Kids grow up fast when computers are around. One evening, on the home computer, typing ‘w' into the Google search box revealed that somebody had been searching for “WWE Smackdown women v men”, which raised a few eyebrows, to say the least. Examining the browser's history revealed that the site had been visited that afternoon, when the debatable joys of wrestling were being aired on Sky Sports 3, when my six-year-old son was watching the telly, while Grandad was cooking dinner downstairs. None of us could recall the youngster mentioning Google, let alone knowing how to search on it, let alone getting the idea to do an internet search while watching telly. But it was clear that he had done so, nevertheless.

Everybody has got their own view about wrestling - which many children rather enjoy - but start searching “women versus men” on the web and it will not be too long before all sorts of images crop up.

All of this meant that it was time to switch Google to safe search, weigh up what parental control software was needed and, more generally, reflect on a lifetime of socially liberal views, whilst mentally drafting a letter of outrage to the Daily Mail.

After all, with a different cast of mind, it is pretty easy to be shocked by what can be found on the internet: revealing personal profiles on Bebo or MySpace (the latter is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times), sick and tasteless videos on the Google-owned YouTube and a panoply of explicit websites and e-mails offering Viagra.

Most people are comfortable with a pretty permissive approach, which is why there has not been much pressure for internet regulation so far - even if children can master risqué Google searches a few years before you expect. People may not like explicit spam, but they can live with it - and, anyway, liberals have also long taken refuge in the lazy notion that the internet is global and can't be controlled.

The reality is more complicated.

It is possible through legal action, regulation and attractive alternatives to make certain content harder to get online - and not just by adopting the approach of the Chinese Government. It is easy to say that the record industry has been hopeless in dealing with illegal downloading, but, in fact, it has had many successes in closing down a whole range of websites - and if it wins the legal battle with LimeWire, it will have actually got to the point where file-sharing is tougher than the legal alternatives of listening to streamed music via the web.

The mood is changing, too, partly as a result of government initiatives designed to promote safety online. The child psychologist Tanya Byron's review last week, and a Home Office code of practice for social networking this week, have the perverse effect of reminding people, particularly parents, that there could be a problem.

Ofcom, the communications regulator, produced nicely alarmist research that showed that about 2.5million children aged eight and up had social networking pages - and 40 per cent of these do not bother to activate privacy settings.

That's the kind of self-disclosure that so troubles the older generation but which teenagers, in particular, often find a necessary part of self-expression. (As one observed in Ofcom's research: “What can happen, nothing bad, it is not like internet banking where they can steal all your money.”)

Believers in light-touch regulation, though, need to recognise that, in this climate, it is easy to work up a moral panic. Television is highly regulated, violent computer games are age-rated and newspapers are long used to regulating themselves - but Google's “we only respond to complaints approach” means that content that offends will regularly appear on YouTube, with little warning. So far, that has not resulted in an overreaction: Government has opted for self-regulation, which is sensible, as people should be given the first chance to decide - indeed, Ms Byron's best bit of advice to parents was to warn them against leaving the computer in a bedroom. Although no parent can monitor what a child does online all the time, keeping the laptop in sight helps to guard against the hunter for smackdowns and more.

Yet the debate about regulation is not over - and will never be over. There is always a moment when easily held liberal beliefs are challenged, - both personally, perhaps by the discovery of what six-year-olds can do online, and more broadly, when something that prompts widespread, public outrage appears on YouTube or Facebook.

So those who believe that people can be trusted to make their own moral decisions should demand that online content providers constantly raise their standards, beginning now. And there ought to be a complaints arbitrator - to help citizens to deal with the internet giants when they need to.

— Global Radio’s £371 million takeover of GCap Media means that all four of Britain’s main radio companies will be in private hands. There is little point moaning about the price — it is a fair one, particularly in an environment where advertising revenues are slipping. Although Fru Hazlitt is a smart chief executive, who understands how radio might survive in the internet era, her appointment was too little too late. What isn’t clear is whether private ownership will be any good for the the enlarged Global, or, indeed, any of the other radio companies. At Global, it is not clear what Ashley Tabor’s qualifications are, other than the fact his father is very wealthy, but we shall see. What is unattractive is the notion that, if there is to be any more regulatory relief, it will be for the benefit of already rich men. The BBC may be larger, but the wealthy don’t deserve favours at listeners’ expense.

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