I was inspired to write this as a result of reading some of the comments on SparTom's forum post but I did not want to hijack that thread so decided to start a new one specifically on censorship.

Personally I am not in favour of any form of censorship.  But - I AM in favour of protection.  Meaning - to protect those who cannot protect themselves or do not know how to self regulate or who do not possess the life skills to be discerning.

Primarily here I am talking about children. In this case I believe it is the moral duty of the parents to protect the child from that which could be harmful to them.

It's a big bad world out there - in some respects - and in particular when we are talking about the internet there is all manner of material readily available which even the most hardened adult mind might find disturbing.  There are certainly many things I have seen that I would not want my children to see.

But - can I stop this?  Is it possible?  The only way to completely avoid that would be to not give them internet access. But is that feasible?  At home - perhaps.  But of course then one must deal with the fallout of being seen as a strict and disallowing parent.  And as the children get older their resentment at being denied things that their peers are not denied will only grow.  This is not the way.

I believe the best approach is to be open and honest with children and talk to them about everything - to a point. In this way they are not only best prepared for the inevitable time when they do happen to be exposed to something for which they are perhaps not ready - and also they are more likely to come to you, the parent, to deal with whatever difficult or other feelings they might have as a result, instead of shamefully sneaking a look at whatever it is and seeing it as a dirty little secret or whatever.

An example from a slightly different angle - our local public school (as do most) has a subject called RE (religious education) as a part of the standard curriculum - beginning with the very youngest classes which here are called "Prep" and come before grade 1 (the next step up from kindergarten). The deal is that all children do this by default unless they are specifically excluded by their parents wishes. 

When my first born child started prep, my wife and I decided we did not wish her to do this class. The reason was basically that I felt fairly strongly that it was basically subtle indoctrination to so called "christian" beliefs - and therefore not an unbiased "education" - not to mention that the fact that they call it religious "education" which is not true at all.  True religious education in my view would be explaining to children that there are things called religions and religious beliefs in the world and so forth and that it is the individual's choice as to whether or not they wish to believe in them and so on.  But - to teach christian beliefs as if they were fact (which is the case with this class) was in my view NOT education but indoctrination - and I was not at all happy about my children being subjected to this.  And so we did not let her take part.

This was all fine - there were a few other kids who did not take part and the teacher would give them some other stuff to do when the RE class was on.

So - this happened the same with our first two children.

When my son started prep, we had the same intention. But as it happened - he was the only child whose parents had asked for him to be excluded.  And this meant that he felt very singled out and isolated and he was very upset about this.  So we had a dilemma. After discussing this with my wife we decided that the best thing for him was to allow him to do the RE class - so as to feel included and not somehow "different" - and we figured that whatever potential brainwashing or the like that might occur - we could deal with by discussing the issues with him in an open and unbiased way. 

Just to clarify here - I am not saying that I wish to tell my children that "God does not exist!" but what I am saying is I have a problem with allowing the school system to tell them that "God DOES exist".  What I want is for them to understand that there are differing views on the subject; that no one can actually "prove" it either way; and that it is up to the individual to make up their own mind ultimately to what they choose to believe in.

So - this may be a slightly odd example but I use it to illustrate that I believe the best philosophy is to champion openness and the idea of discussing everything with children rather than trying to shield them from that which we believe might not be in their best interests.

In other words I am saying that yes, it is important to protect the vulnerable as much as is feasible, but - it is impossible to protect them completely and so the best way is to try to prepare them for the inevitable exposure to that which they may not be ready for - by cultivating an open and honest relationship and friendship with them - which will make it much more likely for them to include you in whatever happens or to come to you for support if and when they need it.