ban internet chat rooms

If chatrooms did'nt exist then these sickos would still find ways to molest children. Banning chat rooms only moves the problem elsewhere.

But, critically, it's about access - and more to the point - ease of access.

If the major chat sites were shut, where would it move to? I don't necessarily agree that new upstarts would gather the same kind of following as the major chatrooms.

The innocent children would probably just speak to their friends on MSN, and avoid paedophiles - rather than rooting out an abstract new website.

The paedophiles would retreat to their shells and their potential catchment of victims would be reduced to a more localised level i.e. their family and children in their local area.

Again, shouldn’t this type of blanket censorship be the responsibility of the parent?

Why shouldn't the state take steps to prevent children from coming to harm?

Why shouldn't the state take steps to prevent children from coming to harm?

What of corporate responsibility to boot? Why do you think BT has made plans to block access to the major child porn websites and other ISPs are considering this too?

If the government, through censorship, and internet providers (at the point-of-sale) can block child porn websites and chatrooms conducive to paedophiles - shouldn't they do it?

Because its too extreme a reaction, by the same logic, the government should introduce a national curfew for children, after all think of how many children die in the streets not only from paedophiles, but cars, playing games etc..

Banning all chat rooms to target paedophiles would be like banning all web pages just to target the child porn sites.

There is a curfew for children (or is this only at a local level?)

Yeah, its in central london after 9pm in Leicester Square etc.. THis is a good examlpe, It wouldnt make sense to ban all chat rooms just as it wouldnt make sense to enforce a nationwide curfew.

No it wouldn't.

I'm highly sceptical of chatrooms - what do people need webcams and microphones for on Yahoo chat? Discussing the weather?

Because lots of people like to see each other when they're talking and actually to talk, not type. Hundreds of thousands of people use chat rooms every day for legitimate reasons.

You're proposing banning ALL chat rooms because a handful of people abuse them to try and groom children for abuse. How is that any different than banning all web sites because some web sites contain child pornography?

Both are blanket bans.

Maybe banning the internet altogether wouldn't be such a bad thing. If it wasn't for the internet then I, and several other young people, would probably never have seen pornography (of the adult variety btw).

What on earth is wrong with adult pornography?

It's degrading to the parties concerned; it makes people lose their willpower by becoming overly immersed in masturbation; and it takes up too much hard disk space.

It's degrading to the parties concerned; it makes people lose their willpower by becoming overly immersed in masturbation; and it takes up too much hard disk space.

The moral crusader and preserver of all that is decent. (there is nothing wrong with masturbation, its actually quite pleasurable)

If there were two things that I wish I'd never discovered - one would be cigarettes, and the other masturbation.

Luckily I've quit the former, and I'm hoping to stop the latter. I suppose it's fortunate that masturbation stops for most people when they're in a settled relationship.

What? You do know that masturbation reduces risk of prostate cancer, right?

Fertility rates in the West have been in steady decline, especially in the last 30 years. Increasing stress, poor diets, STDs and environmental pollution are to blame; masturbation is at fault too.