the company warned against allowing private companies to manage lists of inappropriate websites

Yes, they mean private companies other than themselves!

I agree, it's not a good idea for ISPs to be the filter. Think about it, it could be your site that is blocked, and who are they to decide if it fits into a particular category.

Who is anyone to decide? Adult content on the Internet is much too readily available to minors. There must be some sort of controls otherwise more of this will happen. [dailyrecord.co.uk...]

If minors go into a newsagent the adult magazines are on the top shelf where they cannot reach them without asking. We need to create a similar structure online.

Adult content on the Internet is much too readily available to minors. There must be some sort of controls...

I agree that we need to help protect children from inappropriate content, but there are already tools available to do that.

The first option should be about educating the parents.

The number of times i've heard parents say, "oh, he's a whizz at computers." Yeah, and they have no idea. Come on parents, you need to know what your little surfer is up to. Teach them, encourage them, learn with them. It will be a richer experience for all parties involved.

No, i'm not keen on ISPs blocking it, including google.

There are many apparently non-adult sites where kids can get into difficulties, even sites such as facebook, or IM. Chatting to strangers can be risky, and kids are more easily taken in by those that wish to do evil.

Where do you draw the line at blocking? Everyone will have a different opinion, and if FB was blocked by an ISP there are some adults in the same household that would get upset.

Finally, you won't be able to stop them entirely, but you can make it difficult for them.

It mostly comes down to education, imho.

The first option should be about educating the parents.

Unfortunately people have been saying this in here for ten years or more. A generation of children have had access to this stuff and it is getting worse instead of better.

The reality is that many parents cannot be educated or just don't care. Many others (perhaps correctly) assume that the authorities will be protecting their children from published stuff like this.

The bottom line is that the kids can access it and unfortunately if the parents are not doing anything about it then someone else has to assume the reponsibility.

If it's not parents, who do you think ought to be responsible for this, and how would it be managed?