school porn shocker

What a shoddy piece of journalism. 'accessed explicit porn' seems to be based on the fact that they may have read a single word that's slipped through a filter. As for comparing the reading of a single word to knife crime is a ridiculous and hysterical comparison. Why not throw in a reference to Nazi Germany for good measure, and then whip everyone up with something to do with pedophilia?

What an ignorant, poorly thought through piece of journalism! This would be more at home in the Daily Mail than the EDP.

Yes, we would all like our children to remain pure and innocent for as long as possible. But let's face it, it's unrealistic to shut them away from the real world completely. Would you also expect teachers (and parents) to be able to eliminate any chance for a child to hear a four-letter word being spoken? That surely is just as bad as coming across the occasional word or thumbnail image - we're not talking here about them spending hour after hour downloading porn!

I have come across many of these censoring systems and the one thing they all have in common is that they are far from perfect: they all block many legitimate sites, and all let through some unwanted pages. How could it be otherwise, unless every web page was manually checked - and then re-checked daily in case it had changed? No, the council have - rightly in my view - decided that allowing only a list of "safe" sites would be far too limiting, which means there is the small possibility that children will come across unsavoury words or images. It is then up to the teacher or parent to explain why they are undesirable, just as they would if they pass a teenager swearing or smoking while walking home from school.

One thing I do agree with you on: the same responsibility extends to parents in the home as to teachers. Whether at home or school, there should always be a degree of adult supervision appropriate to the age of the child while they are using the Internet.

Shame on you Steve for this shabby piece of journalism. What chance do schools and the education authority in Norfolk have of a fair hearing when the "country's top-selling regional morning newspaper" can distort a story so thoroughly.

I can agree with all the posts above. I cant believe that anyone with even a small amount of knowledge of IT would think that its even possible to filter 100% of unsuitable content from the WWW. Such expectation is impossible!.
Being a bit of technomancer and a parent myself, seeing that there were only "25 cases in two years" is bloody amazing considering the terrible internet filtering options available for schools and parents alike. To say that they are robust is actually quite a joke once you get to older kids.

My little girl (5y/o) can quite competently use my PC and has on a few occations stumbled accross content that is not suitable for a child of her age. The best practice in my opinion is to "always" supervise a child while they are on the internet and should they come across something like pornography you can;

if its just a nude picture, explain that its rude and she/he should have some clothes on;

If its unfortunatly something much more explicit then explain that is something not for little girls/boys and that she/he will understand such things when their older;

...then swiftly navigate to the webpage that they were initially looking for.

As for words, well, a similar line of explination should be taken.

The worst thing I believe you can do is make a big deal out of it, that will make them "very curious" because of your own reaction.

Come on EDP! the context of this report should be flipped towards the fact that the effort going into protecting children is brilliant to have so few cases where the methods in place have failed slightly.

This really was journalism of the worst order. The fact that the EDP had to stoop as low as to put something like this on the front page really disappoints me.

I'd expect this of the Evening News, and of course the likes of the Daily Mail, but the EDP used to take a much more reasoned, balanced, approach, rather than just trying to stir up a bit of sensationalism in an attempt to sell some copies.

Your story, it's editorial positioning on the front, the comment piece, and your subsequent blog, show an incredible amount of ignorance about the Internet and packages that are inevitably reactive in coping with the content that goes up on the Internet every second.

Why don't we just pull computers out of schools? or revert to censoring like China? I'm sure the paper would be delighted then.

The money spent on advanced filtering systems means a school computer is safer than the one sitting in your home, or even your office.

The small amount of children viewing nothing more than a word, compared to the amount of children on the Internet at school day in day out, only goes to show what a success the council's systems are. It's a shame you've gone out of your way to ignore this fact.