From Family First to the FBI: Children, Ideology and Cyberspace

Abstract

The Internet and child protection are usually discussed as if one inevitably follows the other. This article questions the process by which children are constructed on the Internet and suggests that the ideological agenda of the organisations that advocate the protection of children must be questioned. In particular, it is argued that many of these organisations proceed from a view of the child that is based on a conservative view of family relationships that is not obviously in children's best interests. The problem is that these views of the child have begun to permeate the state apparatus, which itself polices the Internet leading to an orthodoxy that is difficult to challenge.