I am conflicted. I never really liked Paul Staines' style but I am somewhat afraid of the impact of Claire Perry on the UK Internet regulations. I have to admit I would love to see him publicise the lack of understanding she has in the Internet that she is working so hard to regulate..
"We need to take control,” says Claire Perry, speaking as a parent. Far too many mums and dads are “ignoramuses” about technology, baffled by the smart phones and computers their children use, she says.
“Parents say they want to be involved, but the children have overtaken them,” she says. “That’s awful. We must be like the first generation whose children learnt to read and write, and we’re all blundering about like illiterate ignoramuses.”
(...)
“I am not a minister. I have no portfolio. I am simply a thorn in the side of everybody,” she says. “This debate crosses so many departments that it is quite helpful to have one person who goes around making a nuisance of themselves.”
Mrs Perry is chasing the internet service providers, search engine and social media companies to do more to keep children safe online, and says they are beginning to look “culpable” for allowing the likes of Mark Bridger and Stuart Hazell to view illegal child porn.
(...)
She praises the mobile phone companies for imposing filters blocking adult content on the internet, but they don’t apply when the images are being created by children themselves.
“There will be technology that comes along to solve this, but I don’t want to wait. Who is paying for the phone of a 12-year‑old? It will be the parent. We somehow have to get parents, carers and those involved in children’s lives to say that this is not acceptable,” she says. “Who is keeping our children safe?”
(...)
“Frankly, if we need to, we will regulate,” she says. “We have made child porn illegal and it still gets in. That means we have to tighten up, as we do with drugs. We spend a lot of time in this country trying to track down the supply of illegal drugs. It’s similar with the internet.”
(...)
“Well, my children hate being discussed in anything to do with my job. My 16‑year-old says: 'I can get married and I could join the Army if I wanted to, so why do you think you can read my texts?’ I say: 'Because there might be a situation in which you are unsafe.’ ”
This is not even funny.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/cole-moreton/10107771...
I think this is a fascinating quote, because the analogy seems extremely apt to me. Yet she somehow thinks this is a bad thing, as if the invention of literacy was some kind of terrible event, rather than a blossoming of the human intellect.
The younger generations are doing amazing things that the older generations couldn't have even imagined, but her only reaction to this incredible transformation is to say "That's awful."
She clearly describes the [applying the metaphor] technologically illiterate as akin to ignoramuses.
It's clearly not the benefits of technological literacy that is the motivator to preventing young children from being exposed to hardcore pornography.
If some people were saying we shouldn't allow hardcore porn magazines to be sold to children; your argument would be like saying those people are advocating destroying all forms of printed media.
http://order-order.com/2013/07/24/poll-result-86-of-readers-...