Question:

How can governments best protect Internet freedoms while also protecting citizens from online predators?

It is widely recognized that communications technologies such as the Internet work best when their contents are not censored (Wikiquote - John Gilmer - "censorship as damage") from individual citizens by a third party. However, it is also widely understood that these same communications networks can create opportunities for malicious people to harm others (Wikipedia - Online predators).

In the lifetime of the Internet, a significant proportion of legislative attempts to diminish malicious behavior online have used the justification that there exists many "sexual predators" who use telecommunications to find and ultimately enact non-consensual sexual activities with young children. This has become more succinctly discussed by politicians as "child pornography."

While everyone seems to agree that national governments play an important role in protecting its citizens from sexual crimes, no one has been able to agree on what appropriate actions are to best realize this goal.

asked by Meitar

Current Generation: 3 Question Page

History of past Proposals:

link	Proposal	Author	Endorsers	You
Generation 2 No Key Players
link	Proposal Online predation is an over-reported, over-hyped phenomenon. The core solution comes not from governments, but from parents. Parents who allow children to surf the net unrestricted are bad parents. The damage that a kid can do by having unrestricted access to the internet is unbounded. There is no difference between letting children loose on unrestricted internet and letting them loose on the streets. Would anyone not blame a parent for letting a young child roam city streets alone? Then what is different about letting them roam the internet? This is not to marginalise the issue of adults using the internet to trick children into abusive situations. Governments should prosecute people who prey on children, regardless of the mechanism used. Also children should keep be anonymous on the internet. Children should be taught this in school. So by being under the vigil eye of the parents at home, and anonymous in their online transactions, how could they be in danger?	vilfredo	vilfredo PhilippeS	_
link	Proposal Online predation is an over-reported, over-hyped phenomenon in certain parts of the media. On the other hand, freedom of speech is an essential cornerstone of democracy, without which terrible regimes can come to power resulting in untold harm. This is not to marginalise the issue of adults using the internet to trick children into abusive situations (be they sexual or otherwise). Clearly if it happens once, this is a tragedy, and if we can avoid it then we should. The simple answer is the maintainance of anonymity on the internet. Provided that you have an anonymised connection to the internet, and you do not give out personal details, then you will be fine. Children should be taught this in school.	Inherited; originally written by: canderson		_
link	Proposal The core solution comes not from governments, but from parents. If someone takes on the responsibility of having children, they also are inherently responsible for protecting those children. Parents who allow children to surf the net unrestricted are bad parents. There is no difference between letting children loose on unrestricted internet and letting them loose on the streets. Would anyone not blame a parent for letting a young child roam city streets alone? Then what is different about letting them roam the internet? The same view applies to governments. They should prosecute people who prey on children, regardless of the mechanism used. But likewise, they should no more try to censor the internet then they should try to censor city streets.	Inherited; originally written by: Ed Pastore	vilfredo	_
link	Proposal To approach this question, we should first distinguish between adults and children. Children, of course, must have all the protection they deserve. Parents first have to play their roles, government comes after by education, at scool, at home, on TV and magazines, everywhere children should be educated to avoid falling in predators traps. for adults, prevention should suffice for exemple when someone is buying a new computer, the vendor should give him a documentation on how to protect himself from cyber predators. But if we need powerful action, we could think about a surfing license; we don't give a wheel on children hands so we should do the same with a mouse, what about the idea that like every one need a driving license to drive a car, everyone should have a surfing license to surf on the web ? Censorship is never the solution, don't touch to our freedom... Philippe	Inherited; originally written by: PhilippeS	vilfredo	_
Generation 1 Key Players (proposals they should work on): vilfredo ( 1497 ) PhilippeS ( 1488 )
link	Proposal The core solution comes not from governments, but from parents. If someone takes on the responsibility of having children, they also are inherently responsible for protecting those children. Parents who allow children to surf the net unrestricted are bad parents. There is no difference between letting children loose on unrestricted internet and letting them loose on the streets. Would anyone not blame a parent for letting a young child roam city streets alone? Then what is different about letting them roam the internet? The same view applies to governments. They should prosecute people who prey on children, regardless of the mechanism used. But likewise, they should no more try to censor the internet then they should try to censor city streets.	Ed Pastore	Ed Pastore vilfredo battocchia	_
link	Proposal Online predation is an over-reported, over-hyped phenomenon in certain parts of the media. On the other hand, freedom of speech is an essential cornerstone of democracy, without which terrible regimes can come to power resulting in untold harm. This is not to marginalise the issue of adults using the internet to trick children into abusive situations (be they sexual or otherwise). Clearly if it happens once, this is a tragedy, and if we can avoid it then we should. The simple answer is the maintainance of anonymity on the internet. Provided that you have an anonymised connection to the internet, and you do not give out personal details, then you will be fine. Children should be taught this in school.	canderson	Ed Pastore PhilippeS battocchia Meitar	_
link	Proposal To approach this question, we should first distinguish between adults and children. Children, of course, must have all the protection they deserve. Parents first have to play their roles, government comes after by education, at scool, at home, on TV and magazines, everywhere children should be educated to avoid falling in predators traps. for adults, prevention should suffice for exemple when someone is buying a new computer, the vendor should give him a documentation on how to protect himself from cyber predators. But if we need powerful action, we could think about a surfing license; we don't give a wheel on children hands so we should do the same with a mouse, what about the idea that like every one need a driving license to drive a car, everyone should have a surfing license to surf on the web ? Censorship is never the solution, don't touch to our freedom... Philippe	PhilippeS	vilfredo PhilippeS	_
link	Proposal The solution would be to create a service on internet, where users can denounce any pedo-pornographic material they get in touch with. With, on the other hand, the assurance that they are not going to be declared criminal for the temporary possession of this material (while they were downloading it). If this is summed with some prompt action from the police to stop the url where this material is being released, it would solve the situation, rapidly. It would be important that: a) the place is public. b) the websites are being closed very rapidly c) as soon as a website is closed the url of it is released. This would show that progress is being made, and it would give the strong message that this is not a form of top.down censorship, but a way in which the society is cleaning itself. On the other hand there are multiple accounts on how online pronography is becoming a serious addiction for many people around the world. According to Ten Keys to breaking Pornographic Addiction, the addiction starts when people are young, and gets worse, making people feel the need to have stronger and stronger pornographic content. From this point of view many people who are viewing pedopornographic material might be normal people who have been caught in an addiction they could not expect it would become that bad. So, giving the possibility to those people to denounce the very websites that are enslaving them would essentially enroll a huge number of people in the greatest internet cleaning work of all time. As the material on the net dwindle, also the addicted persons would be forced to look for other materials to feed their addiction.	vilfredo	vilfredo	_
link	Proposal Censorship is not compatible with freedom. If you give up freedom for safety, you deserve and get neither. It is not the responsibility of the government to protect the citizens from words and pictures. Sure children need protection, but that is the responsibility of the parents.	mbarkhau	battocchia Meitar	_
link	Proposal Censorship should not exist. It's parent's responsibility to protect their children from online predators... What actions may they take? Installing a proxy, for example, just like enterprises do to limit the Internet to their employees. Teaching them. Watch them.	battocchia	Ed Pastore PhilippeS battocchia	_