I hope the CC moderators will permit this thread to remain in the Parents Forum.
I am not a prude by any means, but over the past week I have observed more pornography ads being displayed on websites where one would think they would be unwelcome by the website administrators. College Confidential caters to a large member base comprised mostly of teenagers under 18, so why would someone want to advertise pornography sites that require one to be over 18 to enter?
The banner ad at the top of the CC home page stated “Angelina Jolie Sex Scene.” The smaller text described the content as “nasty sex scene,” and “this dirty girl gets dirtier in this raunchy sex scene.” From that description I would imagine it would be X rated, requiring one to be 18 or over in order to view the content.
By contrast, CC uses a word filter so no obscene words can be displayed in a post. The rules for use of the CC site state that obscene, indecent, and pornographic information may not be posted. In addition, comments using sexual references or sexual nicknames will be removed.
But the ads along the left side of a forum page advertised a “School Girl Pajama Party” with a photo of young women in bras and panties. Another was a series of gyrating 19 year old “dancers” with names such as “Jenni16” and “HotPnkLvr” who is “looking for older men.” Of course, they were scantily clad, too.
The ad just to the left of the text on the forum gateway page discussing the services offered by Dave Berry and Sally Rubenstone was that of a young woman in on all fours in a stream. Her breasts were out of her bikini top and if she had a bikini bottom on, I couldn’t see it, but her butt was in full view. It simply said “Click Here.”
I am a proponent of Freedom of Speech, including advertising. And when web searches take me to sites with similar advertising, I simply ignore the ads.
However, I believe that such advertising is inappropriate on sites that are promoted for use by the general public, including underage teens. My office has a policy prohibiting the viewing of websites with material that may be construed as sexual harassment (displaying images that unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment), and, with these new ads on CC, I would be very uncomfortable visiting CC while eating lunch at my desk.
I believe that CC has earned a good reputation as a source of information for prospective college students and their parents. I don’t believe these ads promote the image CC wants to project, so I wonder why they have suddenly appeared. I should mention that these same, and similar, ads began showing up on Yahoo’s main page last week too.