Chapter 36. Protecting Your Family’s Online Experience

Is cyberspace a family place? If you have kids, you might be wondering. One day the media touts the Net as the greatest thing since the printing press, and the next it’s the harbinger of the Apocalypse, an instrument of pornographers, pedophiles, and disgruntled loners.

Actually, it’s neither (and both). It’s a tool, and like any tool, it can be put to good uses or bad. A hammer can build shelter or bash a finger. I think an adult has a right to use the Internet any way he or she wants to—within the law and without bothering anybody. But if you have kids who will use the Net, you need to know how to insulate them from the Net’s racier regions. Just as you try to monitor where your kids visit ...

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