Monday 23 April 2012

'Tis the Devil's work

From the Daily Mail:

As any responsible parent knows, the Royal Mail has introduced a vile new hazard into the upbringing of teenagers. It is inordinately difficult to keep an eye on just what they are receiving in harmless looking envelopes.

And lurking but a thin layer of envelope or brown paper away are vivid images - some captured on light sensitive material - of men and women in various stages of undress engaging in carnal acts. In a cross-party report published last week, MPs warned that a whole generation of teenagers was growing up with their minds affected, their vision blurred and their palms growing hairy - all caused of the images of depravity from which most adults would avert their gaze.

We’re not talking here about mere smut, but the most degraded and perverted sexual acts that warped minds can devise. The number of children freely accessing this material is horrifying. No fewer than four out of five 16-year-olds regularly see pornography in the playground or at friend's homes, while one in three ten-year-olds has similarly viewed images of this nature.

What a wholesale corruption of childhood has suddenly overtaken us — and with what untold consequences. Yet the response of the Royal Mail making this filth available online has been astonishingly irresponsible and even contemptuous. The postal service will this year give parents the chance to open all envelopes addressed to their children and to examine their contents. Big deal!

In any civilised society, freedom comes with responsibility. By refusing properly to police provision of this vile material, the Royal Mail is in effect making themselves complicit in child sexual abuse.

15 comments:

Ian Hills said...

Don't get it - Melanie Philips was referring to the Internet, not what comes through the letterbox. Unless you're referring to the Mail's recent centre-page spread of Melanie in a thong and high heels?

Michael Fowke said...

Royal Mail? Bunch of sicko freaks if you ask me.

Sarton Bander said...

Ban Mail! It's for the Children.

Graeme said...

is it time to send a shot of Zyklon B into the Houses of Parliament and all newspaper offices? Just to clear out the people who have led us into this pit of despair?

Mark Wadsworth said...

IH, the internet, good grief! What's that? Smutty images displayed directly on your television set?

MF, SB, yup, ban it. Ban photography, illustrations, maps, writing and the printing press as well while we're at it. They could be used to further all manner of perverse or criminal activities. Let's ban science lessons in school as well lest terrorists learn how to make bombs. And telephonic devices lest perverts and terrorists use them to contact each other. Official notices on parish council notice boards should be the only permitted medium of communication, that's how we managed in mediaeval times, isn't it?

G, nowadays you can be arrested and imprisoned for incitement to hate crime for saying things like that, so be a bit careful.

Tim Almond said...

"Well, it would indeed be preferable if parents didn’t allow their children to have computers in the relative privacy of their bedrooms. More than 60 per cent of 11 to 16-year-olds have internet access in their own rooms, as do no fewer than 41 per cent of seven to ten-year-olds.
But with so many children with their own portable internet devices of one kind or another, even that potential safeguard has now been over-ridden."

If a child from a council estate picked up their dad's keys, got in the car, drove off in it and had an accident, and the dad blamed the government for not doing something about kids being able to use car keys, the likes of the Daily Mail would have a fit about irresponsible parenting.

But when it comes to protecting their own kids, it's not their fault if their kids get to see some porn, but the governments, despite the fact that ultimately, what their kids see is their responsibility.

And you know, it's not that difficult to stop your kids seeing stuff they shouldn't. This whole "we're all too non-technical" is total bollocks. Set up an account for a child under Windows and set up family controls. 2 minutes on Google and you'll get the answers, or most friendly geeks will do it in exchange for a cup of tea (it also makes sense to have separate accounts for kids so that they don't delete your important work documents and can put a My Little Pony picture on the desktop). If you're really serious, buy a Netgear Wireless-N router with OpenDNS and it will filter everything.

Woman on a Raft said...

That's a smashing portrait.

Mark Wadsworth said...

TS, or you could just trust your kids? Either not to view the stuff, or if they do, not to go blind and become hairy palmed.

WOAR, thanks, it's an old one I recycled.

Lola said...

Have you sent the parody to la Phillips?

Sean said...

Its one of joys of fatherhood to be ordered by your wife to give johnny a talking too as she has found "something" under his mattress.

The smile, joy and even the relief last for days, if not weeks

Maverick said...

Stigler has correctly ...

Parents have the responsibility to monitor their children's device's as they see fit.

If you want restrictions on computers a) learn how to do it b) pay a professional to do it c) get a geeky mate to do it.

It can be done .. nobody to blame but the parents themselves.

Mark Wadsworth said...

L, no, I don't think she'd see the funny side. Worse still, she might call for the Royal Mail to be censored in her next rant.

S, genius. I'll do like you in future and if I have to hide anything, then under the lad's mattress it goes.

M, agreed.

Old BE said...

Ban the Tube too, while we're at it because people can use it to get to Soho where I hear one can buy such evil images in person without recourse to the Royal Mail or any other newfangled interweb technology. Some publications even have moving pictures, I hear.

Sarton Bander said...

I think I have a modest compromise.

Someone benevolent soul in the government could make every bit of mail get routed through one sorting centre where it is opened and checked by the U.K. mutaween to make sure it is halal.

In the meantime the outside of every letter should be recorded and the post box number it was posted in should also be recorded.

Tim Almond said...

Mark,

The thing I'm worried about here is young children inadvertently seeing porn. I don't want my kids searching for something innocent and for one of the results to be adult material.

That's completely different to teenagers that are looking for it. It's not good for them, probably, but it's a phase and probably not worth worrying about.