[ale] Niece's laptop

[William Bagwell]

On Monday 31 July 2006 04:55 pm, joh6nn wrote:
>snip
> personally, speaking as a "kid" (i'll be 23 in a few weeks), i don't
> think filters are the answer for someone her age (since she earned the
> money herself, i'm imagining she's at least 11 or 12). ?sure, there
> should be safe guards in place for younger kids, but if your niece is
> smart (and it sounds like she is), she will defeat pretty much any
> filter you put in her way. ?i guarantee you that if she has not yet
> defeated AOL, it is only for lack of something that piqued her interest.
>
> the best answer will always be to simply tell her what is and is not
> acceptable, and trust her. ?if she lets you down, then you can act. ?but
> we don't like it when the government treats us like children: why should
> kids like it any better?

This needs a +5 Insightful :) My "kids" are 18 and 20, we have had Internet 
access for almost 9 years and never had content filters of any kind (other 
than spam). I have no regrets this was the right decision in our case.

Two situations where filters might be appropriate would be extremely young 
children. (Of course if they are that young perhaps they should not be 
using a net connected computer unsupervised in the first place.) And older 
kids who have *lots* of friends over who are not well known to the parents. 
(Probably not wise for other reasons, but I'm trying to play devils 
advocate here)

What I probably would have done had the later occurred here, would be to 
install a filter, and show *my* kids how to bypass it when needed. Then 
warn them to never bypass it for others.
-- 
William