children). A few years ago I was listening to the account of the trial of a man who had raped and murdered a little girl - as I understand it, when the police examined the man's computer (and, of course, his defense attorneys tried to get that excluded) it was discovered that the older porn was the softer. Can you see it? The man started looking at it and got progressively bored and thus became progressively more interested in ever more vile pornography. This was a contributing factor, I believe, in his crime.

Now, this doesn't mean that any 14 year old boy who sneaks a peak at "jugs.com" is eventually going on to be a rapist/murderer - but it does show how pervasive pornography feeds on itself and progressively drags a person down. It shows in our society - 28 years ago, at 14, I was only vaguely aware of what oral sex was...today, oral sex is considered by vast numbers of teens to be just one of those things you do on a Friday night date. What was an exciting and dimly perceived possible thrill in 1978 is now humdrum - and, in my view, it is the pervasiveness of porn in our society which has brought this about.

It is my view that parents can't compete with this flood of sexuality - and as we cannot go after each and every slug producing porn, we can only combat those who transmit it...especially the internet transmitters of porn.

I don't buy the story that ISP's can't control what comes over their servers. They can - they just don't want to, because that would cut into the revenue they receive from pornographic sites. In my view, anyone who subscribes - for pay or free - to an internet provider should have to provide, in writing, both verification of age and desire to have access to porn before porn becomes available on the screen. It can be done, and it must be done - I won't agree that the youth of American should be thrown to the sexual wolves.

byproxy,

Oh, that's just great - because you grew up a quarter century ago with no filters on the then-non-existent internet, kids today can do without it...brilliant.

Mark:

My point was that kids today can NOT do without good parents. I'd rather have those than laws and filters.

It is your right to disagree with and ridicule me, however.

-Peter

Peter,

Fair enough - and I apologise; you're right - I did do wrong in the way I addressed your point.

My point, however, is that things have changed and we contend with strong, new forces for social disintegration, and parents cannot stand alone against it.

I'm not arguing the issue of domain names. I'm arguing the political issues behind it.

For example... how often do you see an American company... let's say... Widget Mart Depot... have a web address of www.widgetmartdepot.com.us?

You don't... but in nearly every other country, you'll see that their "national domain" nearly is used FAR more than ours... as a matter of fact, I've never seen a (.com.us) domain here in the United States.

My whole point is does the United States Congress have the ability to dramatically alter the domain structure without significant input from the International Community. At the United Nations, it was BARELY decided that the US would continue to "coordinate" the domain structure.

It wasn't about domain names, it was about the politicalization of EVERYTHING in the world.

wawilliyo - Big companies transcend national boundaries. But, well I guess we just don't care about your point that much (not to disparage, I mean collectively).

The reason we take this view, I guess is that DARPA invented TCP/IP and the Internet (note, capital I denotes the public network, small i denotes a private network). Universities with research ties to DARPA picked up the network. Files were transferred. E-mail was invented. And finnaly a "web" technology emerged. All of this happened here, in the free though center of the world. Not in France. Not in the then USSR, Not in Japan.

We invented a technology. Created a tool to allow people to freely share ideas - even ideas they don't agree with (witness some of our arguments HERE). I guess we just don't feel like caging this wild animal we created and submitting it to the control of heavily censored and dismal societies all over the world.

Just as we invented airplanes, telephones and their networks, telegraphs and their networks, and harnessed electricity and the power networks. Maybe when China actually invents something rather than steals it, when France contributes some new world changing technology again (apologies to Madame Curie and Louis Pasteur), when Saudi Arabia invents those new medicines because of their well known free thought processes, we'll care what they think the Internet should look like.

Rant off.

How about progressives and conservatives get together for once and sign an omni-political Internet petition calling for an .xxx domain name for explicit material?

Mark, are you up for organizing this?

Kahn: The reason we take this view, I guess is that DARPA invented TCP/IP and the Internet. Universities with research ties to DARPA picked up the network. Files were transferred. E-mail was invented. And finnaly a "web" technology emerged. All of this happened here, in the free though center of the world. Not in France. Not in the then USSR, Not in Japan.

Better check your history books. The world-wide web was invented by a Brit (Tim Berners-Lee) while he was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (better known as CERN, a particle physics lab) in Switzerland. I might add that when people refer to "the Internet", they are generally referring to the web.

Just as we invented airplanes, telephones and their networks, telegraphs and their networks, and harnessed electricity and the power networks.

A bit simplistic, no?

Isn't "our modern culture" a tad redundant?

If all porn were restricted to .xxx sites, it WOULD be easy to program a computer to filter out any such site. And since children are so bad at using computers and all of their friends' parents and older siblings would filter xxx sites on their computers, kids would never see pornography. Yeah this’ll work great, and as a bonus a few politicians will score a few cheap points.

Mr Noonan,
Its ironic you talk about this subject on the internet, when you live in the sleaze capital of the USA. ;)
I did go to page 9. No porn. I went all the way to page 15, still no porn links.
I googled 'barbie' with filter off and it did not return any porn links.

My viewpoint is this:
Kids are going to look at porn. They will find a way no matter what we, as parents, try to do.
However, with good supervision, good parenting skills, alot of luck , they will turn out ok.
No amount of regulation is going to stop kids from looking at porn.

Im sick and tired that every time there is a problem with kids (usually from lack of uninvolved parents), people want big government to solve the problem. Parents need to start taking responsibility.

How do you supervise your children's internet access Mr Noonan? It seems to me with the pervasiveness of strip clubs, brothel's and casino's in Las Vegas, it must be a challenge to your children.
Me personally, I could never have raised my children in that environment.

I am not advocating promoting porn.

I am very frustrated by the amount of gratuitous VIOLENCE in the media. Every night, violence reigns supreme. You cannot change the channel with out viewing someone killing, being killed, maiming, being maimed, raping or being raped. Greed, money and violence.

Death by strangulation, by bullet holes, knives, cars, bombs and torture.

All this is OK with you? Fox is a major player in the fastest most violent stream of movies from the big screen to TV.

You bitch and moan and question about a little spunk spewed gregariously. Two (or more) people having sex. No one gets killed. Hopefully no one bleeds. An exchange of bodily fluids.

Oh no, can't have that. What will two people nekkid and having sex do to little johnnie and janes beautiful little minds. Very disturbing. Poor little johnnie and jane.

Lets put Fox on TV. Tonights episode of Bones will show some death and violence. Followed by this weeks network premiere of of "Jarhead".

Death and dismemberment before hot nekkid sex is the theme here.

Get a grip. Or, go put on some violent blood soaked gore fest and then have some hot nekkid sex while watching...buffoons.

Greg, yes. Tim Berners-Lee added hypertext to the EXISTING Internet invented by DARPA when they came up with TCP and other founding protocols. They built the ability to network, and Berners-Lee made possible the web page. But, yes the un-network educated may interchange the terms Intenet and web. But other things run on the Internet. It is a network, web traffic is but one type of traffic. Actually, in some ways it is an active index for other types of traffic. For example, you could set up a video stream over IP without the web. But the web allows you to click on a link that starts a video stream.

Anyways - I'm still waiting for that big Chinese breakthrough in, well pick an area outside of piracy techniques.

Sex is reall really bad !

IT,

Look again - I found pornography, twice, on page 9.

"The kids are going to do it no matter what" is just a weak dodge - an abdication of responsibility. The sort of mentality which thinks that a child is "protected" as long as he or she uses a condom when having sex. Kids do what they are told to do - they are mental sponges desperate to know what it takes to fit into adult life...and if they are getting a steady stream of sex, then they will come to view sex as just part of growing up.

Raker,

Just to let you know:

I think that any pictorial representation of the human body which is designed in any way, shape or form to do other than show deep respect for the individual pictured is pornography...so, hacking up people in a slasher flick is just as disgusting, in my book, as throwing together half dozen people into a sex scene. Please note that this doesn't exclude showing a nude picture, or even a violent death - but what must come out clearly is the essential humanity of the people represented - their inherent dignity must shine forth.

Examples of nudes done with dignity is, most famously, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...meanwhile, and example of a violent death which maintains the dignity of man is at the end of the movie "Gallipoli".

Ok Mr Noonan,
If kids are a sponge, then why do you CHOOSE to live in the sleaze capital of the USA? How in good conscious do you expose your children daily to such sleaze day in and day out?

It appears you are the one abdicating responsibility. You want the government to solve the problem of your children looking at porn on the internet.

I choose to solve that problem myself. I supervise my grandchildren when they are with me. I dont need the government to do my parenting job for me.

You did neatly ducked the question: Just how do you supervise your children's internet activities?
Further..how do you prevent them from seeing the brothels, strip clubs, bars and casinos that are so prevalent in your city? Are the windows in your car blacked out? Perhaps we need a federal lawmandating that residents of Las Vegas with children blindfold their children when out in public?
It amazes me that a conservative such as yourself would choose to live in city whose primary revenues are based on strippers, brothels, bars and gambling.

B4B'rs

Am I the only one that cannot find porn links on page 9 of a google search 'barbie'?

This is the direct link to page 9:
http://www.google.com/search?q=barbie&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=80&sa=N

IT,

Step children, and they are all grown up. Eldest grand daughter is not yet two, so such things are not an issue at this moment.

Sleaze capital of the USA? I don't think so - perhaps San Francisco or, maybe, Hollywood...but not Las Vegas.

Prostitution is just as illegal here as it is in your town - in order to shield a child from seeing a brothel you'd have to drive about 75 miles up State Rte 160...bit of a trip just to clasp your hand over the kid's eyes and tell him not to look. We do have strip clubs out here, but I doubt that we have as many as Los Angeles does. Offhand, I can think of 6 or so...though as I don't go looking for them I can't say with any authority how many there are...most of them, though, are in the trashy, off-Strip area bordered by I-15 and downtown Las Vegas. We do, of course, have gambling - but so does Atlantic City, as well as a couple score other cities in the United States.

And all of that misses my point - if we had to take our kids to see sleaze, then it wouldn't be a problem...the problem is when it comes in via radio, television, internet, movies, music, magazines...it isn't porn, per se, that is the problem but the overwhelmingly pervasive nature of pornography in our society.

And, try again - its there on page 9.

Kahn: Greg, yes. Tim Berners-Lee added hypertext to the EXISTING Internet invented by DARPA when they came up with TCP and other founding protocols. They built the ability to network, and Berners-Lee made possible the web page. But, yes the un-network educated may interchange the terms Intenet and web. But other things run on the Internet. It is a network, web traffic is but one type of traffic.

You originally claimed the web was invented here. It was not. You can try to make it sound as if the web is "but one type of traffic" on the Internet in an effort to mitigate your error, but please. Do you really think the Internet would be what it is today if the web didn't exist? Do you think millions upon millions of people would connect to something that offered them only Gopher, NNTP, FTP, and email?

And if you're comfortable in marginalizing Berners-Lee for his invention of the web due to the fact that the invention of the Internet was necessary to make the web possible, does that mean you're also comfortable in marginalizing the contribution of Edison? After all, he couldn't have accomplished what he did were it not for the efforts of people such as Ampere (French), Faraday (English), Ohm (German), and Volta (Italian). No invention takes place in a vacuum.

Prostitution is just as illegal here as it is in your town ... We do have strip clubs out here, but I doubt that we have as many as Los Angeles does. ... We do, of course, have gambling - but so does Atlantic City, as well as a couple score other cities in the United States.

Sorry, Mark. I've been all over this country, and I've never been to a city where what is essentially soft-core porn is more gratuitously plastered all over billboards, taxi cabs, the signs of businesses, etc than in Las Vegas. This is what makes Vegas sleazy, not strip clubs, brothels, or gambling. It's the 100-foot tall picture of a barely covered woman's backside on the sign for a casino. It's all the signs encouraging you to come to a topless revue (or just the fact that there ARE topless revues). Or what about all the people handing out cards on the streetcorners advertising their "escort services" - 2 women for $99. What about TI's free pirate show that used to be somewhat appropriate for families, but was changed a couple years ago and is most definitely not anymore. Sex is everywhere in Vegas, moreso than in any city I've ever been to. And I'm not the only one - I just asked my girlfriend what city she would say is the most in-your-face about sex, and she immediately responded "Vegas".

And yeah, San Fran doesn't hold a candle to Vegas.

Isn't this a conservative site? And you are complaining about porn? Isn't that the only way you guys gets off? Hell you ain't never gonna get the women living in your parents basement, so I though porn was your sexual outlet - no?