Today there are over 80,000,000 web pages with containing pornography or other unwanted adult content. This is a very conservative number and grows daily. This overwhelming onslaught of undesirable images impacts everyone, everywhere.
At home 46% of families say that pornography is a problem. Nine out of ten children between the ages of eight and sixteen have been exposed to online pornography (and the vast majority of these exposures came accidentally while the child was browsing the internet for information regarding a homework assignment.)
In the workplace, in the United States alone, there are over 15,000 cases annually of sexual harassment. Somewhere between 40% and 70% of women and 10% and 20% of men have been harassed. Many of these cases came from exposure to pornography which was either sent to them at work, or which they were exposed to by a co-worker. Employers can be legally responsible for sexual harassment against their employees and liable to them for damages.
Regardless of whether the problems are home or in the workplace, they can and should be dealt with...and there are effective ways to deal with this issue.
First, there must be a frank discussion and a clear understanding of what is acceptable for online viewing. At work, there should be a written policy as to what may or may not be viewed and/or distributed. At home, parents should discuss what to do when something objectionable pops up and how to avoid unwanted sites (eg. Never simply open a website that comes to you unsolicited from someone you do not know.).
Second, to the greatest extent possible, physical control over computers should be exercised. This is more difficult in the workplace. At home, computers should be in public areas in order to discourage inappropriate use.
Finally, appropriate technology should be applied in order to simply prevent the problem. The first line of defense, in all cases, must be the use of products which use "black lists" and "white lists" to screen site names and URLs. Black listed sites will never appear. Many products use this approach. It is a necessary but insufficient solution to the problem. It is necessary because the sheer volume sites makes it virtually impossible to check every site every time for unwanted adult content. This black list and white approach quickly reduces the number of sites that truly need to be screened. However, due to the very rapid proliferation of undesirable sites, these lists are always out of date.
The second line of technical defense comes through the use of products which actually analyze images on the sites. There are two approaches to this type of analysis. The first, and weakest, most cumbersome, are PC or laptop based products which try simply to estimate the amount of skintone based on rudimentary color analysis. These are slow and not terribly accurate. They are superior to the products which simply block all images...but only by a small margin.
The state of the art consists of products which use sophisticated neural analysis algorithms running on large computers in the Internet cloud to provide very fast and very accurate rankings of sites and images before they reach your computer. These products are available and typically do rely on the black lists and white lists as screening mechanisms, so that only the truly questionable sites and images are analyzed.
Combining policy, physical control and state of the art technology can go a long way in substantially reducing unwanted adult content in your life.
Myril Shaw is General Manager for Online Chaperone, one of the leading edge technology companies spearheading the effort to take back the Internet. Online Chaperone (http://www.onlinechaperone.com/) believes that everyone should be free to have enjoyable, productive experiences while browsing the net, without the concerns that today's online pornographers are causing.
Online Chaperone uses sophisticated neural technologies and a Bayesian, self-learning analytic engine to detect pornographic and other images.
Online Chaperone provides the G-Rated internet one image at a time.
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