Some woman comments on my One Laptop Per Child porn story

Yesterday I wrote a story on Tech.co.uk about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. It covered the rather unfortunate tale that Nigerian schoolchildren had been able to browse pornographic material on the laptops donated by the organisation.

But then I received the following email, sent to the founders of the One Laptop Per Child project and copied to my home address (bizarre), Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and a local US newspaper. And, to be honest, I was rather surprised by the comments, especially those in the third paragraph - read them for yourself.

The well-meaning guys behind the OLPC project obviously didn't mean for the students to be browsing inappropriate material and would have done anything to prevent this. I'm also sure they don't really need someone lecturing to them about the mishap.

The laptops will now have content filters enabled.

-----Original Message-----
From: Girley Tegama
Sent: 23 July 2007 18:23
To: nicholas media.mit.edu; mlj joeinc.tv; walter media.mit.edu; jg
freedesktop.org; technology laptop.org; content laptop.org
Cc: editor reuters.com; email danielgrabham.com; newseditors wsj.com;
mboslet mercurynews.com
Subject: One Laptop Per Child

Dear Nicholas Negroponte, Mary Lou Jepsen, Walter Bender, and Jimmy Gettys,

As an African native residing in the United States for the past 7 years, I
am appalled to read the Reuters story of July 19, 2007 entitled "Nigerian
Pupils Browse Porn on Donated Laptops" showing that your organization has
enabled Nigerian schoolchildren who received your laptops to access
pornographic sites on the Internet. While your project idea is to improve
the future of African children for the better, this revelation is shocking
and a failure on your part to protect them.

While I have managed to protect my 10-year old son by filtering the Internet
and also verbally communicate with him about the pros and dangers of the
Internet, these children that are benefitting from your project do not have
parents who are familiar with the Internet world. Your organization has
enabled these children to babysit themselves on the Internet and explore the
new world without guidance. You are the remote parents, and have the
technical power to protect these children. Your team should have know
better, and in your initial steps addressed what the Internet brings to
these innocent children of Africa who already face tough times. You should
not underestimate the curiosity of children on what they can search on the
Internet.

For certain, life will never be the same for these children. Accessing such
sexual content via laptops will increase the spread of HIV/AIDS, erode
culture, promote child molestation, and increase child abuse.

Your organization should freeze any laptop donations until you revisit each
donated laptop and provide necessary protections to these innocent and smart
children of Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

Sincerely,

Girley Tegama
397 Panama Mall Rm 317A,
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

Cross posted on my Tech.co.uk blog