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!4 Years Old & Pornography

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	I do not think that 14-year-old children should have access to pornography. The Japan Today Forum at Criss Cross Publications allows 14-year-old children access to pornography on their forum. The minimum age for signing up is 14 years old. ALL members then have access to a section that the rules state can allow links to pornographic material. There is also nudity openly shown on the forum for 14 year olds to see without using a link. The nudity may not be against the law, but the access to pornography by 14-year-old children must be. Aren't there "adult content" laws in Japan that regulate minimum age? Can anybody do anything about this? Our children are especially vulnerable at arond 14.	Posted By: Cal 11/4/2004
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japchap (48 posts) 11/10/2004 3:27:13 AM	re: !4 Years Old & Pornography	profile
	Age may seem to be an issue when it comes to online content and censorship, but the larger question is: how do you technically filter out users by age? How can you legitimately prove that a certain user who accesses a given website is a certain age? A 12-year-old can easily lie online about their age... or a 10-year-old for that matter. Do you know of technology that exists that wil actually interpret the age of the user? The only way to even halfway censor any web contents is to stop offensive content at the client side, through use of parental locks, passwords, etc. And even this doesn't guarantee that a child with a halfway decent knowledge of the Internet won't simply access the web using a computer on which parental locks or filters are not installed. The bottom line is: when it comes to the Internet, you have to take the law into your own hands. The world won't change for us - we have to adapt with the changing world to protect ourselves, and our children, as the case may be. Of course, you can always try complaining to the webmaster of a given site if you find their content policies objectionable. But this doesn't guarantee that they or anyone else will change. - JC Edited 10/11/2004 03:28:22
Cal (2 posts) 11/19/2004 10:28:31 AM	re: !4 Years Old & Pornography	profile
	Thanks for the response. I completely agree with you on parental/guardian responsibility. Nothing can replace that, but what I'm really worried about is if a site does provide access to adult content, don't they have to require a higher minimum age for registration. My way of viewing this is that the site is condoning 14 year-year-olds accessing adult content, because of the rules on registration. Isn't that against Japanese law?

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