Digging Through Garbage (Score 1)

I agree with some of the points made here: If you cannot trust your kids online, then maybe they shouldn't have access. Teaching them to be careful when they search helps cut down on trash they may find. That's just wisdom.

Digging through garbage helps find trash.

I agree that a few years ago you wouldn't find trash if you weren't looking for it, but with the amount of moral degradation that has happened since then, it is often almost impossible to avoid it. I have a friend who likes to surf by typing in random URLs, he's not searching for trash, that's just how he likes to find new and interesting sites. How many times has he landed in a big pile of snot? I cannot even tell you, but he doesn't surf that way very often anymore.

I use to surf through Geocities much the same way, I would simply change the number of the address (this is when the addies were something like geocities.com/Area51/Hollow/9597), but I kept finding so much filth that I just had to stop. It's not that I was looking for that, it's just where I happened to end up.

Today there are also so many trash sites that attempt tp hide their true nature until you click that link. Even the descriptions are purposefully incorrect in order to draw more people in. Imagine my surprise when I was searching for a laptop, found a site about refurbished laptops (according to the description, anyway) and ended up at a porn site with about 10 popups with nude pictures! I DEFINITELY was NOT searching for that, but it landed right on top of me! The point is that it is now a lot harder to avoid garbage than it once was.

Going to the original issue, parents do have a responsibility to care, protect, and guide their children. No, you do not have to hang over them all the time. Maybe at first (face it, when you were a kid you did stupid things too), but as they grow older you should allow them more of the responsibility of deciding what is right and what is wrong. If you are teaching them correctly you won't have to hang all over them. I agree with AOL's censorship because some things should NOT be propogated, and my heart aches to know that they must sift through such garbage everyday, but much of the responsibility of protecting the kids lies in the parents. Those children will copy what they see you do and will learn your ideas and values. Our world is slowly sinking into a moral flood; it's hanging onto so much garbage that it is slowly sinking down. Soon, we will even be drowning in it, and all because we won't put the trash out.