1- Script of Recording

BBC Nes Online: Sci/Tech
Thursday, 21 March, 2002, 15:15 GMT

New web controls to protect children

An internet watchdog has launched a new system as part of ongoing attempts to keep children safe on the web. Worries about child safety on the net are the number one concern for parents and high-profile cases where children have met paedophiles online have intensified fears in recent years.

The labelling system developed by the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA) enjoys the backing of some of the world's top sites including Yahoo, MSN and AOL. The system is designed to give parents control over net content by blocking access to certain sites and chatrooms known to be used by paedophiles. The filters can be sent to block access to nudity, violence, drug and alcohol promotions. Parents can download the software free from ICRA's website and can either opt for pre-set filters or set up their own depending on how much freedom they want their children to have.

Such filters have been criticised in the past by advocates of net freedom who say it is bringing unnecessary censorship to the web. ICRA says that its system is about choice and is sophisticated enough to distinguish sites that have educational, artistic or medical content. "We do not make judgements about what is good or bad," said ICRA chief executive Stephen Balkam. "Parents decide and they have a strong, legitimate concern about what children are doing on the internet." No filter system could be 100% safe though, he admitted, and such filters were not designed to take the place of parental supervision. "You wouldn't leave a child wandering around Leicester Square and you shouldn't leave them alone on the web. Computers should not be buried away in the corner of the child's room," said Mr Balkam..

BTopenworld is the first Internet Service Provider, (ISP), in the UK to sign up for the labelling system. Vice president Duncan Ingram said they were simply responding to parental demands. "Security is the biggest issue for parents. The internet is uncensored which is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. This is not about censorship but about choice, especially for parents," he said.

ICRA hopes to get the endorsement of every major ISP in the world and 50,000 sites in the UK and the UShave already signed up to the filter scheme. The filter works by persuading websites to place a cinema-style rating in their source code.

Online paedophile rings are becoming increasingly prevalent. This week two British men were charged with involvement in a sophisticated internet paedophile group calling itself The Round Table. The group traded thousands of images of child pornography over the net.

2- Summary

Skeleton summary

The reason the article was written :The ICRA has created a new labelling system to protect children on the Internet.

Main points:

• Children are increasingly at risk on the Internet, especially from pedophiles.
• Some of the biggest websites, such as AOL, Yahoo and MSN, support the ICRA's new labelling software.
• This new system allows parents to be in control of their children's surfing
• The program is free and easy to use. Parents can choose to use the pre-established filters, or set their own.
• There are detractors who claim this system is equivalent to censorship.
• The ICRA claims that their system is able to differentiate between types of sites. They also add that software should not replace parental supervision.
• Children should not surf without supervision.
• 50,000 sites already support the ICRA's system by placing a rating in their source code.
• Pedophilia is becoming better organized and more commonplace.

Most common mistakes:

• Often the date, the title, or the source of the text was miswritten.
• There was some confusion as to what the ICRA's new system did. It filters sites with inappropriate content. Parents can set their own filters, or use the preset ones. But, how does this system actually work? A site must place a cinema style rating in their source code. According to how the filters are set, the software will read the rating and either allow access to the page, or block access.
• Numbers. There were very few numbers in this text, but numbers always seem to cause problems.
• What is BTopenworld? An Internet Service Provider. It's not a website, although it may indeed have a website. An Internet Service Provider, or ISP, is a company that gives you access to the Internet, like Wanadoo, Free and AOL, for example. It probably offers various other services, such as hosting websites, designing sites and helping companies do business on the web. The fact that this company has signed up for the ICRA's system means that all sites hosted by BTopenworld will have to place a cinema style rating in their source code.

3- Opinion Question

"The Internet is uncensored which is both its biggest strength and biggest weakness." Discuss this statement using examples to support your opinion(s). (250-300 words)

Generally speaking, the essays were quite satisfactory. Most students attempted to write a balanced essay, bring in points on both sides of the issue. Those students who decided to argue for, or against censorship were able to do so convincingly.

Few students wrote essays extolling extreme views. One, or two students did not stick to the topic, but they were the exception.

Suggested reasons for censorship:

• There has been a rise in Internet crime. More and more criminals are turning to the Internet to seek out new victims and conduct crime both online and face to face. This can be dangerous for children, who are especially vulnerable to certain types of criminals.
• Some information found on the Internet is not appropriate for children.
• A lot of information found on the Internet is inaccurate. Freedom of expression is a good thing, propagating misinformation is not.

Suggested reasons against censorship:

• The Internet was created as a forum for freedom of expression. People who use the Internet need to be responsible for their actions. If parents worry about their children's safety, or their own security, they should take steps to learn how to protect themselves and their children.
• A lot of the information that is considered unsavoury is not actually new, or illegal. Pornography exists offline. Information on how to build bombs and similar activities has been accessible in local libraries and bookstores for years. It may be easier to find on the Internet, but that doesn't make it okay to censor it.
• The Internet allows people from all over the world, from all walks of life to share ideas and seek out information on any subject. It is unique in that way.