Are personal webpage providers doing enough to keep us/themselves safe?

Wishfulthink

Hi

Sorry if this is not the place for this mods just thought it might be as people use there internet homepages for recreation. Please move if needed.

Firstly i have to say i never signed up to any/never use these personal homepages. The other day i came across one that I hadnt heard of before (not sure if im allowed name it? so i wont. Lets just say a major internet search engine runs it.) I have spent a few hours looking through loads of people profiles its kinda of addictive!! idle mind and all that. For this service i didnt have to create an account/profile to see other peoples profiles which i think you have to do with the other ones.

Well anyway to cut to the chase I found some of the material on there objectionable and very possible illegal, some of the profiles were even claiming to be illegal on further inspection.

Using my brilliant firefox i would up multiple windows (selecting from the little thumbnail images at the side) from the friends of a single profile and then do the same with one of those friends profiles. When i had a few open id start flicking through them checking out their pics mainly. To my surprise a good few of the profiles contained adult material. I dont have a problem with adult material or people showing themselves off or what not but maybe you should really have to create a profile to see these images. Well anyway that didnt bother much at all besides anyone can look at adult material anywhere on the internet and there is nothing wrong with that.

What botherd me was when you would open up a profile and go straight for the pics sometimes you would have a britney spears look a like (in her hayday and before) staring back at you in provocative pose. Then when you read the profile it is obvious that it is adults creating these profiles (using slang that i dont understand) and more that i do (unpleasant Illegal stuff). Alot of the time they are basically trying to swap pics with each other and make it clear what they are looking for (illegal stuff) . I came across a good few of these types of profiles so they werent a once off.

I remember the hysteria in the media over the very popular personal webpage provider in Ireland. I have asked my friends what they are like and i really think they are extreamly tame compared to this one. I can only imagine if this site was actually popular in Ireland how the media would react.

So what i am asking is are these webpage providers working hard enough to protect us the public from being exposed to this and themselves. Surely they could be subject to major lawsuits for hosting these things?? If they cannot guarantee that this stuff will not be posted should they be shut down?

Well thanks for listening sorry for it being so long!! I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Ruu_Old

Emm this could go under Security perhaps but I'll shift this over to Webmaster/Flash, some of the lovely people might be able to serve you better.

Rollo Tamasi

Wishfulthink wrote:

So what i am asking is are these webpage providers working hard enough to protect us the public from being exposed to this and themselves. Surely they could be subject to major lawsuits for hosting these things?? If they cannot guarantee that this stuff will not be posted should they be shut down?

Oh no!!! The Internet!!
Com'on Wishfulthink...it's the 90's man not the 50's :cool:

Wishfulthink

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

Oh no!!! The Internet!!
Com'on Wishfulthink...it's the 90's man not the 50's :cool:

Actually Rollo Tamasi its the naughties:D

Even in this day and age there are materials that are inappropriate and illegal. And i am not talking about the internet as a whole because you would actually have to seekout this illegal material there. I am talking a specific sites that offer a service to their customers in order to generate profit. They are leaving people exposed to this material and are leaving youg people vulnerable to be approached by some not very nice characters shall we say.

daymobrew

Wishfulthink wrote:

I am talking a specific sites that offer a service to their customers in order to generate profit.

Have you notified the specific sites about your concerns? They might not know about the content and might take action when informed. No one hear can change these sites.

Wishfulthink

daymobrew wrote:

Have you notified the specific sites about your concerns? They might not know about the content and might take action when informed. No one hear can change these sites.

I forgot to mention there wasnt any/ i couldnt see any link to report certain profiles. Maybe they should include these like they do with youtube and from what i can see youtube is policed pretty well.