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christian counseling today
VOL. 22 NO. 1
i
Content Blocking
Web sites and Web pages are made up of several
puzzle pieces. There is content that can be
seen on the screen and content that is hidden
within the Web page. You can see the text,
advertisements, videos, links, and images on the
screen, but there are also hidden elements like
layout and formatting details, colors of headlines,
and CSS files (style sheet language) that control
the size of the text which, together, make it
difficult to effectively block all inappropriate
content.
Word syntax can trick content blockers.
Recently, a national news Web site misspelled
an item in a URL at the bottom of its Web
site that could easily trick a content blocker. It
featured a female celebrity appearing “topless.”
By hovering over the image, the URL said
“topess.” The “l” had been removed. It could
have been unintentional, but it could have also
been a programmer who wanted the content to
get through a filter.
List Blocking
Another technique used in filters bases its block-
ing on lists that are created. There are blocked
lists and non-blocked lists, which can be good
or bad. For the good, we know certain Web sites
and pages are pornographic. When added to the
blocked list, these sites will always be blocked.
Non-blocked Web sites can also be created to
always allow them. However, billions of URLs
are created daily. Keeping up with these is diffi-
cult and cannot be relied on with a great amount
of certainty since more Web sites are created than
can be sorted into lists on a daily basis.
If filters alone are not enough, what steps can
non-techy parents take today? A parent’s com-
mitment to intentionality with their children is
much more important than their tech-savviness.
Free options abound for restricting what a child
can see online. Safe searching, basic filtering,
and account monitoring are great steps in begin-
ning the conversation between parents and chil-
dren about Internet usage. A few hours searching
for safe browsing tips and tools are tremendously
valuable to parents who feel ill-equipped.
A famous infomercial catchphrase is Ron
Popeil’s, “Set it, and forget it!” It is used to
describe how easy it is to bake a chicken with
his products. However, effective parenting
requires constant involvement. A “set it, and forget it” filter, blocker, or
other product is useless if there is no follow-up or accountability. Any
product, tool, or strategy to keep kids safe must also have a component of
involvement including honest, safe conversations. These get at the center
of training young people to be accountable and address the heart issues of
filling a void only God can occupy… not simply salving a symptom.
✠
DAN ARMSTRONG, B.A., M.A.,
is the corporate communications
specialist at Covenant Eyes. Prior to joining the team, he led the
marketing department of a public policy think tank and anchored/
reported television news for NBC stations in Michigan. Dan and his
wife have four children.
Endnote
1
The Porn Phenomenon” Barna Group (2016).
https://www.barna.com/research/porn-in-the-digital-age-new-research-reveals-10-trends/.