Viewing pornographic sites inside cafés should not be allowed. Many cities and municipalities in the country already have local ordinances prohibiting the act with appropriate penalties to boot. Most ordinances provide penalties for both the customer and the café owner caught violating the prohibition. Penalties range from a few thousand pesos for first and second time offenders to shop closure on third violation. In spite of this, discussions on forums of café owners reveal that there are still some internet shops that allow their customers to open and view pornographic sites.
Worldwide statistics show that around forty-two (42%) percent of those surfing the web daily visit pornographic sites. I would presume that majority of these porno visitors do their surfing in the privacy of their homes. I cannot imagine a big number doing it in a public place like inside a café, but who knows if the low revenue generation had really taken toll on café owners so that they allow such misdeeds to happen inside their establishments.
The question of how the local authorities would check the violation of surfing porno sites by café customers cropped-up in the early days of implementing ordinance with such prohibition. There were those who say that a violation is committed if the authorities caught a café customer doing the act. A typical provision in the ordinance compels the cafés to have posters in prominent areas saying “Surfing Of Pornographic Sites Is Prohibited” but we all know that this is not enough to exact compliance from some hard-headed cafe customers.
The issue of determining the compliance of a café owner to the ordinance prohibiting the surfing of pornographic sites by its customers was resolved by compelling the establishment to install software that will filter or block the unwanted porno sites. When doing inspection, all that a local authority must do is go to a computer station in a cafe, type a known pornographic site on its browser and see if the site will open.
Some local government units even went to the extent of issuing list of porno sites that should be blocked mandatorily and use the same list when doing the inspection. The list is issued without prejudice to café owner’s obligation to filter or block all porno sites as much as they could. Pornographic sites are being created every minute of the day so café owners must be vigilant enough to see if some smart café goers skirt his filter.
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