Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children

I am against all forms of child abuse. I am against imposed internet filtering/censorship.

"What, you don't support internet filtering? Why do you support terrorists and paedophiles?"

I think the first two statements I made can sit happily together. Unfortunately a coalition of children's charities don't agree and seem to believe the only way to stamp out the evil of child porn is to ensure all internet providers are blocking it.

There are lots of problems with this approach and key among them are that I, and many others far more expert than me, don't believe it makes the slightest difference.

The other day I was standing outside a railway station. Across the road a family stood at a bus stop. The mother (I presume) was screaming abuse at a young boy. He must have been 10 or 11 and was being told he'd ruined the weekend, she and everyone else hated him and he was stupid. It was a foul mouthed tirade, a horrible thing to see and I really felt for the poor kid. But what did I actually do? I simply turned up my iPod so I couldn't hear and read my magazine so I couldn't see.

Internet technology has made it more likely that child porn will be seen by someone who finds it as abhorrent and upsetting as indeed they should. A number of these people have made the mistake of blaming the internet technology for this arguing since the technology brought this into our home, technology can stop that from happening.

Well that's true, it can. But unfortunately, and this is what really matters, it can't stop abuse from taking place, from having taken place or counsel the individuals concerned.

It's the internet equivalent of turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to child abuse in the street. Has internet technology made child porn more prevalent? I don't know, but really nasty stuff has been around for a long time before affordable broadband internet access and the kind of people this appeals to will seek it out in whatever form it takes.

So not only is it a waste of everybody's time and money (and it is very expensive), it's also potentially doing some serious societal damage. Once a government controlled internet censorship system is firmly in place how long before it's seriously misused? It may start with preventing access to known child porn sites. Then it's employed to help prevent terrorism... after all you don't want the terrorists being able to find bomb making recipes online do you? Then it's used to help 'keep the peace' and ultimately to 'quell dissent'.

That may sound like paranoid rantings, but it is a very slippery slope and one best avoided no matter how well intentioned at the start.

Nobody is going to campaign in favour of child porn and access to it. However I will campaign against internet censorship, and that doesn't amount to the same thing. Because the protection of children is important and emotive many are scared of accusation that they either don't care or much worse and that gives a very weak argument far more power and political weight.

What I would add is there are lots of ways individuals can choose to effectively restrict access to unsavoury and illegal material online. There are personal internet filters available but my favourite is to use openDNS. It's a free service that will work with pretty much any computer/network and does a really good job of controlling the blocking of content based on categories. I use it on the networks I maintain.

The key to this is choice. I will choose what I want to block. I do not want that choice made for me by someone else who thinks they know best because how do I know I can trust them?