12: Mihaela Lica on Safeguarding Children on the Internet

Tell Us How We Can Help

Mihaela Lica has a soft voice that speaks clearly. She is warm, thoughtful, and easy to know. She wants the message of Blogger Power: Safeguard the Web for Children heard around the world. This week, Mihaela emailed me and we talked about how I might help.

Hi Mihaela, Welcome! Would you me about the problem and the solution you proprose?

Hi Liz. As you know, there are many anti-porn campaigns online, some quite aggressive. I think the reason why these campaigns fail is that their initiators fight against pornography as a whole. This is not a solution. We live in a free world and pornography is a matter of personal choice. It’s normal; some say it is even healthy that adults are consumers. But do we really have to drag children into this world?

As long as the porn sites will offer free tours, free previews or other free contents, there will always be a chance that kids stumble upon such materials. So we think that the simplest solution is that the porn webmasters make it more difficult for kids to access explicit adult materials by requiring a login. The idea is based on a real world fact: porn magazines are distributed in plastic foil wrappers. That’s the “login” offline. We are aware that some kids might still make accounts, but not so many as see nowadays porn pages by accident.

Skeptics will probably see this as a small step. Others will say that the porn webmasters will not change their ways because they want to make money. But kids are not paying customers. So the porn sites will not have so much to lose financially by applying such a measure. On the contrary: they will increase their possible clients database. And that’s an advantage.

I don’t say this is going to be easy. But I believe that the porn webmasters of the legal sites will understand our request and work with us. By showing civic conscience they have a lot to win.

How can I and the folks who are reading this help?

If you would just spread the word. Talk about this initiative. Ask bloggers to address a polite request to the porn webmasters to determine them to “help keep minors out by adding a simple registration gateway” as Jon says. We welcome any kind of support except material support. No money, no donations! No tricks! Just words. Or images. I think any kind of support is welcome: even a nofollow link to the Blogger Power official website might help! We can only thank our bloggers by adding links to their entries on a special page. Artists may show their support by creating a banner, button, graphic… whatever they want. Those who don’t have blogs may comment on Blogger Power (we have a special comments page), on your blog, on any blog that posts such an entry. Every voice matters!

If webmasters want to support our initiative but don’t have blogs, they could place a support banner or logo somewhere on their site. We’ll link back. This is the only way we can say “thank you”. We’ll even link back to pages that support the initiative without linking back to Blogger Power. As we cannot monitor links in real time (we only count on Technorati) it would help if our supporters contact us shortly at bloggerpower@yahoo.com and give us the exact URL to their post.

So this is what we need: awareness. I see bloggers joining for “cool stuff” like Tino Buntic’s 2000 bloggers. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t join for something that could change the Web for the better. I believe in people! I do believe that we all understand how important it is to act responsibly, especially online.

Once again: THIS IS NOT ABOUT RESTRICTING ANYONE’S FREE SPEECH!

And one more thing: if porn webmasters understand our request and implement the registration form prior to giving free access to explicit content, we’ll give them credit! We’ll thank them as well. This is fair play!

Mihaela, why write to me? Why ask us?

You care for words enough to know how powerful they are. For me people who are able to understand and respect the power of words are also able to listen and think deeply about the things that come along, even by accident, on their paths.

So that’s why I wrote to you: I knew it that you’d listen, understand and help.

I also know that you are one of the most influent bloggers and I know that your readers trust your judgment.

Maybe “influent” is not the right term to describe your “blogger power”. Yet one thing is sure: you touch peoples’ lives. You can make a difference. And we need someone like you to help us power-up a campaign we consider not only important, but fair as well: Blogger Power: Safeguard the Web for Children

Thank you. It was your investment and passion for your project that caught my attention. It’s easy to help when someone really cares. It’s even easier when that someone is doing something ifor kids. Would you tell me about how the project got started and who is involved?

We are two PR professionals. We met online, as a matter of fact Jon asked me for an interview on the future of web design in January this year, and then I asked him to become my partner in this project. Jon Harmon is the founder of Force for Good, after a 23-year career in public relations at Ford Motor Company. He is the father of four sons. I guess that’s what motivates him to be so involved in this project.

I am Mihaela “Mig” Lica, a former military journalist employed by the Romanian MoD, and now I own a small online PR business. I am a Romanian native, and I live in Germany. My mother is a teacher. She is not Web savvy but she caught some of her pupils watching an erotic site during a lunch break. They didn’t do it on purpose. The link was hidden under an “innocent” alternative text that lead to a legal erotic site: Playboy. The problems were not the pictures, but the texts. So my mother called and said: “You work online, you live online. Do something!”

A few months I did nothing but research. And I could see how easy it is for kids to view such sites by accident. I know that some porn webmasters use tools that trick the software that is supposed to protect the kids against such materials. I know that many parents cannot afford to buy software and too many are not even aware of what really happens online. But we cannot just blame it on the parents and on their ignorance. We cannot just go around saying: kids already know everything about sex. That’s not true. Some know a lot, but they are probably unaware of horrors like sexual torture, orgies and so on.

I think we are in this together. I think we all have a duty to give back something to the online community. We cannot just “take”. We should make a difference.

I want to have kids one day, and I want to be able to let them explore the online world freely. Because this world is magic: it’s knowledge, it pulsates life, it means freedom and it’s the power that can carry you around the world and back with just a few clicks. I don’t want to be forced to invade my child’s privacy and control everything he or she might be doing online. I want my children to grow in a harmonious universe. At least till they are old enough to be educated about sex. I hope and pray for a safe Web, a Web that shows human values and keeps sexual lust out of the reach of children. Protect their innocence.

Thank you, so much Mihaela, for following your heart to change the world. Thank you, Ilker, for supporting Mihaela.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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