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[guiltyschu]

With all the fun of the upcoming Presidential election in the States, it might be easy to forget about politics on the other side of the planet. But this is an issue I feel needs more attention, not just because I'm Australian and it will effect me, but because if it happens in a country like Australia, I wonder how long before other advanced '

Comments

[kegom]

Don't get me started on the "for the children" stuff, seriously. >.<" That's an argument that flies really well with a lot of parents and it makes me furious, not because the parents want a safer internet for their children, but because it reinforces a lot of parents' belief that showing children how to work with the internet is other people's (read: school's and government's) business, and it also - and even worse - reinforces the belief that the internet is a dangerous place that OTHER PEOPLE have to make safer for their children.

As a teacher and even as a regular (and qualified) babysitter this annoys me without end, because the internet IS safe - as long as you know how to handle it. Children don't know how to handle it, so parents shouldn't let their children browse alone (under a certain age, at least) and they should teach them how to behave when surfing. A professor of mine likes to liken it to traffic - you wouldn't let your small child go out onto the street alone; and you would also train how to behave properly in traffic.
I don't know any parents who would ever deny this, and who wouldn't see it as primarily their responsibility to show their children how to act; but somehow most parents I know still believe that the internet and how their children behave there is not their business.
[/rant]

Sorry. ^^" The internet has its dangerous corners, no doubt; but sometimes it seems that most "the internet is dangerous we need more security" activists totally forget to mention the biggest danger on the internet: the chance that anyone with enough knowledge/power can easily track your every movement online and perhaps - from everything you say online and mostly don't even remember - even make a very thorough profile of who you are. And such a danger doesn't get eliminated by filters - quite the opposite, it even heightens that danger, because your movements get tracked even more closely than before.