PARENTAL CONTROL

The Internet has become part of not only our lives but also of our children's. Yes, of course, one cannot discount the educational factor of the World Wide Web, which is an excellent tool for learning and entertainment. But we must not forget what kind of danger and real threats the global network poses. Parents and educators are increasingly talking about the negative impact of the Internet on the psychological, emotional and physical health of children of school age and come to the conclusion that the World Wide Web is more distracting than educational.

Experts say that today's children are at risk of visiting unwanted sites, downloading illegal software or communicating with strangers mostly sitting at a computer at home. The fact is that restrictions on computer use in schools are much stricter than parents' prohibitions at home. The administration of the school uses software preventing indiscriminate access to all sites far more often than parents. Therefore, due to the lack of parents' attention to this issue, children are easily doing at home what is reasonably prohibited at school. Just as parents do not allow children to walk alone in unfamiliar places, they should not allow them to surf the Internet without supervision and guidance. What can go wrong with your child if he browses the World Wide Web without supervision?

Meetings with unpleasant and dangerous people in chat rooms or other areas. According to statistics, this is the biggest risk. Teenagers can enter companies they should not have even thought of. These are radical political groups, satanic cults and network "orgies". Of course, these groups exist in the real world as well, but a teenager finds it much easier to take part in their gatherings at a computer at home.

Offensive, immoral content. It is not just pornography. Apart from that, there are sites dedicated to pyrotechnics, suicide and discussing the effects of certain drugs. Hence they might become interested in drugs, alcohol, smoking and other dangerous things.

A serious danger begins when teenagers are going to a real meeting with their online friends. The Internet can be a real threat as the child might meet people who have sexual plans against them.

Involvement in gambling. Even simple online toys cause irreparable harm, taking the bulk of the child's time, distracting him from work and relaxation, and harming his mental and physical health. Obtaining inaccurate information.

Children may begin to threaten people and violate the law.

Virtual sandbox

The fact that the Internet and social networking sites, respectively, have turned into an area for dialogue not only among young and middle generations, but also many young children is recognized by the Interior Ministry of Azerbaijan. Thus, the head of the section for preventive work with juveniles at the Baku Main Police Department, Huseyn Aliyev, noted that children's unhealthy interest in the social networks is increasing day by day. "Despite the fact that most young people use social networking to enhance knowledge and skills, some children, visiting such well-known websites as Facebook, Odnoklassniki and Twitter, watch erotic and pornographic materials, which adversely affects their mental, psychological and moral development," he said.

According to him, young girls, taking advantage of the lack of parental control, fall under the influence of the opposite sex and meet and communicate with them online. Ultimately, these meetings lead to sexual violence, and over time, these girls become victims of trafficking.

In this regard, proposals are being prepared in Azerbaijan to amend the legislation to prevent children from using harmful websites. The author of this initiative - the State Committee for Family, Women and Children - proposes introducing controls at the level of "accountability" for the sites underage users visit, and banning access to harmful ones. The State Committee believes that the owners of Internet clubs should not allow children to be there during school hours. If these requirements are violated, it is proposed that Internet clubs be held to administrative liability and fined. The patrol service of the Interior Ministry must look after this, according to the state committee. Moreover, this structure believes that it is also necessary to increase parents' responsibility.

If parents cannot control their child and do not watch what he is doing, they should be directly held responsible. This applies not only to the Internet, but also to ensuring that children do not fall into a bad company and do not get involved in criminal gangs. The Committee proposes holding such parents liable and fining them.

All of these proposals will be submitted to the Milli Maclis of Azerbaijan until September.

It's pretty simple!

Fines, penalties and responsibility. Everything is fine, but inefficient, and resembles the famous phrase "it is still quite in the air". You cannot monitor all Internet clubs and hold everyone liable. It is especially difficult to encourage parents to do so. There are more effective methods. For example, the most effective way to protect children from inappropriate content on the Internet is the Internet filtering system, which is known as "parental control" worldwide. These are sort of special programmes that are installed on the computer and block access to certain undesirable sites, according to the register established.

In Azerbaijan, the system of parental control was not used until recently. However, under the state programme on computerizing the education system in 2008-2012, Internet filters were introduced in the Azerbaijani educational network, which unites more than 1,200 educational institutions. Therefore, schoolchildren are protected from inappropriate content, if they use computers at school.

Also, this service was made possible not only in schools but also at home. Any interested person may ask his ISP to install special programmes on his children's computer, including in Azerbaijani.

That the issue of parental control has long become common is also proved by the fact that tools for restricting access to applications, games, and websites have been included in Windows software. These tools recently appeared in many complex applications for security, for example, Norton Internet Security and Kaspersky Internet Security. There are special programmes designed solely for parental control. If a few years ago, almost all of them were in English, today it is not a problem to find an application developed specifically for users in any language. It certainly suggests that there is demand for such solutions.