o have to teach their children well. The only protection that has a chance of working is to give their sons and daughters moral grounding and some common sense" (Rheingold n.p.). In America, minors can be exposed to sexual material in many media. Providing children with moral guidance is the foremost solution to the problem. However, at the same time that parents carry out moral guidance, Americans have to come out with some short term approaches to solve the problem in a more efficient way as well. An alternative to government censorship is the technological fix, which would prevent misuse of the Net and would have the same effects as government censorship. This involves the design of intelligent software to filter information. There is a rush to develop information filtering software and get it to market. One example of technological fix is the "SurfWatch" software, as described by Allison and Baxter, "SurfWatch is a breakthrough software product which helps parents deal with the flood of sexual material on the Internet. By allowing parents to be responsible for blocking what is being received at any individual computer, children and others have less chance of accidentally or deliberately being exposed to unwanted material. SurfWatch is the first major advance in providing a technical solution to a difficult issue created by the explosion of technology. SurfWatch strives to preserve Internet freedom by letting individuals choose what they see" (Allison, Baxter 6). The SurfWatch vendor intends to provide monthly updates to cope with the fast changing Internet. Also, commercial Internet service providers, such as "America Online", allow parents to control what Internet relay chat (IRC) sessions are available to their children (Cidley 59). Parental Control is a feature in many commercial Internet service providers, users can turn on the Parental Control function, and they will automatically be kept away from offensive words in IRC. In th...
