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programmed to make them difficult to exit, referred to as “mousetrapping”. In fact, in somesites the exit buttons take a viewer into other sexually explicit sites. Indeed, in 26% of thesurfing incidents, youth reported they were brought to another sex site when they triedto exit the site they were in. This happened in one third of the distressing incidents.” (p.342). The majority of children who were exposed to material regarded such exposure as notparticularly distressing. However, the authors emphasised that such exposure, particularlyunwanted exposure, may affect attitudes about sex, the Internet, and young people’s senseof safety and community. By YISS-2 there had been an increase in unwanted exposure topornography and this was particularly apparent among 10–12 years olds, 16–17 year oldboys and white, non-Hispanic youth (Mitchell, Wolak and Finkelhor, 2007). In a sample ofTaiwanese adolescents, 38% of the sample had some exposure to online pornography, andthe study indicated that this was associated with greater acceptance of sexual permissivenessand greater likelihood of engaging in sexually permissive behaviours (Lo and Wei, 2005).In a study of Australian youth (16–17 year olds), three quarters had been accidentallyexposed to pornographic websites, while 38% of boys and 2% of girls had deliberatelyaccessed them (Flood, 2007). This study concluded that two features of children’s exposureto pornography mirror that seen in adults. First, males are more likely to seek out and aremore frequent consumers of X-rated movies and pornographic websites. Second, Internetusers of any age find it difficult to avoid unwanted encounters with sexually explicitmaterials. An example of this relates to some computer games, which may have a highsexual component. Such games may be rated ‘for adults’ but inevitably enjoy a high level ofparticipation by young people. It is also important to note that such exposure is not uniqueto the new technologies, but take place through more traditional media such as television,where broadcasting times of erotic and sexual material (for example, in the Philippines)may occur during times when children are likely to be viewers.One factor that may be of significance here relates to the controllability of exposure, and itmay be that there are differences in the impact of accidental exposure to that of purposefulexposure. Fug (2008) has noted that there are a number of minors who are surprised bythe content of the material that they inadvertently happen upon when using the Internet.Unexpected or partial access to material may be an important issue, and Hargrave andLivingstone (2006) have suggested that, “The newer technologies (including video butalso the Internet and mobile communications) allow content to be seen out of context.One may see sets of trailers rather than the storyline in which to put the content. Editorialcontext has always been important in content regulation guidelines (eg, the British Boardof Film Classification (BBFC), or the independent regulator and competition authorityfor the UK communications industries – Ofcom), but it may prove difficult to build intoparallel guidelines for new media. However, it is clear from research on children’s accidentalexposure to pornography on the Internet that unexpected and decontextualised contentcan be particularly upsetting. This poses a challenge for regulators” (p. 205).Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online |59