Internet Pornography And Children
What is "pornography"?
Pornography depends upon community standards, unless you're dealing with issues regarding children. Then, when you're talking about child pornography, you're talking about any images that are meant to create a purient interest or otherwise sexually exploit young children. That's what child pornography is. It's the images or the suggestion within the images, and usually it's not sophisticated stuff, so it's generally very stark portrayals.
How can children access Internet pornography?
Children can easily access internet pornography. If you log on to your browser and hit anything but Google you are liable to discover internet pornography. It's really insidious. Internet porn is probably the biggest moneymaker on the internet or certainly was in the early years. Those individuals who trade in online pornography have found numerous ways to get it onto people's browsers, where children might be able access it. They'll either have a domain name that is not what it seems. The best example is whitehouse.com, which used to be a porn website. The real White House website is whitehouse.gov. The disguised domain name can be something like that. It can be pop-ups, little windows that just pop up on your browser. It can come in any shape or form and your children maybe in danger of accessing it accidentally.
How can my child be harmed by Internet pornography?
Internet pornography is harmful to anybody that looks at it. Pornography is just not a good thing. There's nothing healthy about it. So, sure, children don't need to have sexual content in their lives. That's something that comes as you grow up. It's not something that should be obvious or apparent in the lives of young children who should be focusing their interests on other things.
What should I tell my child about Internet pornography?
What you should talk to your child about regarding pornography on the internet is if they see it, they should immediately tell Mom or Dad about it, because there's nothing good that can come of it. I think it's also important to check the browser history just to make sure you have an idea of where your child has been going on the internet. You can do that on the internet and you can do that on cell phones by contacting the content provider. It's something that parents should do with regard to Internet pornography. They should warn their children about Internet pornography: they should tell them that if they find it, to turn it off and tell parents about it. Parents should also be checking to make sure their children aren't doing anything behind their back on the Internet.
How can I protect my child from internet pornography?
You can reactively and proactively protect your child from pornography. Proactively, you have conversations with your child. You might want to consider investing in some filtering software for your child. You might want to try to monitor your child's Internet activity, although that's a very very difficult thing to do given the various devices that exist now. Reactively, I think it's always important for parents to track their children's browsing habits, and you can do that through any of the browsers. If they're using the Internet through their cell phones you can always do it through their cell company, to protect them from pornography.
