Training wheels for your InterwebAre you Australian? If so, then as of 10:30am today you are eligible for a free Internet content filter courtesy of the Australian Government. This filter is made available through the NetAlert scheme, which was started just after the 2004 election as a bribe to keep that Family First nutjob on-side.
Minority roll call: Single mum - check. Aboriginal kid - check. Mac user - check.
As soon as the software was released to the public I had downloaded myself a copy. For interest's sake I chose the OpteNet Family Filter variant, so let's give it a spin...
If by some minute chance a parent is reading this post, please don't censor your own computer. Your kids need to learn how life really is. Feel free to beat them when they start saying things like 'pwnt' and 'o rly' though.
I hope it uninstalls.
UPDATE #1
Reading through the filter's logs, it seems that Boredomistan has been classed as pornography. Porno! I'd cop racism, and maybe sedition, but pornography?
UPDATE #2
Hey kids, want to look at boobies AND waste $100 million of the Government's money at the same time? Delete the following files:
C:\Program Files\OPTENET\files\list.crp
C:\Program Files\OPTENET\files\list.crp.ini
Now restart your computer. Those files are where the filter keeps its list of naughty websites. The filter doesn't throw any errors and Mum and Dad, as always, are none the wiser.
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Maybe it was the picture of the wet pussy in the previous post. You didn't accidentally name it "pornography.jpg" did you?
Normally i'm completely on the side of anti-censorship, but... The net doesn't represent real-life. It represents all life, all at once. A human in the early stages of formation is a curious entity. I think there ARE things a kid probably shouldn't be exposed to if your goal is to have said kid function within the parameters of the society they find themselves in bodily. You could try talking to your kid intelligently, let them know there are some pretty horrible things in the world they probably don't want to know about until they've had a bit of childhood and are ready to start eroding it away with knowledge of those things, but their first question will probably be, "Like what?" and then they'll promise to be good but google goatse while you're being a hypocrite and watching your daily dose of hardc0re. You can't raise a perfect child. You let them go nuts on whatever, they'll grow up boundry-less and detached and without empathy and become and advertising exec. You shelter them too much and the shock of reality when it comes is too much, or as soon as they get their freedom they rebel to a more sever degree than they would otherwise.
I remember as a kid i knew what shit my parents would be ok with me watching and what they wouldn't. Sometimes that knowledge stopped me and sometimes it didn't, depending on my curiosity level and amount of time i had before they came home from work and caught me with the magazines from under dad's side of the bed. At least knowing there was a line was probably a good thing, but a lot of the time stuff wasn't really available to test me anyway. With the net, as long as you've taught your kid all those valuable research skills for finding out about their world and engaging in self-directed learning, they've got it all there, the mass of whatever-the-fuck you might not want them exposed to is ready to stream into their little sponge-brains. And i know i used to simply go over a mate's house to watch violent, potty-mouthed movies, like Predator and Terminator (and that obviously had no motherfuckin' effect), and as much as you keep a weather eye on your folders and caches, your kid's gonna have a mate who's folk's REALLY don't give a shit, or don't KNOW shit.
I dunno. I easily avoid all these types of conundrums by vowing never to have kids, coz i really don't see the logic in doing that in the first place. Hypothetically though, as funny as experimentally observing the effects of rotten.com on a six year old girl might be, i'd probably rather it wasn't MY hypothetical 6yo.
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