The Knesset on Sunday, 28 Tishrei, opens its winter session and one of the bills on the agenda is that of MK (Bayit Yehudi) Shuli Muallem, who hopes to redefine the default internet settings from Israeli providers. If the bill is passed into law, the default setting for internet providers in Israel will be to have all unwanted content filtered, including highly inappropriate and violent sites. That means in order to access such web pages, a client would have to request the internet provider permit access.

Baruch Hashem there is widespread support for the bill including MKs from Muallem’s dati leumi party as well as from the Machane Tzioni, Yahadut Hatorah, Shas, Arab list, Kulanu, Likud and Yesh Atid parties.

According to the wording of the bill, an alarming 60% of Israeli children between the ages of 9-15 have already been exposed to pornography on the internet R”L. In addition, 47% of members of the this group have a computer in their bedroom, hence they are increasingly likely to fall prey to the temptations of the internet and/or use the internet without supervision.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)