On July 14 I attended a talk hosted by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) where the speaker was Valerie Steeves from Carleton University. While the topic was "The Internet and Human Rights", the part of the talk that I have not been able to get out of my mind was a discussion on the sexualization of youth.
The context was Internet censorship and marketing to parental fear suggesting that their children be subjected to a corporate filtered Internet. The problem is that the companies offering "solutions" to these problems are part of the problem.
Early in the talk a pamphlet was circulated from the "Be Web Aware" campaign from Microsoft Canada, Media Awareness Network and Bell Canada. Microsoft and Bell Canada are tied through Sympatico (see also "Bell Canada/Microsoft alliance may create Internet juggernaut" and the BCE press release). Media Awareness Network is sponsored by the major media and software monopolists including Microsoft and Bell Canada.
While the Media Awareness network still has media education about being aware of marketing, including youth marketing, Microsoft/Bell often have a different message: hire our filtered Internet (a private "gated community") and we will filter out "bad content" that parents would not want their children to see. The problem I see is: the difference between what the Microsoft/Bell monopolies consider to be "good content" and "bad content" really breaks down to the brand names involved.
Valerie also handed around a printout of some images from an Abercrombie & Fitch catelog that included nude and sexually suggestive photographs of young models. Looking this up online you find out that the catalog was discontinued, but that it did exist. Given this is a "reputable" commercial company it is quite likely that this is the type of stuff that would be included inside the filtered Internet offered by the media monopolists.
Will Microsoft/Bell filter out overly violent and sexual material? One only needs to look at the history of what each company offers through video games and satellite networks to know that they will not. The major difference between the broadcast sex and violence from the monopolies and the "peer to peer" (citizen to citizen, many-to-many) sex and violence from the Internet really is brand control. With broadcast media a small few people set what is "acceptable" to society for their own private (largely monetary) interests, while with citizen-to-citizen communications that control in the hands of citizens where it should always be in a democracy.
In the daily news sent in email from Media Awareness there was an article "Sexualization of today's youth reflects society at large". Will having your kids inside a filtered Internet help shield them from content that some believe requires a higher level of maturity to handle? Sociologist Lorene Stone suggests that "If I could place blame on the phenomenon of the sexualization of youth, I think we have to look at the role of the mass media". It should be obvious that the finger is pointing at companies like Microsoft and Bell, and that they are entirely unlikely to offer solutions to a problem they perpetuate.
Part of the discussion was analysis around what brand marketing does to youth. You play games with brand names in them. They offer you gifts for brand recognition. These brands become "trusted" by the youth as someone that they know. These are all the same techniques used by pedophiles and other stalkers. Some believe, and I am one of them, that subjecting your child to "brands that can be trusted" will only make them more vulnerable to the questionable elements in our society.
I have always tried to advise parents about the nature of the Internet, including advising parents against believing that censorship or filtering will solve any problem. The Internet at large is one big worldwide conversation, and parents need to be involved directly with their children when they interact with media (broadcast media or citizen-to-citizen media). A parent would never hand their children airfare and tell them to "wander the world", so similarly they should never advise children to wander the Internet unattended. With these filtered/gated views of the Internet, or broadcast media, I do not see a significant difference: rather than "wander the world" we now have "wander the mall", which isn't any safer for our children to be doing alone.
Disclosure: I currently manage the Linux-based firewall and LAN/mail server for Media Awareness Network. Their other machines are Microsoft based, and I only support FLOSS infrastructure, so they utilize other support companies for those machines.
