CONTENT CENSORSHIP FOR CHILDREN: AN ASSIGNMENT FOR THE NATION AND PARENTS

Recently, I saw a short video of a little boy aged about six years pointing a paper gun to a nurse about to give him an injection in defense. The video sparked a lot of laughter as it was very funny how the boy positioned himself all because he did not want a needle prick. But beyond the laughter and memes, how did the boy manipulate the paper to form a gun and how did he know the gun was a tool for defense and attack? Yet again, we should ask ourselves if he was handed a real gun, would he not shoot at someone in the name of self defense? So many questions to ask about that scenario that remains unanswered.

Let’s come to the regular smart phones that are as common as the air that we breathe. Recently I got to know that some kids hacked into a tablet that was designed for academic purpose and began to watch pornography on it. Thanks to some countries that have banned access to such sites. For those of us here in Nigeria, we have encountered several Applications that are loaded with erotic advertisements that pop up every now and then. In fact, they become almost expected whenever we launch some of these applications, creating an unavoidable nuisance to us. What if those erotic adverts pop up on the kid’s phones and tablets? Do we really have control over them? Thankfully, television stations managed by GoTv and DSTV have availed in their channel settings some censorship for ages like thirteen and above.

Generally, kids are exposed to lessons from three angles of the society: family, teachers and the environment outside of the aforementioned. Such environment could include to what they are exposed to, which may not be under strict supervision of parents and teachers. Parents are usually away from children during the daytime and once the evening knocks, they are often tired from home chores and hardly have time to spend with their kids especially for supervision. Children are exposed to social media gadgets from early ages of two and three.

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Children no doubt have sharp brains and the exposure to the social media and gadgets have further augmented and amplified their intelligence. Children are so smart that they easily learn what they see and hear with an amiable retentive memory.

Rather than be so judgemental, permit me to be considerate of the propagators of those inappropriate and erotic advertisement with the belief that they are also out to make some money but unfortunately, in a wrong way.

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The business of content censorship I believe lies with our government. If the government of Nigeria can put a ban to X (formerly known as twitter), then I believe content censorship especially of erotic nature should be advocated and implemented as a policy. If the adults would suffer the absence of the erotic contents and thereby save our children and upcoming generation, then it should be implemented fully.

Parents also have their roles in censoring contents for their kids. As much as we are in a digital age, access to gadgets should be under supervision and if possible, set or restricted to some contents. Frequent view of history chats and even a monitor away from physical eyes such as cctv should be employed for supervision and compliance. Getting things right begins from the unit of every society which is the family.

Thank you for reading. I would love to have your comments and contributions.