But Think Of The Children... Gambling!

from the evidence-please? dept

It's good that there's a group watching out for issues concerning children and technology, but it would be nice, for once, if they could stop with their fear-mongering misleading announcements. Children's charity NCH in the UK, which is good at getting publicity for their causes, never seems to get questioned at all by the press. This is the group that put out a ridiculously misleading story blaming the internet for child porn and then produced a very carefully worded study to misleadingly suggest that 3G phones were a threat to children. Their latest piece of artwork is a report suggesting that 11-year-olds are gambling online in the UK, but which gives no evidence to support that at all. What they did was convince one 16-year-old girl to sign up for a variety of gambling sites with a debit card and to lie about her age. She apparently got into many of them. From this, they point out that many banks will give out debit cards to people as young as 11, and thus, 11-year-olds can now gamble online. Of course, beyond convincing an underage girl to lie, the group also gives everyone the full list of online casinos where (apparently) 11-year-olds can gamble. Now, they're completely right that these sites need better age verification measures. However, stories about 11-year-olds gambling online should have a little more factual basis than a 16-year-old told to lie. Update: Even more interesting, tucked in the middle of this BBC report is the small detail that the "research" was done by a company selling age verification systems. Bias? Nah...
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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2004 @ 10:53am

    No Subject Given

    God the poor little chilluns' !
    Next thing you know, Susie Q. & her little school aged tarts 'll be down on their knees givin' head jobs for money to buy crack !

    " Think of The Children " ... as said by Micheal Jackson

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2004 @ 10:55am

    No Subject Given

    Think of the children is a catch all for anyone to use that ones to get something passed or outlawed that can't stand on any other valid point but by using children as their excuse.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Jul 2004 @ 10:56am

    No Subject Given

    Think of the children is a catch all for anyone to use that wants to get something passed or outlawed and can't stand on any other valid point but by using children as their excuse.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Permanent4, 28 Jul 2004 @ 7:08am

    Bottom line

    If an 11-year-old knocks you out of an online No Limit Hold 'Em tournament, you DESERVED to get knocked out.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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