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...
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
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 ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bottom line
[ link to this | view in thread ]