When Kids Surf the Net, There Should Be a Lifeguard

Not so many years ago, parents could view their children’s interest in computers with unrestrained joy. It was a new benchmark, a sign that one’s child had a serious and inquiring mind. And it was a plus that sons and daughters were safely ensconced in some simple DOS program at home and not out on the streets. The worst fear associated with the new technology was that a youngster might become addicted to Pong or Space Invaders.

Now, stationed in your child’s room is the kind of portable computing power that would have awed the scientists who put a man on the moon. It’s linked through the Internet to the best and the worst that the world has to offer. And leaving a child in front of a computer and modem without sustained adult guidance is a lot like letting them wander some unfamiliar city without regard to the bad neighborhoods they might stumble on.

We all know the dangers: sick adults who troll chat rooms in search of young victims; the lunatic fringe that spouts its message of hate; prurient Web sites that require a password and a credit card but still offer “free sample” images to titillate interest. And sprinkled within the usenet newsgroups are unconscionable sites that offer depictions of everything from extreme violence against women to child pornography.

There are signs now that parents have gotten a better grip on their own responsibilities concerning such harmful filth. Ninety percent of the California parents surveyed in a recent poll had decided that responsibility for controlling children’s use of the Internet rested with them, not with the government. Even so, there were signs that more catching up was needed. The parents surveyed were still more likely to monitor their children’s television viewing than their Internet activity. There was also a gap between parents who set time limits on television viewing (74%) and those who set similar restrictions on computer use (61%).

Congress and the Clinton administration have backed off from overarching federal regulation of Internet content. Their ham-handed approach gave us the now defunct Communications Decency Act, which amounted to censorship and an assault on free speech. Now, President Clinton wants a ratings system for the Internet, and that too poses huge problems.

News organization Web sites, for example, must not be forced to sanitize articles and photos on current events, and the Supreme Court said that the Internet ought to be treated at least as liberally as print (books, for example) and not ruled by strict conformity.

Again, parents need to be in charge. But they could use some help that doesn’t exist yet: advanced but easy-to-use software that would help them set their own limits on what their children can access.

There is incredible sophistication in software programming today: One example is the oft-played Central Intelligence Agency simulation of the crash of TWA Flight 800. IBM is working on an anti-virus technology that acts like the biological immune system, devising a cure and distributing it to other computer networks.

If these things are possible, then surely the computer and software industry can produce better Internet blocking programs than now exist. At the moment, such programs are relatively primitive, operating by bombing the forest to get rid of one bad tree.

The ultimate Internet ratings system is chosen and enforced at home, so the industry ought to give parents what they need to do it in their own way.