[pachydermic]

I think the argument (and I don't really believe it, so excuse me if I don't present it convincingly) is that certain materials are just harmful to children (and possibly adults). You have a daughter, but I think that with boys/young men you can point to porn and say that it's addictive and has a lot of negative side effects. In that case, it's not about protecting them from knowing about sex, but instead trying to keep things the way they were before internet porn existed (and the porn on the internet certainly seems different than a playboy or something). I think that's a natural tendency in a lot of areas and it may or may not have any substance to it.

As far as your little girl goes, would you really be okay her stumbling onto a site like liveleak and watched dudes' heads be cut off or whatever messed up thing is on there right now? I'm not even sure of how to answer that question, but I don't think it's absurd to think "no".

So I can at least understand why people would want to block this kind of content from kids. Did they go about it in the right way? Doesn't it seem like it would be easy to abuse? It's an understatement to say that governments haven't exactly earned our trust when it comes to technological issues.