As regular viewers of the Britain’s most-watched television programme will know, Sarah Louise Platt has become disenchanted with her social life and has turned to the internet to find new excitement. Little does she know that her virtual friendship is not with a fellow teenager, but with a middle-aged man, and she is lured into a dangerous situation.
Coronation Street may not exist outside the Granada Television studios, but the dangers for young people in chat rooms are very real.
The episodes raise public awareness to even greater heights following last year’s conviction in Britian of paedophile Patrick Green. The UK Government, like all governments around the world, may face further pressure and be forced to regulate – but regulation could severely affect freedom of speech and the growth of e-commerce.
As you’ll see elsewhere on this site, the Internet Content Rating Association exists to offer parents a way to filter their children’s internet access whilst preserving free speech.
In brief, web authors add an electronic label to their site which gives an objective description of the site’s content. This is done by filling in our online questionnaire which generates a short piece of computer code which they then add to their site. Parents can use filtering software, such as the Content Advisor function built into Internet Explorer, or the free filter we’ll be offering later this year, to allow or block access to sites. This is done according to parents’ own decisions, no one else’s.
The system is designed to give you a lot of control. For example, you may be happy for your children to visit chat sites that are moderated – that is, there’s an adult monitoring the discussion and looking for potential signs of trouble. However, you may not wish your child to visit unmoderated chat sites. The ICRA system allows you to set your filter to make this distinction.
For full details of how to set up the filter in Internet Explorer, please click here.
If you’re a web master – perhaps you run a chat room – please click here for further details of how to label your site.
Coronation Street and the character of Sarah Louise Platt are copyright of Granada Television.