Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Keeping Our Children Safe - with BloggerPower


For a Safer Web – We’re Calling Out Bloggers

We can unite our voices to send out a common sense request to all the “adult site” webmasters:

Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information. It’s true that children might login as well, but not so many as one may think. The fear and shame of being caught are still crucial stoppers.

So we call out the bloggers and everyone else out there who cares enough to help us deliver this special appeal to porn webmasters. It might seem like a little step, but it’s not.

A password-protected login prevents small kids from having direct access to extreme pornographic images. It will not stop older kids from actually making accounts to the porn sites, but until the children reach the “let me make an account” age, we’ll have enough time (or should have enough time) to educate them.

Let’s see if what collective power there is in our united voices (and keyboards!), shall we? We are a strong community; we should prove that our voices matter. And the porn webmasters will listen, eventually. They depend on adult paying customers who are in our on-line communities as well. Those webmasters who demonstrate civic awareness and responsibility will benefit in the market, just as any corporation must be mindful of its reputation.

And we are speaking to political leaders through out the world as well. If the adult website operators don’t respond with positive action, then we will urge governments to require password protection.

This is NOT censure; it’s not an attack on anyone’s freedom of expression. It’s common sense. Even Hustler is delivered in a plastic foil wrapper. That wrapper does not inhibit Hustler’s free speech, nor restrict legitimate customers from consuming its content. Now we need similar safeguards for the web.

So don’t let the children down. Join us; write about this issue in your blogs. Use the logos on your blog as a pro bono advertisement linking to this site.


Thank you for your support,

Bill Wardell
Your Online Security Authority

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