Untitled Essay, Research Paper

Thesis: The vast cyber-frontier is being threatend with censorship from the government.

Internet

censorship should be left up to the individual not the governments discretion.I. Censoring the Internet.

A. Clinton passes the C.D.A.

B. Our rights as Americans.

C. Exon’s victory.

D. What’s really online.

E. Strike to free expresson on Compuserve.

II. Where the Internet stands now.

A. Judges Panel.

B. Congress and other’s opinions.

C. Background information.

D. Other opinions.

III. Solutions.

A. Family’s responsibility.

B. Censorship Software.

C. Civil Rights.

D. Conclusion.After threatening the Communications Decency Act with a vetos of the past versions,

President Bill

Clinton signed the bill into law on February 8, 1996.1 Before hand, congress approved the

largest change

of the nation’s communications laws in 62 years. One of the largest controversial topics

included in the

bill is the censorship of pornography, which now is a strenuously enforced crime of

distributing

knowingly to children under 18. The congress overwhelmingly passed the bill with a

landslide 414-16

House vote and a 91-5 Senate vote.2 It seems now that the wide bill might not be what it

cracked up to

be, as it stands now, anyone who might upload James Joyce’s Ulysses could be placed in

jail for two years

and have up to a $250,000 fine.3 Representatives of on-line services industries were

concerned about the

bill, and feared they could be held criminally responsible for Internet conversations.4

"We face a unique disturbing and urgent circumstance, because it is children who are

the computer experts

in our nations families," remarked a concerned Rep. Senator of India Dan Coats.5

Although in reality,

censorship would do little to stop the pornography problems. The bill is a nation

legislation trying to

control a international network, which is virtually impossible. According to the First

Amendment,

Americans were granted to write anything they please, whether it’s indecent or not,

several series of

judicial decisions also helped the freedom down the road.6

Nebraskan Democrat James Exon, put together an informational binder known as the Blue Book

to show the

Senate about the goings on within the Internet.7 Along the pages of the Blue Book were

pictures of

people bound and being burned by cigarettes, people pierced with swords and people

involved in sexual

activities with animals.8 The Senate, acknowledging their ignorance of the Internet,

passed Exon’s

proposal after seeing the pictures in the Blue Book.9 Along with distribution of

pornography, a person

carries the chance of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine which is a good reason to

restrict much of

the flow.10

The Internet is extremely massive, filled with usenet newsgroups, web pages, IRC channels,

ftp sites,

gopher sites and much more. The Internet is the last and largest frontier of uncensored

speech, anything

from friendly chat to child porn to bestiality goes on. Pictures of anything that can be

imagined are

most likely available to the searcher. Some estimate that over 30 million people are on

the Internet. On

IRC(Internet-Relay-Chat) a live time conversation can be held along with trading files

from illegal

computer game trading called warez to illegal picture trading goes on. ‘Cybersex’ is also

a occupance

that happens more in live chat areas then others. MUDs or Multi-User-Dungeons, live chat

like IRC was

first started for Role Playing uses like online Dungeons and Dragons, now among the MUD

servers there are

sexual MUDs for people interested in S/m along with other fetishes. Usenet newsgroups

account for 11.5%

of total Internet traffic and is a major distribution of !

smut pictures.11 The WWW also known as the World Wide Web is today’s largest portion of

the Internet as

well as the fastest growing with well over 12 million pages accessible. Despite its

gargantuan

proportions, it still remains fairly clean from hardcore smut comparative to its size.

BBSs seem to be

the major uproar of censorship, although BBSs are NOT part of the Internet, many of their

pictures found

in them later become available to users via someone uploading them.12 Electronic

Bulletin-Board

Systems(BBSs) require a user to dial that computer directly thought the phone lines

resulting in long

distance charges and often monthly access fees.

In late December of 1995, a prosecutor in Munich struck a devastating blow to Compuserve

and the larger

picture of freedom of expression.13 This prosecutor was able to prevent the flow of

information for 4

million people in 140 countries.14 By merely informing Compuserve that it was breaking

Baravian law by

giving German residents access to sexual newsgroups, Compuserve removed any newsgroup that

had titles

with "sex", "gay", or "erotic" which in turn denied access

to not only Germany users but all its users.15On June 12, 1996, three federal judges in Philadelphia, PA, ruled that the 1996

Communications Decency

Act violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. The panel comprised of three

dedicated judges

Stewart Dalzell, Dolores K. Sloviter, and Ronald L. Backwalter. They voiced their opinion

about the

censorship and say that the bill is unconstitutional. The panel believes that the Internet

must be

protected since it is an important form of expression and free speech. The judges enacted

a restraining

order preventing enforcement of the unconstitutional act.

"It’s virtually impossible [to regulate the Net] because of the global nature of this

communications

device. It would mean monitoring every phone call [into the Internet], which is impossible

to do,"

stated David Ellington, the C.E.O. of NetNoir.16 "My boss supports First Amendment

Freedoms, but is also

supportive of protection of decency," the legislative assistant to Rep. Ed Towns

(D-NY), Khalil Munir

responds.17 "As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the

Internet deserves the

highest protection from governmental intrusion," judge Stewart Dalzell offered.18

Dalzell believes that

the Internet is a good place which allows its users the largest environment for free

expression and

speech.19 Dalzell assure that the Decency Act is not required to protect children from

pornography.20The July 3 report, "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn,"[Time] was based on a

Carnegie Mellon

University study. Led by student Martin Rimm, researchers said they found more then

900,000

sexually explicit images and text files online, but neglected to point out that most came

from

privately owned adult bulletin boards with no connection to the Internet.[School Library

Journal,

October, 1995, EBSCO-CD]After hitting the newsstands, the magazine quickly found its way to the floor of the U.S.

Senate.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) asked to have the entire article entered into the

Congressional

Record in support of his bill S.892, the Protection of Children from Computer Pornography

Act

of 1995. "There is a flood of vile pornography," Grassley told fellow senators,

"and we must act

to stem this growing tide, because . . . it incites perverted minds."[School Library

Journal,

October, 1995, EBSCO-CD]In a seven week period the Smithsonian Institution’s web site gathered a total of 1.9

million visits, and

in a seven day time during June, Playboy took in 4.7 million visits.21 Most of the

pictures available on

the Internet were at some point in time scanned from a magazine or other places which

photos as such are

found. Many private BBSs do business in taking free photos to scan for people then keep a

copy of the

picture for their site. Pornographic images only represent about 3% of all messages on the

Usenet

newsgroups although Carnegie Mellon found that 83.5% of Usenet newsgroup pictures were

pornographic.22

The Usenet itself is extremely small compared to other portions of the Internet and only

consists of

11.5% of overall traffic. The Carnegie Mellon team surveyed 917,410 sexually explicit

pictures while

doing their research on the Internet.23 98.9% of the online porn seekers are men according

to private

BBS operators, the same operators which require fees to gain !

entrance.24 Researches say that even though the 83.5% of images in usenets were

pornographic that still

only represents less the one-half of one percent of all traffic on the Internet.25 Only

nine out of

11,000 Web pages contained anything obscene yet Time still said, "There’s an awful

lot of porn online."26

"[Cyberspace] is a safe space in which to explore the forbidden and taboo. It offers

the possibility for

genuine, unembarrassed conversations about accurate as well as fantasy images of

sex," said Carlin

Meyer, a professor at New York Law School.27 "It is clearly a violation of free

speech and it’s a

violation of the rights of adults to communicate with each other," House speaker Newt

Gingrich shared.28

In a Time/CNN poll conducted by Yakelovich Partners, 1000 people were involved and 42%

were for FCC-like

control over sexual content on the computer networks, but 48% were against it. Towns

supports the effort

which Reps. Christopher Cox (R-Calif) and Ron Wyden(D-Ore) are working for. Cox and Wyden

encourage

development of smart programs such as SurfWatch, which restricts access to files at home.

The Cox-Wyden

proposal would make individuals responsible for censorship, this would prohibit the

governments

interaction.Based on a poll takes in Black Enterprises 32% of those in the poll think the a new

Internet governing

body should control online services while another 32% say the users should followed by 16%

saying a

private enterprise should, and 15% saying none should, then lastly 6% believe the

government is the right

system for the job.29 The MIT media Lab’s Webhound project allows World Wide Web users to

assign a

number which rates each Web page seen. Webhound can then point someone toward Web pages of

their own

interests. The Home Net project which started February and goes until June 1997, gave

computers to 50

Pittsburgh families and monitors their use. Out of 157 people surveyed, less then 20%

viewed anything

sexually oriented more the twice.30 "Places that provide erotica on the Internet are

wild about the idea

of voluntary ratings, they don’t want to sell to kids," Nathaniel Borenstein the

designer of Kid Code

stated.31 The government itself is the largest buyer of pornograp!

hic magazines in the form of sales to military bases and also requires sex education on

children in

public schools.

A new development being worked on now is Kid Code. This would allow a rating system for

each web-page,

the user then would be allowed to set the ratings of the pages allowed to their

children.32 Other

protective programs are also available such as The Internet Filter, which sends e-mail to

the parents if

a child enters a sex site.33 Cyber Patrol is time sensitive and allows restraint on

certain times of use

and total time online can be set by parents not wanting their kids be on the Internet all

day instead of

doing their homework, or not allowing them to be on after 9pm.34 SurfWatch comes with a

list of sites

containing sexual material that may not be changed. With CyberSitter, parents can add to

the menu to

unwanted sites but not remove any.35 SurfWatch denies access to sites such as Hustler

automatically, it

also restrains newsgroups with words like "porno", "xxx", or

"sex" in their topic.36 Microsystems

Software’s CyberPatrol program filters 12 content subjects such!

as sex, violence, and hate speech, then parents can add sites to a "CyberNet"

list.37

Indecent material is protected by the First Amendment, much of the materials printed in

America including

articles from Cosmopolitan magazine or James Joyce’s Ulysses could be called indecent.

Many civil-rights

groups were involved in calling the bill unconstitutional and prevents the citizen’s

rights to free

speech and privacy. If the U.S. succeeds in censoring the Internet, they will be in a

position to

mediate much more then just porn. Anything they wished could be controlled such as private

conversations

to each other.

Porn, sex, smut isn’t only found on the Internet, it can be found in books, magazines,

films, television,

music video, newspapers and many other places. People can walk into a corner video store

and walk out

with a pornographic video at only $4 a night. A team at Carnegie Mellon University in

Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, conducted an extremely detailed study of online porn.38 Some of their

findings resulted in

their conclusion in which the trading of sexually explicit pictures is one of the largest

recreational

past times of Internet users.39 At one unnamed university, 13 of 40 most frequently

visited newsgroups

had names like "alt.sex.stories", "rec.arts.erotica," and

"alt.sex.bondage."40 71% of sexual images on

the Internet originally can from the thousands of privately owned BBS’s whose operators

sell their

contents at a mere $10 to $30 a month(long distance call not included), the largest of

these take major

credit cards and make up to an excess of $1 million a year.41 !

The team found consumers in more then 2,000 cities in all 50 states and 40 countries, also

in China,

where possession of pornography can be a capital offense.42The censorship of the Internet should be the responsibility of the child’s parents and not

the

governments responsibility. There are many options for a parent to use when restraining

their child such

as informing themselves better about what’s in the Internet and taking precautions before

hand. The

average adult with children on the Internet might very well likely not know as much as the

child.

Perhaps a reason people want the government to censor it is because they don’t want to

take the time it

takes to learn about the Internet and find a private censor program. A parent’s laziness

is no reason to

restrict others who enjoy spending their time collecting ‘indecent’ pictures or reading

medical documents

about sex. The government admitted to being Internet ‘dumb’ and not knowing of the goings

on held within

a person’s computer screen, when one person could be skimming for subjects like fantasy

role-playing

games, another person might be secretly trading child porn. With o!

ver 30 million users on the Internet, no one can guarantee that no pornography will stray

down from

someone.Footnotes

1. "Background Information," Editorial On File, June 16-30, 1995, p.728

2. "Background Information," Editorial On File, February 1-15, 1996, p.148

3. John Barlow, "Thinking locally, acting globally," Time, January 15, 1996,

EBSCO-CD

4. E.O.F., June 16-30, 1995.

5. Philip Elmer-Dwitt, "On a screen near you: Cyberporn," Time, July 3, 1995,

EBSCO-CD

6. Julian Dibbell, "Muzzling the Internet," Time, December 18, 1995, EBSCO-CD

7. Steven Levy, "No place for kids?" Newsweek, July 3, 1995, EBSCO-CD

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. E.O.F., June 16-30, 1995

11. Levy.

12. Ibid.

13. Barlow.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Fonda Lloyd, "Is it wise to censor the net?" Black Enterprise, December,

1995, EBSCO-CD

17. Lloyd.

18. E.O.F., June 1-15, 1996

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. Levy.

22. Dwitt.

23. Ibid.

24. Ibid.

25. Renee Olson, "Critics say Time exaggerated cyberporn threat," School Library

Journal October, 1995,

EBSCO-CD

26. Dwitt.27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Lloyd.

30. Olson.

31. Levy.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Robin M. Bennefield, "When kids prowl the net, parents need to be on guard,"

U.S. News&Report, April

29, 1996, EBCSO-CD

37. Ibid.

38. Dwitt.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.Bibliography"Background Information." Editorial On File, Vol 27, Number 3, February 1-15,

1996, p 148."Background Information." Editorial On File, Vol 26, Number 12, June 16-30,

1995, p. 728.Elmer-Dwitt, Philip. "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn." Time July 3, 1995,

EBSCO-CD.Lloyd, Fonda. "Is it Wise to Censor the Net?" Black Enterprise, December, 1995,

EBSCO-CD.Dibbell, Julian. "Muzzling the Internet." Time December 18, 1995, EBSCO-CD.Levy, Steven, and others. "No Place for Kids?" Newsweek, July 3, 1995, EBSCO-CD."Background Information." Editorial On File, Vol. 27, Number 11, June 1-15,

1996, p. 700.Barlow, John, "Thinking Locally, Acting Glabally." Time, January 15, 1996,

EBSCO-CD.Sirico, Robert A. "Don’t censor the Internet." Forbes, July 29, 1996, EBSCO-CD.Olson, Renee, and others. "Critics say Time Exaggerated Cyberporn Threat."

School Library Journal,

October, 1995, EBSCO-CD.Spertus, Ellen. "Filtering the Net." Technology Review, October, 1995, EBSCO-CD.