But pubs in this country are allowed to apply for children’s certificates: all the family can go. “Camra’s site is blocked under our code for beer, alcohol, wine and tobacco,” said Dick Gorgens, chief executive. “It was added in June when it was advertising a beer festival.”Mr Lowe responded, “We don’t promote under-age drinking. They thus impose an American system of morals – on religion, weapons, drugs, alcohol and sex – to data which British children might be expected to know about, or could obtain from newspapers.No operators of the above sites were aware that they were “blocked”, and all were mystified by it. Blocks are triggered by certain words – though it is impossible to find out what these are. A new and increasingly lucrative form of Internet software has sprung up in the past year – a reaction to the fears of legislators and parents about the perceived threat of “porn on the Net” to children.

Since last July programs such as Cyber Patrol, NetNanny and Cybersitter have sold thousands of copies. Some have distribution agreements with organisations such as BT and CompuServe. The makers boast that their products “includes a list of thousands of Web sites that are not suitable for children” and “allow parents to censor what their children access on the Internet”.
So far, so good – except that many of the “banned” sites include British sources holding useful or entirely innocent information. And the morality underlying many of the bannings is very American, quite unlike that which a British parent might be expected to apply.Among the British sites on the World Wide Web your child would be unable to access when using the programs are the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), the Prison Lexicon (which provides information about penal reform), the computing department of Queen Mary and Westfield College, Imperial College, the University of Stirling, the Internet connection companies Demon and Zetnet, and Telephone Information Services – which offers weather and share reports but not sex lines.Between them, the programs prevent access to tens of thousands of Net sites. I can’t join conversations about the latest rerun of Absolutely Fabulous, the entire trial of OJ Simpson passed me by, and my lack of knowledge of any soap opera you care to mention almost makes me a social outcast But I don’t care.

The online world isn’t perfect, it’s sometimes slow and often frustrating, but, given time and a little creativity, it can be infinitely more satisfying than television could ever hope to be My TV set’s staying at the back of the closet.. Unconvinced, she entered the forum and joined a live chat room. Two hours later she was still there, deep in conversation with two Germans and an Italian about the best dive spots on the Great Barrier Reef. “You know, this Internet thing is not so bad,” she declared.Our household has now been 16 months sans television, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it at all. My partner was planning a diving holiday with a friend, so I mentioned there was a Scuba forum that might be worth a look.