Google Instant unsafe for kids

bhudman.posterous.com

1 point·bhudman··3 comments

I don't mean this in a stupid way; but that probably doesn't mean a lot to kids. At most it would be incomprehensible and they would ask someone - and at best they would just think it is a typo.

And likely they would only see it for a few seconds; they might get some results of dubious nature but, hell, Google is only mildly censored you run this risk all the time.

How likely is that to be a child search term?

And possibly the most controversial point; they are going to learn this stuff anyway. This is the risk you run leaving kids of whatever age to their own devices on the internet. Even mistaken innocent searches can accidentally throw up silly obscene results, only responsible parenting can really address that (without really commenting on what constitutes responsible parenting)

I think you'd agree that parents will feel differently about the level of censorship. I specifically set my setting to "Use strict filtering" which google clarifies by saying "Filter both explicit text and explicit images". An innocent search phrase like "i love to eat" now suggests that you select some other search terms. I myself have been coerced to a different search phrase because of google instant, so I think children are the same way - saves them from typing.

I agree with you about responsible parenting (which also differs from person to person). It is for this reason, I select "strict filtering". The explicit texts in that result certainly have not been filtered. I guarantee that if google finds out about this, they will change this result.

Life unsafe for kids.

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