One of the main problems on the internet seems to be internet pedophiles using Usenet newsgroups and many forms of Email and communication methods to share there perverse material. Child pictures and internet videos of sexual nature are usually the formats used on the internet. On the internet pedophiles are able to lure children via chat rooms to a meet them so they may live out there illegal activities and this brings to attention the fact that children are at danger of being kidnapped, raped, or even murdered because of the internet. On the internet children are still being exploited but there are efforts to solve this problem underway in many countries.
UK Pornography laws:
(Protection of children act 1978)
-the act was passed in direct address to the growing problem of child pornography.
-basically there is not allowed to be any 'pseudo-photographs' (photo's made on computer software) because the police quite rightly believe this will lead to child abuse. And of coarse there are not allowed to be any superimposed child faces on adult bodies either. The police find it hard to distinguish between pseudo-photographs and real photographs so obviously it was neccessary to have both classed as illegal. Although there is no mental distress or physical involvement in the pseudo-photographs on the part of children police knew that there was the potential for the photo's to influence pedophile activity.
The laws also specify that anyone caught in possesion, distributing or creating images or any format of child pornography will be prosecuted for an unspecific amount of time.
How the internet is regulated:
The internet is well known to be hard to regulate as there are millions of sites that need to be regulated. There are ideas to have a governing body regulating the internet and so far all there is to regulate child pornography on the internet seems to be a few hundred independant organisations not specifically tackling the problem of child pornography and an occational visit by the police to ISP's (internet service providers) to find distributers of child pornography via Emails.
Limited solutions:
There are some occational V-chip advancements being speculated as a solution to illegal content on the internet. This involves embedding electronic labels in text or image documents to send out a signal to another computer. There is also talk of rating authorities which is fairly self-explanitory, this is an idea being considered in Australian internet developers. There is a need for technology now to deterre child pornography, all we have now is software like 'Net Nanny' to filter out graphic pictures or language on our own computers but obviously not enough technology to monitor illegal activity on the internet.
