August 29, 2005 4:00 AM PDT
Perspective: The Internet again in the political crosshairs
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As usual, the Internet is in the political crosshairs. The Family Research Council recently demanded that the Bush administration do something about the .xxx domain--a zone reserved for adult content and set for final approval this month.
The administration was happy to oblige. Michael Gallagher, assistant secretary at the Commerce Department, asked for .xxx to be put on hold. Now its future is uncertain.
The same pattern is repeating elsewhere in the administration. When Bush needed to appoint a successor to Michael Powell, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the president could have chosen someone to relax Powell's "indecency" crackdown.
Instead, Bush chose Kevin Martin, who holds even more expansive views of what's indecent than his predecessor did.
Martin voted against airing "Saving Private Ryan" on broadcast TV, and his candidacy was embraced by the Parents Television Council. Now Martin has hired Penny Nance, an antiporn religious activist, to be his adviser. Until a few weeks ago, Nance was a board member of Concerned Women for America, which has a mission statement of bringing "Biblical principles into all levels of public policy."
Bush's Justice Department has not been idle. Bruce Taylor, the president of the National Law Center for Children and Families who claims to have been responsible for the most obscenity prosecutions in the history of the United States, has been hired to lend a hand.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft was the butt of jokes from late-night comedians for his morning prayer sessions and his staff's decision to cover the naked breasts of a statue in the Justice Department.
But it was Ashcroft's successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who targeted adult Web sites by burdening them with onerous record-keeping requirements. Those rules currently are being challenged in court. So is the Child Online Protection Act, defended by the Justice Department and opposed by mainstream publishers including Salon.com, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and News.com publisher CNET Networks.
Expanding 'indecency'
Congress is becoming just as censorial. One example is a proposed tax on adult Web sites. Another is a bill approved by the House of Representatives that would boost fines for broadcast "indecency" from $32,000 to $500,000 and punish stations with possible loss of their broadcast license.
Now the Senate is talking about expanding that idea to cable, satellite and the Internet. "We ought to find some way to say, 'Here is a block of channels, whether it's delivered by broadband, by VoIP, by whatever it is, to a home, that is clear of the stuff you don't want your children to see,'" Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told reporters in March. (VoIP stands for voice over Internet protocol.)
Even though cable channels currently are not covered by "indecency" restrictions, some have been self-censoring to avoid the ire of the self-appointed morality mavens in Washington.
John Landgraf, president of FX Networks, told a conference in Aspen, Colo., last week that his shows are "rated, they're V-chipped and there's a detailed graphical (warning)." FX's lineup includes "Rescue Me" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."
"You'd really have to be blind and deaf to watch the shows and never know--we make it quite clear they're adult shows for adults," Landgraf said, adding that FX won't air racy shows earlier in the evening. "Even though technically we're not regulated and there's nothing the FCC could do, we feel that we have little choice right now."
Risk of collateral damage
The problems with Washington's new focus on pornography are twofold: It won't work, and it won't stop with adult sites.
Calling for a crackdown on sex sites through new taxes, regulations or prosecutions might make headlines--but it's just political posturing. Sexually explicit material isn't limited to the United States, and persuading the Dutch to pull the plug on sites based in Amsterdam is as likely as persuading France to endorse the invasion of Iraq.
The second problem is that antiporn laws are touted as targeting smut, but they end up being used to suppress unpopular ideas.
Victims of obscenity law in the not-so-distant past include a literary review with works by Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," the classic tale of "Fanny Hill," James Joyce's "Ulysses," and, in the last decade, comic book artist Mike Diana.
Indecency regulations are even broader. The FCC has ruled that utterances of four-letter words can be punished--a sweeping categorization that includes news articles, dictionaries, sex education sites, and transcripts of conversations between the vice president and a U.S. senator.
Technology including the V-Chip, white-listed Web sites in Apple Computer's Tiger operating system, and even the humble off switch are more effective ways to shield children from porn without collateral damage to free expression. But because politicians wouldn't be able to claim credit--or appease their social conservative supporters--we should expect more of the same.
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
See more CNET content tagged:
crackdown, administration, VoIP, president, chairman
But, who decides what is to be considered explicit, or adult, material? Is legitimate artwork that may have some nudity be considered explicit? I don't think so, you may or may not think so, but I know that there exist people that would think so.
Although the idea of having a separate domain sounds good in theory, in practice it is not so cut and dry. It brings up many other issues which one may not have originally considered. Consider the possible economic issues of say, (continuing with the previous art example) an art dealer that is required by law to use a .xxx domain because he or she may have a few pieces out of many that could be considered adult material. There's more too it than meets the eye.
Bad blunder on their part, great news for people's individual freedom.
If this were even slightly true, wouldn't we want a .KKK domain to filter out racism?
Please, please, please, make that little brain of yours confront this idea. Surely you can see, there is NO WAY that this would have **any** affect on reality.
Censorship does not work. Paying the government to pretend to do something about a problem that it cannot possibly do anything about using completely ineffective techniques is apparently what liberals believe in.
1. .xxx will no nothing to protect children from accessing porn online
(A) because parents that do NOT use filtering software now will NOT use it for .xxx either.
(B) .xxx does nothing but force pornographers to buy ADDITIONAL domains in order to protect their current web site example: www. my porn site .com often will own my porn site.org, and so on.
2. .xxx is an American thing and NOT supported world wide, although there are other country's looking into it they are NOT on board so off shore porn company's will still be on the .com landscape along with all the current American based sites.
Now here's a suggestion the Government does NOT talk about because there is NO MONEY IN IT FOR THEM.
.kids
.kids would allow parents to set their computers to ONLY allow .kids sites to appear in the web browsers when certain screen names are accessing the internet. The Government could regulate a .kids so much easier and so much more effectively then trying to censor adults.
here's another thought focused on the "Third Way" report being used by Senator Blanche Lincoln to promote her taxing internet porn sites by 25%, bill U.S. C. 18 S.1507 (which many believe is the gateway to taxing everything on the internet)
A Response to ?The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet?
INTRODUCTION
This paper is a response to ?The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet? (available from http://www.third-way.com/news/THE_PORN_STANDARD.pdf ). That report, through a combination of sloppy research and invalid logical connections, attempts to paint America's online pornography industry as the villain for lax parental oversight and the misleading claims of America's Internet Service Providers (ISP's). I do not dispute that serious problems beset America's children when it comes to Internet usage. However, the pornography industry did not cause these problems, nor can it provide a solution to these problems. In fact, by misunderstanding the cause and nature of the problem, we are left further away from a solution rather than closer to it.
This paper examines the four ?Findings? of ?The Porn Standard,? discusses the validity of the data underpinning these Findings, and presents alternate conclusions from the valid data. It also examines the underlying, unstated assumptions of the report, in an effort to mitigate the biases that enter into the report from its foundation. Finally, it presents its own conclusions as to how America should proceed in regard to the use of the Internet by America's children.
FINDING ONE
?FINDING #1: A large and lucrative internet pornography industry is flooding the Web and seeking mainstream acceptance.?
This is the least controversial of the four findings. The report states that online pornography generates $12 billion per year, which is probably close enough.
However, it also seeks to exaggerate the importance and influence of the pornography industry. It says, for example, ?Pornographic materials represent a staggering share of overall internet traffic; as much as 60 percent of all sites viewed on the Web today are sexual in nature.? The source cited for this statistic is dated January, 2000. Certainly, the nature of Internet traffic has changed substantially in the past 5 1/2 years. The Report, however, does not acknowledge that this data is old, much less attempt to show how the quoted percent would have changed in that time. Likewise, the Report says, ?As a result, the two largest purchasers of bandwidth are companies in the adult entertainment industry.? This statement is based on data from 2002. Again, it seems unlikely that the number is still valid.
What is not in dispute is that online pornography is a large and growing industry. For the industry itself, of course, this is good news. The Report, however, presents this growth in ominous terms, stating, for instance, that the industry has a lobbying group whose activities ?are similar to the tobacco lobby, except that their sole purpose is to protect pornography and pornographers.? The Report does not specify how pornography and tobacco are similar, or how they are different from, say, the florists' lobbying group. Rather, it just leaves the connection between pornography and tobacco hanging in the air.
The Report also makes much of pornography's mainstream acceptance, and concludes, ?Like it or not, the internet pornography industry is now a towering presence on America?s economic, political, and cultural landscape.?
What is underlying these statements is a feeling that pornography is undesirable. Certainly, some people may not find pornography appealing to themselves personally. However, many people, apparently, do find pornography appealing. The industry did not generate revenues of $12 billion by itself. For every dollar the industry takes in, that dollar must have been spent by someone. Whether the industry has 12 customers spending $1 billion earch, or has 120 million customers spending $100 each, the money is coming from somewhere.
The pornography industry is, therefore, providing products and services for which people are willing to pay. That the industry continues to grow leads to the conclusion that more and more people are deciding that it is acceptable to acknowledge that porngraphy is desirable and enjoyable. The United States has always had an undercurrent that pornography, and even sexuality itself, is undesirable and ?evil.? While the industry may not share that view, it certainly admits that others may feel that way. ?The Porn Standard,? however, would be more honest if it explicitly stated its feelings toward pornography, and sexuality, and provided reasoning for the reader to decide whether or not to share the Report's feelings.
In sum, the finding that Internet pornography is growing and is finding ?mainstream acceptance? is true. I feel that this growth and acceptance signals that more people are accepting and enjoying their own sexuality, which is positive. Apparently, the Report sees it otherwise, but is not willing to say so explicitly.
FINDING TWO
?Finding #2: Because of easy access and inadequate age verification systems, children are among the main viewers of internet pornography.?
This is where the Report starts to run into trouble. The finding says, in part, ?children are among the main viewers of internet pornography.?
The text of the Report says, ?The largest group of viewers of internet pornography are youth 12-17 years of age.? The Report footnotes this statement with four references. One of the references is from 1999. Internet usage data that is six years old has no relevance today. Another cited source is from 2001, four years ago, and still outdated. The third reference points to http://www.nationalcoaltion.org/. This is the website for the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families, whose ?Vision? is, ?To move the people of God to embrace, live out and defend the biblical truth of sexuality.? The National Coalition devotes a page of its website to various statistics (http://www.nationalcoalition.org/), and among these statistics is, ?The largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12-17 age group.? For its source for this statistic, The National Coalition points to ?Internet Pornography Statistics. Internet Filter Review, 2004.? It turns out that this page can be found at http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/.
Internet Filter Review is a subdomain of the domain http://www.toptenreviews.com. Top Ten Reviews is in the business of reviewing computer software. The Internet Filter Review looks at parental filters for Internet traffic. It does, in fact, have a page devoted to statistics about Internet pornography. Unfortunately, Internet Filter Review does not have any source listed for its data. That is, the site asserts a number of facts, but provides no mechanism for anyone else to check the validity of its facts.
Even worse, the site has a (hidden) conflict of interest. Not only does Internet Filter Review rate software, it has links for buying the software. Of the nine available filtering packages, Internet Filter Review has affiliate status for eight of those programs. (The exception is the fifth-rated package.) In other words, Internet Filter Review has a financial stake in people buying the software that it reviews. So, the more people it scares into buying software, the better it is for Internet Filter Review. It does not, by the way, explicitly disclose this policy anywhere that I could see.
Finally, it is worth noting the change in wording. ?The Porn Standard? uses the term ?viewers.? Internet Filter Review uses the word ?consumer.? Perhaps the difference is insignificant, but, to me, consumer implies someone who is actually buying and paying for a product. It is ludicrous to think that 12 to 17 year olds are the largest group of buyers of Internet pornography. Unfortunately, ?The Porn Standard? repeatedly quotes statistics that derive, either directly or indirectly, from Internet Filter Review.
The fourth reference in the footnote is an article by Bella English from The Boston Globe. Within the text of the article is the claim, ?children between ages 12 and 17 constitute the largest group of viewers of online porn,? although the article does not specifically cite the origin of this fact. At the end of the article are references for a number of facts, one of which is ?The largest consumer of Internet porn is kids between the ages 12 and 17.? Sound familiar? The source cited for this statement is ?Family Safe Media? (http://www.familysafemedia.com). Family Safe Media has their own page of statistics at http://www.familysafemedia.com/. Among their statistics is ?Largest consumer of Internet pornography 12-17 age group.? At the bottom of the page, Family Safe Media states, ?Content provided by Internet Filter Review,? with a link to the site.
To sum up, the statement that children are or ?are among? the largest viewers (or consumers) of Internet pornography is not substantiated at all.
Undaunted, however, ?The Porn Standard? presses on, throwing out statistics that are either invalid (from Internet Filter Review, again), outdated (a Kaiser Family Foundation report from 2001), or irrelevant (a report from the United Kingdom on Internet usage of ?9 ? 19 year olds,? without noting that in the United States 18 and 19 year olds can quite legitimately view whatever they wish on the Internet).
The Report then presents its concept of the problem, and a proposed solution. The problem, says the Report, is that online pornography sites do not have effective age verification software. The solution is to mandate that all online pornography sites use software that will check the user's identity against a database of all government issued ID's to verify that the user is old enough to view pornographic material.
However, this alleged problem and the proposed solution are fundamentally flawed. In all of the statistics that the Report cites, nowhere does anyone ask the question of where it is that children are viewing pornography on the Internet. American commercial online pornography sites are not, by any means, the origin of all pornography on the Internet. Pornography is available from foreign-based commercial sites, from peer-to-peer networks, from Usenet newsgroups, and from individuals who post pictures and videos for free and without any plan for collecting money. Even if American commercial pornography sites used an unbreakable age verification system, children would still be exposed to a flood of pornographic pictures and videos.
?The Porn Standard? keeps hammering that online pornography sites should be subject to the same types of standards that rule ?brick and mortar? establishments. To me, this indicates a clear inability to recognize that the Internet is fundamentally different from the ?brick and mortar? world. Nowhere does the Report acknowledge the international reach of the Internet. Nowhere within its proposed solution does the Report suggest how American sites could accommodate visitors from foreign countries who do not have American issued identification. Nowhere does the Report admit that hampering American sites will not reduce pornography on the Internet, but instead drive the revenues to other countries.
Instead, the Report suggests a draconian regime in which every visit (not purchase, but just visit) to an American pornography site can be traced by government-issued ID. Clearly, the Report either totally misunderstands the harmful effects of its solution for the online pornography industry, or it understands these effects and is cynically using a call to ?protect children? in order to further an other, hidden agenda.
The Report also fails to address the technical feasibility of its proposal. Rather, it confidently asserts, ?Anyone interested enough in child protection to conduct a cursory Google search for 'Online Age Verification Software' will find links to no less than seven AVS providers.? I performed such a cursory search, asking Google to find the phrase ?Online Age Verification Software.? The only result returned was a link to the Report itself. The reader is invited to try this experiment personally.
FINDING THREE
?Finding #3: Elements of the industry directly target children for viewing online pornographny and for performing illegal acts in pornographic videos.?
The third ?Finding? raises two issues: First, that the pornography industry targets children as customers; second, that the Internet has facilitated a rise in visual depictions of child sexual abuse.
As evidence of the first issue, the Report cites the case of John Zuccarini, which the Report calls ?recent,? even though he was arrested in September, 2003, pled guilty in December, 2003, and was sentenced to federal prison in February, 2004. Zuccarini ran a ?typosquatting? scam, registering domain names that were near misspellings of common web sites, and collecting fees from advertisers for sending traffic to their sites. The Report, however, leaves out several crucial details.
Zuccarini registered 5,500 domain names. While many of these were misspellings of popular children's websites, many were misspellings of non-child sites, such as The Wall Street Journal or Victoria's Secret. Zuccarini was not targeting children, he was targeting popular web sites, and some children's web sites were among these.
Second, Zuccarini was arrested under a law that had taken effect in April, 2003, only 5 months before his arrest.
Third, the Report fails to mention that Zuccarini was sending surfers to any sponsor that would pay him for clicks. He was not a part of the American online pornography industry, but was scamming both the industry along and other sponsors.
The Report also fails to mention that the payment model that Zucarrini took advantage of is no longer used, specifically because of fraudulent abuse of the system.
Finally, the Report mentions only Zuccarini in this regard. If this tactic has been used by anyone since 2003, the Report is silent on it. Because the Report is generally aggressive in its tone, it would seem fair to conclude that the Report could not find a similar case since 2003.
The Report then turns to pedophiles using the Internet to distribute visual depictions of child sexual abuse. Despite the libelous implications of the ?Finding? statement, the Report does not make a direct link between pedophiles and the online pornography industry (because there is none). However, it also does not state that the industry abhors child sexual abuse and funds the Association of Sites Advancing Child Protection (http://www.asacp.org). ASACP is specifically permitted by the FBI to receive and investigate charges of depictions of child sexual abuse and turn its findings over to the FBI.
The Report also fails to suggest how its proposal of age verification software will have any effect on this problem. Child sexual abuse is illegal. Visual depictions of child sexual abuse are illegal. People involved in child sexual abuse know this. Does the author of the Report think that pedophiles, while running illegal web sites, will put age verification software at the entrance to their sites? Quite the contrary. Anyone attempting to lure children via the Internet will strictly avoid anything that could possibly deter children from their sites. Age verification software, by increasing the false sense of security that the Internet is ?safe? only plays into the hands of the criminals who are attempting to attract children.
Even worse, the Report pointedly ignores that child sexual abuse is an international problem. It goes into some detail discussing the case of Thomas Reedy. (Curiously, it again uses the word ?recent,? even though Reedy was sentenced in 2000.) The Report accurately states that Reedy was from Texas. However, it fails to disclose that his co-conspirators operated out of Indonesia and Russia. Nor does the Report mention that Reedy had customers in 60 different countries. Finally, the Report quotes an official in the case as saying, ?We are now receiving 80-85 new reports per week about pay-per-view child porn websites ? I?m absolutely certain that one of the reasons we?re seeing the growth is precisely because, following [Reedy?s] case, criminals from all over the world realize how much money there is to be made in it.? What the Report eliminated by way of the ellipsis is, ?nearly all of them housed in eastern Europe, Russia, the Ukraine and in different countries in South-east Asia.? Trying to pretend that this is a strictly American problem, with a strictly American solution, is irresponsible.
FINDING FOUR
?Finding #4: Children are viewing online pornography and being solicited by sexual predators without the knowledge of their parents.?
The Report's attack against the online pornography industry reaches full force in the fourth, and final, finding. The Report states, ?Parents are fighting a losing battle today against online pornographers....? The online pornographers, however, do not see this as a battle. Rather, the industry would prefer that children avoid pornography sites.
The Report continues, ?Pornography is now available to children via wireless devices?anywhere, anytime technologies that are difficult if not impossible for parents to monitor, filter or track. Teenagers now have access to wireless internet laptops, BlackBerries, two-way pagers, camera phones, instant messenger, and chat rooms.? Of course, a ?wireless internet laptop? is just a computer, and has the same capabilities and restrictions as a computer sitting in the family living room. The Report also fails to provide any idea about the kind of pornography that the industry furnishes over BlackBerries, two-way pagers, instant messenger, and chat rooms. These are text devices. As for cell phones, the Report quotes The Wall Street Journal, ?Most parents are not aware the technology exists that allows kids to receive files on cell phones.? And yet, whose fault is that? Does it belong to the parents, who do not know what they are giving their children? Does it belong to the cell phone companies, who are pushing products without explaining the risks? If the online pornography industry issued alerts about the dangers of cell phones, would anyone even listen?
The Report then turns its attention to filtering software. Rather than acknowledging the role that filtering software can play in an overall strategy to keep children safe, it emphasizes the negative. ?Consumer Reports recently reviewed eleven popular brands of blocking software, and none were found to be 100% effective. None received an 'excellent' rating. Only three of the eleven received a 'very good' rating.? This, however, is a distortion of the actual findings of Consumer Reports. What the review actually says is, ?All of the products tested were very good or excellent at blocking pornography....The worst performer blocked 88 percent, enough to serve as an obstacle, but not impervious to a persistent teen.? However, Consumer Reports continues, ?The filters had a tough time blocking hate sites and those advocating illegal drug use, violence, and weapons-making.?
?The Porn Standard? then goes on to cite an outdated (2001) Kaiser Family Foundation survey, ?60% of 15-24 year olds either know how to get around blocking software or know someone else who can show them how to get around it.? But, of course, is the intent to block the Internet for 24 year olds?
And as for the younger children who can get around filters, whose fault is that? The online pornography industry? Or the makers of the filters? Or the parents who don't spend the time to learn how to properly use filters? Many businesses use filters to great effect. Of course, they have administrators who take the time to understand how to make the filter work.
In Finding One, the Report castigated the industry for supporting the lawsuit that brought about the injunction of the enforcement of COPA in 2004 (Supreme Court case 03-218). Perhaps the supporters of the Report should read the judgment more carefully. Writing for the Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy addressed the question of filters, ?Blocking and filtering software is an alternative that is less restrictive than COPA, and, in addition, likely more effective as a means of restricting children?s access to materials harmful to them.?
He continues, ?First, a filter can prevent minors from seeing all pornography, not just pornography posted to the Web from America. The District Court noted in its fact-findings that one witness estimated that 40% of harmful-to-minors content comes from overseas. Id., at 484. COPA does not prevent minors from having access to those foreign harmful materials. That alone makes it possible that filtering software might be more effective in serving Congress? goals. Effectiveness is likely to diminish even further if COPA is upheld, because the providers of the materials that would be covered by the statute simply can move their operations overseas. It is not an answer to say that COPA reaches some amount of materials that are harmful to minors; the question is whether it would reach more of them than less restrictive alternatives. In addition, the District Court found that verification systems may be subject to evasion and circumvention, for example by minors who have their own credit cards.?
However, rather than looking for a comprehensive combination of strategies to combat underage viewing of pornography, the Report seems content to focus solely on how to restrict, or even eliminate, the American online pornography industry.
CONCLUSION
The Internet Is Not a Playground.
I have been working with computers for 30 years. I have been on the Internet since the late 1980's?in the days of WAIS, Gopher, and Archie?before the World Wide Web was born. I think that I am pretty savvy about both the power and the pitfalls of computers and of the Web. While I was reading ?The Porn Standard? and looking at the various source materials, I began to notice something. Over and over, parents were dismayed that they could not let their children have free rein on the Internet and still have assurance that their children were perfectly safe.
To me, believing that an unsupervised child on the Internet can be safe is naive. The Web is the largest, most comprehensive storehouse of knowledge that the world has ever seen. One of the problems of such a storehouse is that not all of the ideas are good and healthy. The Web is boiling with subversive ideas, revolutionary ideas, disgusting ideas, ideas that can enrage and infuriate, ideas that question authority, ideas that challenge government?any government, ideas that threaten civilization itself. Pornography and sexuality are the least of our worries.
Why is it, then, that so many parents and report writers are stunned at what children are finding on the Web? Why do we even have statements and statistics (be they wrong or right) about children's use of the Internet after school, while their parents are at work. Clearly, someone has been misinformed. But, by whom? And why?
Then I remembered seeing ads about the wonders of the Internet on television. These ads are put out by the Internet Service Providers (ISP's). Microsoft ran a whole series of ads for its MSN network featuring people dressed up in a blue butterfly costume. The constant theme of these ads was reassurance. ?Come with MSN,? the ads were saying, ?we will protect you and your kids.? And then the butterfly would be shepherding the children down the street, covering their eyes and ears, so that they would see no evil and hear no evil.
MSN is not alone. AOL has a page devoted to ?parental controls.? On this page, it says, ?Opt for AOL Guardian e-mail 'report cards' that show your kids' Web surfing, e-mail and IM activity....Customize when and how much your kids access AOL....Access Parental Controls remotely via AOL.com. You don't have to be there to monitor your kids' activity and Internet safety on AOL [emphasis added]....You can even limit them to chat rooms that are 100% monitored, so you know they're safer even when you can't be there to keep an eye on them [emphasis added].?
Other ISP's have similar soothing words. Of course, the ISP's are trying to sell Internet access. They know that children will use the Internet more than adults, because children are always learning. If a child does not know how to use a computer, she will either figure it out, or consult with a friend. Adults are much more intimidated by technology. They are more afraid to fail, and, especially, to look ignorant in front of their children. It is far better, they reason, to learn the bare minimum to play a game of solitaire, or, perhaps, to avoid the computer altogether, rather than to be challenged, and, possibly, defeated.
So, selling Internet service to adults is a tougher sell. Besides, adults know how much they use it, and can question whether the service is worthwhile. With children, it is different. Look, she's on the computer! Is she online or not? Well, let's keep the service, just in case.
The ISP's must, therefore, sell the safety. Of course, they don't mention the problems. Certainly, AOL can limit Suzy to certain chat rooms?but only if someone takes the time and effort to set it up that way. And then what happens when all of Suzy's friends are in a different chat room? Isn't that why we got Internet? So that she can talk to her friends? Ah, well, just open up the chat rooms.
Parents don't understand. They don't understand the dangers, and they don't understand the work involved to avoid the dangers. And the ISP's are helping them to their position of non-understanding. Because what parents really don't understand is that the ISP's cannot deliver on their promises. The technology is too complex, and it changes too quickly to be able to guarantee any level of ?safety? for any amount of time.
The Report makes much of its comparison between online pornography sites and ?brick and mortar? sites. But the comparison has no meaning. Certainly, a bar can check an ID before selling a drink to a customer. But, bars are finite, because they are strictly licensed by the government. Online pornography sites are, in a practical sense, infinite. So the government requires Age Verification Software for American sites; foreign sites are still unregulated. It's as if a child is walking down the street and everyone she meets want to sell her a beer. Will all of those people check her ID?
The Report criticizes online pornography by saying that sites make an attempt at age verification not to protect the child, but to protect themselves. Of course the sites are trying to protect themselves. But bars do not check ID's to ensure that no one who is underage taints his or her body with alcohol. They do it because they are afraid of losing their liquor license, and their livelihood, if they don't. Brick and mortar businesses act in their self-interest the same as online businesses.
Online pornography sites are not in business to babysit someone else's children. We are there because we feel that we can make a living by helping other people to explore and enjoy their sexuality. It is totally unreasonable to expect any online business to act as a babysitter?except, perhaps, for the ISP's, who make the claim that they will babysit. Don't blame the pornographers; hold the ISP's to their promises.
Perhaps I can best explain by way of an analogy. Consider a parent with an active and inquisitive toddler. The parent takes the toddler to the local park and puts her down in the fenced-in ?Toddlers' Playground.? The parent then sits down in the shade of a nearby tree, opens his laptop, and plunges into his work. The toddler slips through a small hole in the fence and wanders off. The parent is still buried in work.
Suppose the toddler wanders over to a baseball field, where two college fraternities are playing softball. What will they do? It's reasonable to think that they will try to keep her from the field, but will they stop the game to find out where she belongs? If she wanders onto the field just as a foul ball screams down the third-base line, who is to blame if she is hit? Do we blame the batter, who hit the ball? The pitcher who threw the ball? The third-baseman, who just barely missed the ball?
Suppose she wanders over to a group of old men playing chess on a picnic table. Do they have an obligation to stop the game, to find her parent?
Suppose she wanders down a secluded path and finds two young people in the middle of a passionate embrace. What obligation do they have to her?
The point is that if this hard-working parent wishes to put the toddler in the playground while he works, he, at the very least, has an obligation to make sure that she does not leave the playground.
Likewise, if parents wish to set up a computer as a babysitter for their children, they have an obligation to make sure that it is safe for them. The can get age appropriate games for the children to play. But, they should not leave the children with unfiltered access to the Internet. And, if they have filters, they must make the effort to learn how to make the filters work effectively, to close the holes in the fence.
The Internet is not a playground.
by Cody J. Reeder, a.k.a. TheOldMan
It is my opinion that if parents truly ant to protect their children from the internet they need to be more involved while they are online. Child proofing America is not the answer taking into account that the internet does not belong to America or have to follow the U.S. laws.
him to do.
If you want porn, Get the Clinton's back
administration was "right" about. So far, he has had two terms
and I can't think of a one m---r f---n thing his administration has
done right.
NOT ONE
As it typical, the only unstubstantiated opinions come from right wing zealots like you. Open your eyes and get past your partisan backing of everything GOP, and recognize that your freedom is threatened too.
Also, the "demand" you linked to appears to be a press release about a note on the FRC website. (I.E., an interpretation of the remarks made rather than the remarks themselves.) Even so, it notes that complaints were filed with the Commerce Department and ICANN, not the President. Might you have, floating around somewhere, some bit of actual documentation (paperwork, mp3, or mpeg file) about this tete-a-tete you claim transpired between the President and those awful social conservatives that elected him?
Darn, Declan, if you were any more blue than you are (and I don't even know if that's possible) we'd have to start wondering if you didn't have some smurf blood running through you...
A founding principle of this country is "protection of the minority from tyranny by the majority." We might have majority rule, but that doesn't mean that majority has the RIGHT to dictate to the minority (even if it doesn't like what the minority thinks) how it is to live its life. Nor is the majority allowed to put undue restrictions on anything simply because it doesn't like what it says or represents.
If you choose to take such a "moral high road" in your own home, then please do so... and turn the darn TV off, unplug the cable box, and disconnect the computer! Please stop trying to dictate through legislation how others should live their lives based on your OPINION of what constitutes good "morals." We are already at the point in this country where the legislation of morality is trampling all over the very civil liberties we're supposed to hold dear...
And even worse? We're starting to dictate to the rest of the world our OPINION about morality as well... some champions of "liberty" we are. Last I checked this was not a theocracy nor a place to be dominated by armchair churchgoers who think they are holier-than-the-rest-of-us.
You want morality to come back to your household? You want to keep smut out? Tell little junior his arm is gonna get chopped off if he touches that cable box... and make sure your own Playboys are kept in a lockbox somewhere in Mexico...
Blue and 110% proud of it! At least I can think for myself!
This is not a blue vs read state issue. It is a civil liberties issue. If you don't like something, change the gd channel! Personally, I think there is nothing more vile and perverted than all the Jesus TV stations, but I don't try to ban them, I just don't watch them, and I have tehm locked out so my kids won't watch them by accident.
Case closed.
As a side comment, comments made to insult those holding the opposing view don't do anything to strengthen your points. On the contrary, they make it easy for one just to write your commant off as a whole..
My 2 cents..
Not that it would have fixed the problem completly, but both sides of this argument agreed it would have helped.
All bushes base saw was the "XXX" and demanded that he act before actually considering the benifits of knowing where the porn sites were.
I guess this should not be supprising as this is exactly what his advisors have a track record of doing.
Again I am not saying this alone would have fixed the problem, but really . . . they actually had the porn industry goin along with it as it clearly identified thier product. They were on board.
This is just another example of trigger happy politics that has unfortunatly become the norm in our america, and I can only hope that it is not the america of our children.
The Adult industry was against the xxx domain because they felt it would de-legitimize them. Forcing them into a virtual "red light" district where they would be subject to further regulation and censurship.
Common sense people are against the xxx domain because who decides and how do you decide what is "porn" and what is not.
This was a bad idea from the beginning. Everythig is FINE just the way it is and there is no reason to change it.
You admit creating a .XXX will do *NOTHING* to stop the flow of porn. Just like .KKK would do nothing to stop the flow of hate.
Yet you want the government to pursue it anyway?
Your brain is locked in a John Kerry trap. You are an enslaved reactionary.
Not only is it impossible to 'force' pornographers to use the domain, they already HAVE .com domains that are perfectly legal for them to use. Why would they switch? What possible advantage is it to a pornographer to use a domain whose sole purpose is to allow blocking?
The purpose of a .xxx domain is simple: It creates a revenue stream for ICANN and its patsies, like ICM Registry.
People who think the creation of a new top-level domain will help the 'porn problem' are fools. I get a chuckle out of their naivete.
Maybe it is making headlines by saying your sepnding tax dollars on this cause but if we don't do anything about it, it will DESTROY all future generations chances of having ANY morality at all.
Bush is a Godly President yet all he receives is HEAT from the media for taking a stand.
Let's stand with God and the President on this one and SUPPORT what he is doing to stop pornography on the web!
Check Please!
Matt Mattero Ministries
Do you realise that taking away that is just another step towards taking away any freedom of expression?
Would you like it if you weren't allowed to worship to God anymore, because someone else thought God was morally bankrupt? I know you wouldn't like it because it's already happening, what with not being able to say the Lord's Prayer in schools.
So how do you feel when your right to think and do what you want is taken away from you? The pornography websites don't physically hurt anyone, nor do they mentally(although I agree some are a bit much).
Not only is trying to censor anything on the internet stupid(it is quite literally impossible), it is going against another humans rights.
If you're so worried about porn, set up filters on your own computers, not everyone in the country's.
Oh, and by the way, pornography, and to a larger extreme, even prostitution are nothing new and are not a threat to anyones morals. It is their own decision what they do or do not want.
If you think that YOUR god is all hung up on sex then that is YOUR problem not mine. Keep it to your damn self.
And by the way hypocrite, if you want to get rid of porn then start with your Bible, it is full of sex, rape, incest, infanticide, genocide, etc., most of it sanctioned by your beloved god! You want to take away my Hustler, the I have every right to take away your Bible. Is that what you want?
translation: ""Yes, pornagraphy will destroy future generation's chances of being like you""
which, obviously, is superior to all of us
We all live in one state, yet we all have different religions and
beliefs.
Shove your crap down your own kids throats. Not mine, not my
neighbors ... and don't tread on me!
Its very discouraging that so many people think that morals and values are being corrupted by people who have a fetish for sexuality.
Those who have the fetish, get looked down upon, and ironically those who do the looking down, are even sometimes repressed (by their own ideologies)
Morals 101:
Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
Teaching or exhibiting goodness or correctness of character and behavior: a moral lesson.
Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.
Arising from conscience or the sense of right and wrong: a moral obligation.
Having psychological rather than physical or tangible effects: a moral victory; moral support.
Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty.
Sounds to me like people are trying to get people to think ONE way only. And this is destined to fail.
You don't own my ideas.
You don't own the way I think.
Please stop trying to own me.
WHY CANT YOUR TINY BRAIN GET THIS FACT!?!??!?!
Otherwise, why not eliminate all KKK references from the internet? That would be nice wouldn't it? Well jee wiz, why hasn't someone thought of that yet Polyanna?
.XXX WOULD BE REDUNDANT AND A WASTED EFFORT ENTIRELY. LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER.
Why? Because it sets a precident for what's defined as "adult" and what is not. The Adult industry argues that this creates wide-open exposure to potential lawsuits regarding what is considered "adult" and what is not. For example, professional nudes, either photographed or rendered on media (such as sketch or painting) would have the potential to be considered unfit for domains other than ".xxx". Litigation based on the .xxx distinction would invariably ensue, forcing artistic sites to potentially move to the .xxx domain, thus stifling their rights to show their artwork to anyone they choose.
In effect, sandboxing certain sites in a .xxx domain creates a criteria by which they are judged, and thus opens the floodgates to greedy, bottom-feeding litigious-hungry lawyers looking for their next big paycheck.
It's ironic and somewhat disturbing to some people that the Bush administration and the adult industry actually agree on something; an irony that others find gleefully satisfying.
It would have been nice to hear the adult, photography and/or art industry's views on this, as this seems far more relevant that any politician's misguided attempts to regulate the adult industry (from EITHER major party). Exploring their viewpoints would give far more insight into the problem and potential solution, rather than a retread rant on politicians and their inane take on the subject.
That's the job of the major news outlets; I expect more from a technology site designed to solve problems by discussing the issues, rather than joining the cacophony coming from the Washington Beltway.
adult sites in their own domain, or about protecting
children from images they shouldn't see. It was all
about money. The only people that wanted the .xxx
domain were ICM Registry and ICANN. Conservatives
didn't want it, and adult webmasters never wanted it.
ICM tried for years to get someone connected with the
adult industry to come out for their idea. No one would.
Especially considering their plan to charge over $100
per domain. When you can get a .com for under $10,
why so much more? Because the extra was going to go
right into their pockets.
ICANN is another bloated organization of burecrats
looking to sweeten their own nest. They've been trying
for years to increase they budget. Check this article out
http://news.com.com/Unnoticed+fee+could+raise+Net+
domain+costs/2100-1038_3-5492467.html
The ,xxx domain was still months from being approved
when much of the opposition strarted making news.
When that happened ICANN quickly approved it. Why?
Because they wanted the extra money themselves.
.xxx would do nothing to cut down adult material on the
Internet, nor protect children.
on the internet? Then approve a .kids domain and
enforce strict content requirements on who can have
sites there.
The internet is not kids safe and any parent who lets
their underage children surf it unmonitored deserves to
have their children taken away and put with someone
else who shows more responciblity.
You don't let your children go to the park unsupervised,
why do you let them surf the internet without
supervision? Quit expecting us to do your job for you.
more important than fighting terrorist, drug dealers and
child abusers.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1125318960389
"U.S. Attorney's Porn Fight Gets Bad Reviews" by Julie
Kay
Daily Business Review 08-30-2005
"When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim
U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered
what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.
Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics
trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?
The agents were stunned to learn that a top
prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of
Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told
them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving
children, but pornographic material featuring
consenting adults.
Acosta's stated goal of prosecuting distributors of adult
porn has angered federal and local law enforcement
officials, as well as prosecutors in his own office. They
say there are far more important issues in a high-crime
area like South Florida, which is an international hub at
risk for terrorism, money laundering and other
dangerous activities.
His own prosecutors have warned Acosta that
prioritizing adult porn would reduce resources for
prosecuting other crimes, including porn involving
children. According to high-level sources who did not
want to be identified, Acosta has assigned prosecutors
porn cases over their objections. "
read more
The moral majority are a minority of people with power who claim to speak for the rest. Give people all the real facts (if there are any) and let them decide.
Times have changed very little. You have those who govern and those who are governed. Who's opinion really matters? The governed rarely stand together to make a majority decision. We live in a world that can't see past God and Greed.
What a world would be if people worked to better humanity as a whole. No monetary gane or power. Just people working to make life better for all. It's sad that world is only a pipe dream.
Bush might be against banning knives. Again, does this mean he is advocating decapitation by steakknife?
You have engaged in strawman argumentation. You have created a non-sequitur.
Bush is not saying this is some attempt to purge porno from the internet.
READ the f***ing comments on this board. There are many TECHNICAL reasons why you cannot just randomly try to categorize content on the internet. IT DOES NOT WORK.
All the ***** worshipers who want a .XXX domain need to calm down. THERE IS NO POINT IN IT.
I ask: why not have a .xxx domain? What is there to even consider here? Like I said before, there will ALWAYS be an adult industry in any media that presents itself.
You are about the most ignorant person on the planet if in the year 2005 you don't already know that government controlling the flow of information on the internet DOES NOT WORK.
Ok, assuming you could somehow convince all adult webmasters to do this, what about .net? Two different people own sex.com and sex.net. Both are porn sites. Who gets sex.xxx?
(I'll let you into a secret, I'm a pornographer.)
That's right I own an adult website. I have no desire for anyone, adult or minor, to see material they don't want. I have a warning page that is the first thing you come to which clearly states you've come to an adult site, which has no nude images on it, which has a clear warning not to enter unless you want to see what is there. I don't send out spam and I don't go trolling for minors. Nor do the vaste majority of honest and professional adult webmasters in the business.
My current site has taken me some 20-30 hours a week, since the first of the year, and almost $1000 to build. Most medium sites like mine take a comparitive time to create. That's about 600 hours. My day job pays $20/hr, so added it up, that's about $13,000. You can see I have a pretty large monetary stake in the business I own. I know other webmasters whose investment in their sites run in the tens of thousands of dollars.
There is no way to move all porn sites to the .xxx domain without arbitralily taking someone's property. And do you want to get into eminete domain over this? (yeah its spelled wrong)
Or maybe have the US government somehow pay for all of this? I've read there are conservatively 5 million sites. Assume 25% would need to be bought out. That's 10+ million dollars we taxpayers would have to shell out. All to accomplish what? Prevent your kid from seeing nude pictures?
And what about the 50% or so sites whose owners are not US citizens? The US government is going to wave its magic wand and "force" those citizen to obey a law telling them to give up their property?
So, we're back to my question, who gets the .xxx site with my domain name. Me because I own the .com, or someone else who has spent a comparitive amount of time on their site with the .net?
That's just one of many reasons .xxx won't work.
Ask yourself this, if your purpose is to protect children from viewing porn, why isn't there a .kids domain. A .kids domain could be regulated and policed to provide an area of the internet that was safe for kids, without infringing on the rights of adults.
But you don't see alot of constructive suggestion when it comes to what each person feels is obscene, just alot of advocation of "force". That's not the country I joined the Army when a young man to protect.
Ok, so now you know that its not just as easy as everyone adult in .com, somehow magically changing to .xxx.
You are normally somewhat sane compared to the other writers here in the C|Net loony bin. But I must disagree...
.XXX is pointless. If it were so easy, why stop there? Why not have a .KKK for hate speech? Why not have a .GUN for violence? A .gay for c|net? etc?
You are a fool... Bush does not see the need to pander to the ***** worshiping crowd. Good for him.
When you are truly willing to give me that power over you, THEN you will be able talk about the wisdom of censorship with at least a shred of credibility.
Oh, no, actually you won't, because I'll immediately use that power to shut you up, as I find your comments quite obscene.
Another debate about this entire thing is about identifying what is pornography, what is art. Well, some art can contain nudity, true, but I think the .xxx would be the actual hardcore pornographic images of sex. Hence the XXX, created by the pornography industry itself. Nudity itself shouldn't be placed in the .xxx category. Most of the time, a home video of people having sex wouldn't be considered art. Even Playboy could be considered viable reading material to some.
My point is not about censoring, I'm not about that. I am an independent filmmaker (not adult), and I would hate to have my script and films be cut to pieces by someone who thinks that the word "hell" is inappropriate. I'm for free speech.
And as for the comment about having .kkk for hate groups, etc, that's slightly different, and who's to say that won't make life easier? .mov for movie websites, .shop for Amazon and Overstock, .corp for corporate websites like Microsoft or ATI's websites or even .blog for this particular website. I welcome it, because it would only allow MORE onto the internet, and an exchange of even more ideas, including bad ones, as most of you are saying right now mine all are.
- KKK again?
- by August 30, 2005 4:27 PM PDT
- OK, well firstly, I never mentioned eliminating anything. We have .com for commerce, .edu for education institutions, how is this different? Even if the domains don't follow the regulation right away, the government could fine them. You can't tell me that they can't find a way to fine them, either. They have to register for a domain, fine said person who is paying the domain bills until they move over to .xxx. The fines could be cut in half for compensation to the companies that host the websites.
- Reply to this comment
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- What about GOOGLE? YAHOO?
- by gerhard_schroeder August 31, 2005 12:14 PM PDT
- How do you categorize mega sites like these? They will obviously have content that gets pulled in from other locations (blogs, caches, hosted subdomains, stores, vendors, user profiles, etc).
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (81 Comments)And if you can't regulate the internet or whatever, then how can they crunch down on Kiddie porn sites and the like?
If you ask me, I'm the one putting down reasonable thoughts in the issue and all you can do is say "um, nuh uh", so who's more ignorant?
Moron!