On Tuesday, three of the country’s largest Internet service providers -- Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications, and Time Warner Cable -- agreed to block customer access to child porn sites.

While child welfare advocates declared the agreement -- which would prevent users from visiting newsgroups with suspected child pornography and remove websites with questionable images from servers -- others saw the move as the first step toward censorship.

Interestingly enough, many of the same issues were discussed at a conference held in Washington D.C., also on Tuesday. The “Point Smart, Click Safe” summit drew together representatives from the education, child safety, law enforcement, and cable and telecommunications field to talk about ways to ensure children’s online safety.

What role each group, particularly industry, plays in achieving this goal was a central theme of the summit, and a question that wasn’t easily answered.

“There’s always a feeling that more should be done, either by government or industry,” said Adam Thierer, a senior fellow and director of the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Center for Digital Media Freedom. “We can always pressure companies to do a little bit more, but I think it would be crossing the line to clean up all content and the naughty bits out there. How far can you go in empowering (parents) without going into censorship?”

While all of the tools, ratings, and policies have helped parents and families in safeguarding children’s online activities, nothing can be substituted for education.

“But when we turn to policy, we regulate first and then turn to education,” said Thierer, who examined more than three dozen recent bills on online safety and discovered only two included an education component.

“Our government has spent money losing this stuff, when what we really need is an outreach and awareness building,” Thierer surmises.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor