Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2000 10:59:02 -0600 (CST) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Manuel Enrique Garcia Cuesta <megarcia@intercom.es>, <pzouzounis@i-star.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Fwd: Fwd: yahoo clubs for teens pornographic Message-ID: <14854.58198.780116.947105@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <42378741@toto.iv>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Manuel Enrique Garcia Cuesta <megarcia@intercom.es> types: > === PATRICIA ZOUZOUNIS escribia > (Sun, Nov 05, 2000 at 03:54:53PM -0500): > > dear sirs, > > i iam a mother of a 13yr old son. one day i was looking on the > > web for some clubs for my son to join and i ran across yahoo's clubs for teens. > > i was shocked to find what i did. there are clubs listed there > > that no parent would want there children to see. some of the titles > > include: jack off buddies, teen cocks rock, hot lesbian teens and > > several others. none of these sites are password protected. the next > > thing i did was try to find a email address for yahoo but i could not > > find one anywhere. i then noticed that your company was working with > > yahoo. so i would like to know if you want to be affiliated with a > > company that is clearly and deliberatly making this trash available to > > our kids? does anyone in your company have kids? log on and see what > > you think. i know yahoo will never listen to me but they may listen to > > you and the other companys i intend to notify. you can also relay to > > them i intend to let every major television network in on what i found. > > will anyone ever start taking moral responsibilty?. > I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong: it's not > that FreeBSD works with Yahoo, but it's rather a matter of Yahoo > using FreeBSD. I don't think FreeBSD has anything to do with the > world's sanity, but the world's sanity has a lot to do with the > education we give our children. You are obviously a responsible > mother, but I believe you are aiming at the wrong target here. FreeBSD is a favorite platform for lots of web sites, including many porn sites. There's not much that FreeBSD users or developers can do to prevent that, other than not talk about it. Which is pretty much what all large companies that have an "adult-themed" cash cows do (except, of course, the FreeBSD group is a non-profit). Having waded through the clubs a bit, it looks like Yahoo lets people create boards for whatever topic they want to talk about. Sex is something teenagers want to talk about, so they create clubs for it. I'd say it's clear that Yahoo is not "clearly and deliberately making such trash available", any more than the local schools - where the kids certainly talk about sex as well - are doing so. There are sound legal and financial reasons for Yahoo *not* to censor the clubs created by it's users. I'd like to point out that gay teenagers in particular may well have no one locally to talk to about such things, and the internet has almost universally been lauded for providing such a place. The real worry about such clubs is that they will naturally attract pedophiles (who probably didn't have a place to talk about sex as teenagers). The best way to deal with that is the same as any other danger the world presents our children - make sure they know about the danger: what it is, how to recognize it, and how to avoid it. In answer to your question - yes, I have children; two boys. My goal has always been that they understand the world and make informed decisions, not hide it from them so they don't recognize a potential danger until it's to late. Personally, I found explaining sex a *lot* easier than explaining the Maginot line. <mike To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?14854.58198.780116.947105>