Protecting our children from the internet

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/05/protecting-children-from-internet-censorship

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Of course censorship is worrying, as is its possible outsourcing to private companies. However, Laurie Penny's hermetic view of "freedom of speech" (Comment, 3 January) ignores the "creep" of pornography which, through its casual, ubiquitous proliferation on the internet, acts to normalise it to such an extent that images of bondage, battery and rape are hardly seen for the horror they are. For the hypothetical young person hoping to find information on the web about sexual issues, Ms Penny just got it wrong. Informative, responsible and reliable information on the web? Worse than no information is biased, corrupt or exploitative information published on a web unmonitored and unfiltered and posted by any pervert with a computer. Libraries, however, are run by informed and responsible decision-making people trained to provide information that is not only reliable but unbiased, critically constructed and intelligently presented. Her comment about libraries having "no social or moral framework" is irresponsible as well as disheartening. Lucie Payne Sutton, Surrey

• Laurie Penny does not help us to know how to deal with the immediate problem of bringing up children in a world full of images. Surely the debate is now over concerning TV advertising and it is accepted that behaviour can be altered. Similarly, porn does alter our behaviour. As adults we should be capable of resisting TV advertising and using porn responsibly, but can we say the same of our children? I would be happy to have a "porn" filter, providing I control when it is on and when it is off. Just when I hand the key to the filter on to my children would be when I judge they are ready, much as I would judge they are ready to go out alone or stay out all night. Richard Bull Woodbridge, Suffolk

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