Brussels, September 21, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education is calling for action to protect children from inappropriate content on the internet. In adopting on Sept. 6 a report from Marielle de Sarnez of France on the protection of minors and human dignity, MEPs said action was needed from politicians, the industry, schools and parents.
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The committee is recommending the creation of a new top-level domain name “.kid” (like .com or .org) with content reserved for children, which could provide a secure Internet area regularly monitored by an independent authority. MEPs said the Commission should introduce a European free telephone number providing information on existing filter methods and making it easier to lodge complaints with the relevant authorities or report harmful sites. This is intended to offset the absence in some Member States of such hotlines.
Other than pornography, it is not clear yet what other criteria might be used to decide what is appropriate content for children and whether the domain might be exploited to propagandize children to adopt progressive EU views on social issues. Pro-life, pro-family and traditional religious views, for example, are detested by many EU MEPs.
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The latest statistics, says the EU report, show that young people spend more time on the Internet than watching television. At the same time, there are around 260 million pages with pornographic content circulating on the Internet. According to Ms De Sarnez, information from some Member States (including Ireland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark) shows one young person in three taking part in discussion forums or chat rooms is subject to sexual advances.
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