Compulsory filters are a ludicrous idea as explained by AdamD and rstuart. Thanks for that info- like Romany, I needed some more info especially about the technical side. Knowing this made my ‘against compulsory filtering’ position stronger.
Why would we want to be stuck with negatives (more government interference and slower internet speed) without positives (it does not effectively protect children)?

As a young child of primary school age, on my way to and from school, I passed a sex shop every day. Not only magazines but sex toys too were on display.
Nobody seemed to have a problem with the shop being there- none of my classmates seemed to be paying much attention to it. Once I went in with a friend and purchased one of the magazines out of curiosity. There were no age restrictions. We found the pictures of nude women and the stories very boring.
After our curiosity was killed by the naked truth, we were much more interested in the candy store across the road.

My great-grand parents owned a pub in the Amsterdam Red Light district where prostitutes met their clients, including regulars and quite a lot of sailors. My Grandmother, from the age of six till she married at 20, helped serve during school nights and on weekends. She loved their happy faces, the music, singing and the dancing.
The regulars –prostitutes as well as their regular clients- were very fond of her, but no one ever sexually assaulted her even though she was in contact with the prostitutes and their clients almost every day. She was treated with respect.

She also was aware of the consequences of sex at an age when, these days, children similar in age as my grandmother had no idea where babies came from, my grandmother decided to remain abstinent of sex until marriage.

Continued…

LOL, even just TALKING about porn filters slows down loading of the page! It took a good 20 minutes to just load this New Post page and another 10 to preview! Posting it might take ages, too!

Continued story...
She not only served prostitutes at the pub, but also lived above this pub and amid prostitutes who sat in red-light windows half naked. Because of the location of the pub and apartment above it, she was the only child living in this adult neighbourhood. The prostitutes loved her and spoiled her generously with lollies and treats. My great-grand parents never stopped her from befriending and visiting the prostitutes; they knew them all and must’ve trusted them.
It did my gran no damage at all, she felt accepted and loved there.
She had a warm and caring nature, and was a very open-minded woman with a great social life while raising 4 children including my mother.

Now, imagine that she had lived and worked as the only child not amid prostitutes but amid celibate priests, and had visited them at their private homes, helped out at the Church etc.
Would she have had a greater chance of being sexually assaulted?
I believe so.

That’s why I wished that Churches used their donations more wisely, i.e. to purchase (on-line) porn or hire prostitutes whenever priests have ‘the urge’. Because they expect celibacy or can’t express themselves sexually, because they’re deprived of something that is innate, natural and healthy, they end up frustrated monsters.
We all know that the Church had to pay out large amounts of compensation because priests sexually assaulted minors.

Seriously, being sexually frustrated is unhealthy and obviously has turned some people into monsters.

BTW Billie I signed the petition, thanks.

Celivia I had the same experience trying to get onto OLO today.

I thought I might cop it for my last post. However, the aim was to make you think about the issue from another point of view. While I understand that no-one is advocating that children actively access and view porn, the point is that they can easily be subjected to porn sites using fairly inoccuous search terms.

I recently was searching sites in relation to horticulture and included in the listing was a couple of porn sites very vaguely or not even vaguely related to the search terms. It doesn't happen often because we do have a moderate filter and some parental controls but it is not 100%. We have always spoken openly about sex at our house, it is not taboo, just as we speak about drugs, politics, the environment and any other issue.

The point is it is too easy to access porn. As I have said previously on another site it should be easy enough to have a choice of filtered and unfiltered streams via one's ISP. Surely if we can land men on the moon we can develop an efficient and fast filtered internet for those who prefer it - particularly if one has children.

Romany: "most people ... did not seem to realise that the CCP had slowly given up on controlling political content and the main body of restrictions pertained to kiddie-porn."

Count me in with "most people". Part of the issue is China is so bloody big, and the media report on the most sensational aspects. So you see reports of people throw for doing something fairly innocuous in western terms, and maybe later comments this is a one off incident in a far off province. It is very hard to judge what is typical. China did itself absolutely no favours in this regard by setting up protest zones, then sentencing two old women to 1 year "labour re-education" for applying to use them.

pelican: "Surely if we can land men on the moon we can develop an efficient and fast filtered internet for those who prefer it - particularly if one has children."

If you mean ISP filters internet connections for those who want it - we already do pelican. Yes, they cost more and are slightly slower and so aren't particularly popular. But they are available in every area. Here is a list:

http://www.iia.net.au/

The filter salesman say they are fast, efficient and accurate. If you think they are necessary at all then that is probably true enough. So you have everything you wished for, pelican. They only thing they aren't is mandatory.

pelican: "I recently was searching sites in relation to horticulture and included in the listing was a couple of porn sites very vaguely or not even vaguely related to the search terms."

You were using Google? If so turn on Google safe search. Its under "preferences" on the search page. Its not perfect, but every additional layer of filters reduces the things that slip through. They also increase the odds of not seeing a link you were after, of course.

Celivia

Thanks for that fantastic and colourful story about your grandmother and also your personal experience.

I recall my student days when I lived in St Kilda on a particularly notorious street. The flat opposite to me was rented by a street-worker; she preferred to work for herself rather than a brothel because she could refuse whomever she wanted and all the money she earned remained hers. She would also see regular clients at her flat. Her door was directly opposite mine and occasionally I'd get a knock at the door from one of her clients by mistake. There was never any problem I just explained "wrong door, you need that door". Never was I hassled, OK occasionally asked if I 'worked' too, but I never felt I was in any kind of danger.

At night I would often go to the Espy, the Prince - terrific band pubs and frequently curb-crawlers would pull up beside me, in fact I didn't even have to be dressed up these ever hopeful men would stop me at any time of the day. Again, while some could be a bit persistent I never experienced any trouble at all. Where there were problems were from young hoons from the outer suburbs. But I digress, my point is we underestimate men that somehow the sex industry be it porn or prostitution will lead men to harass and abuse women and children.

There is always the deviant who will be triggered by porn, but what percentage of the population are these people? Less than 1%? Kmart catalogues are sufficient for these nutters.

As for filters, waste of time (literally) and will never be a substitute for education of our children. Most kids who grow up on farms have a healthy attitude towards sex and clearly growing up in Amsterdam has the advantage of developing a tolerant attitude to the diversity of the human race.

Child porn is illegal as it rightly should. Government controlled censorship of the net should be banned as well.

rstuart,

to get a different take on China, rather than relying on main-stream media, go to one of the blog sites I've mentioned before: Chinasmack, Angry Chinese Blogger and Chinalyst spring to mind. You'll laugh, you'll cry - but you'll never be bored!

Growing up with two generations of people connected with the theatre and media, my kids were pretty blase about soft porn and stuff we occasionally saw. Chancing upon some woman gasping and moaning in simulated ecstacy, my mother would say prosaicilly "Poor dear, probably gasping for a cup of tea. I do hope the director gives them enough breaks." A naked and tumescent man would bring the recollection "I say, George, do you remember that time you got yours caught in a fan?"(true story!. And a drawer!)

We had friend, daughter of an academy-award winning actor, who was the model for a very famous Chek. painter and a picture of her beauticul body, albeit painted green, hung on many walls. She'd tell us how the picture was painted in winter and the artist wouldn't let her have a jacket. Finally, he allowed his cat to curl up in her lap but, when she got home, she found fleas in her pubic hair and was furious.

What with stories of fleas and fans and cups of tea, not much titillation survived for my sons.