HOw can De Lille want to mess with freedom of expression in this way? It is ridiculous that just because one person has written something that she and her party do not like she now wants to censor the entire blogging community. As with all cases of possible defamation and slander she is supposed to deal with the people involved - this is exactly what would be done if this had been in a newspaper. We wouldn't hear her calling for the entire print media to be censored.

As for MXit I believe that the schools affected are dealing with that as they should. And of course not enough can be done to protect children from paedophiles but that should not included persercuting the enterprenuerial spirit.

What bloggers and the media have had to say:

Amatomu search results:
http://www.amatomu.com/search/de%20lille

Afrigator search results:
http://afrigator.com/search/more/de%20lille/bp/ALL

Technorati search results:
http://www.technorati.com/posts/tag/Patrica+De+Lille

Google News search results:
http://news.google.co.za/news?hl=en&ned=en_za&ie=UTF-8&q=de+lille+blog&btnG=Search

You CAN'T censor blogs... its freedom of speech. If they start censoring 1 thing then everything will be censored... including your comments. If you don't like it then don't read it or do your own blog giving reasons why its wrong?
Use blogs to educate.

I really hope that statement was a once off bad comment and that you don't scare us like that again. I don't want people I vote for working against fredom of speech

Poor Patricia... she was outed as a TOTAL luddite on Cape Talk/ 702 on Tuesday night. When asked whether she knew about Wikipedia her answer was "No, Explain..."

Lets hope she keeps her great ideas about controlling the internet to herself in future and puts her time to where it is best spent - outing corruption and making a fuss of arms deals.

Linking to the SA Male Prostitute blog could land you in court
http://vincentmaher.com/mit/?p=378

Please read.

Before I start - I work for MXit's PR agency, Sentient - which may make you more or less inclined to believe what I say :) When you say pronographic material - I just want to make sure that know that it is not possible for users to access pornographic websites or content through the MXit platform. (Most GPRS enables phones are able to access these sites through the web browser though.)

If you are referring to the fact that users are able to send pictures to each other - please note that this can only be done between known contacts - so, in the same way that I can send an MMS to a friend. I can send a picture to a MXit contact. It is not possible to send pictures in the chat rooms.

Not sure if I have adressed your issue here - if not please contact me directly on sarah@sentientcommunications.co.za and we can continue discussions.

I have a 14 year old son and know the dangers of MXit first hand. Its a scourge that runs deep in the lives of our children and is destroying young lives and their families. That's bad in anyone's book and this has nothing to do with censorship.

MXiT should have an audit trail that allows users to be traced and brought to book. Ditto blogs.

I would never have had this approach if I didn't have a child and if I hadn't seen so many kids getting sucked into an underworld where they can lurk below parental radar. It's breeding a furtive and secretive mentality that is destructive.

If you haven't got a teenager you just won't understand this.

I'm ashamed now to admit I joined the ID... This woman can't be very clever....

To differ to agree here I just want to ask that people desist from labelling and answer the f...g question.

De Lille has surely given her points as to why she made such proposals and so if you disagree you must motivate your reaction and not just shout "censorship",OK!

I feel that a lot of the negative publicity MXit is getting, is originating from cell phone service providers as MXit is taking away a lot of their income.

I have two children and before they started using MXit, they went through R100's each month, purchasing prepaid bulk SMS cards. Since they started using MXit, they can talk to their friends for long periods, without having to rob their piggy banks.

It is your responsibility as a parent to teach your children right from wrong, where there can be dangers and how to avoid or get out of difficult situations. If you have an open relationship with your kids, they will have the confidence to tell you what they are doing and when they have a problem. My kids know that they are not allowed to accept messages from users they do not know and they are ok with it, as they only want to communicate with their friends, not pick-up strangers - that is what adults do.

If the government feels so strongly about these situations that our children can get inot, do something about the high cell phone and SMS rates!

As a counsellor I have an even greater concern about the thousands of kids who are becoming so addicted to Mixit chat that they struggle to put their cell phone down at all, waiting in anticipation to finger-tap 'chat' the next line. This happens during homework and when they have gone to bed to supposedly sleep, impacting on their schoolwork, as well as occuring when watching TV, working on the PC, commuting, reading and eating. This is an exponentially occurring problem and parents must wake up.

The children use mxit because they want to chat with friends,they also dont go with the rules of mxit.the children think they can chat stuff,cuz the parents can,t see what the children is chating and using mxit language so that the parents won't understand.

Instead of calling for a crackdown on bloggers, politicians should be enhancing democracy by calling for more internet access for the general populace and interacting with the people via the blogosphere, emailing or sms. I also believe that new media provides a win-win situation; African politicians (de Lille included) look on the bright side, if more people have internet access your campaigning can become easy and efficient, you can reach out to thousands of elite citizens aand opinion makers in a matter of seconds (e-campaigning), you can also get feedback from the people in no time through emails and sms's; for everyone else new media will enhance your participation in the democracy so embrace it! There is more about this on my new media blog at http://bexrush.blogspot.com

sHE IS LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE BY ENSURING THAT HER CHILDREN WILL BE BROUGHT-UP IN A MORAL UNPOLLUTED ENVIRONMENT WITH HUMAN TRASH.

aND EITHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT SHE IS PUSHING AHEAD WITH HER SUBMISSION AND JUST LIKE THE ARMS DEAL SCANDAL SHE WILL COME-OUT TRIUMPHANT.

IAM ON MXIT AND LOVE IT THERE IS A SITE TO GO CHICK YOUR CHILD ON MXIT GO TO WWW,MXIT.CO.ZA AND GUST STUDDY THE SHREEN I LIKE MXIT GUST DONT CHAT IN THE ROOMS GOOD LUCK .

You can't try and regulate everything. Firstly, we have the right to freedom of speech. Blogging has given us all a platform to launch our opinions and this ultimately, will help the marketing community, should they be wise enough to tap into it.

Secondly - MXIT? Nothing wrong with it. No one is trying to corrupt your children, they are corrupting themselves. Children are not as innocent as you would like to believe. Do parents think that children won't find another way to do what they are using Mxit for? They most definitely will.

In todays world of technology surely their must be a way of blocking this services on the relevant cell number. Kids do find a way of just re-installing afer the parent has deleted MXIT. I am at the verge of smashing and banning cellphones in my house for my daughters safety. Please let me know as we are well advanced in technology and parents must have some control feature made available.

Regards
Ernst van der Walt
South Africa

I seem to be in exactly the same position as this person. I have taken my daughter's phone away since Oct, and will need to give it back to her soon, as she will need it for transport details when she goes back to school. Is there a way to block Mxit - can someone please help? The only thing I have thought of is to get the service provider to stop the GPRS..... will this help?