How to Protect Your Children Against Internet Pornography

There Are a Lot of Tools to Help Keep Your Children Safe from Internet Pornography

Imagine for a minute that you have a child who is an elementary school student. Suppose that student has been assigned a report on the White House, and your child's teacher wants research on the report done on the Internet. To do research your child innocently goes to the website www.whitehouse.com, thinking he will find an official government site with lots of information for his report. The actual official White House website, however, is www.whitehouse.gov, and at the other site your child will find a site that many consider pornographic, and he might find other undesirable sites targeted toward unsuspecting viewers.

You try to monitor what your child does on the computer, and you may have the type of child who would not deliberately go to a pornographic website. You have seen how a child, or even an adult, could go unintentionally to such a site, however. You know you cannot watch everything your child does. What can you do to protect him from pornography on the Internet?

First, you should know there are laws available to protect minors from pornography on the Internet, but the laws alone won't solve the problem. The Communications Decency Act of 1996 and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 were both designed to restrict pornography on the Internet, especially in the interest of children. Both laws attempted to enforce regulation when sites offered information that was "patently offensive," indecent," and "harmful to minors." Some have argued, however, that the law is not specific enough, and it is hard to determine when a law has been broken.

There is another problem with the laws. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 2000 prohibits websites from collecting personal information from children younger than 13, without parental consent. The problem is the law may be effective in protecting younger children from all types of harm, teenagers are more likely than younger children to divulge personal information. They are, therefore, at greater risk, and the law may not protect them as well. As a result, websites often target teenagers by running promotions and contests.