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March 22, 2007

Protecting Kids from Online Porn

I must admit that even though I understand the rationale, I'm a bit angry with the federal judge who threw out the 1998 law making it a crime for commercial Web site operators to allow children to have access to "harmful" material on their sites. If you think about it, the decision pretty obviously had to go that way. The Supreme Court has set up tests which must be met in order for regulations of speech to be considered constitutional. The regulator must be able to prove the regulation will accomplish a legitimate public benefit and the law must be narrowly crafted and go no further than necessary to obtain that benefit. It must be the least speech-restrictive option available and leave open ample alternatives for the speaker to speak. In this case, the critical test was whether the law was the least speech-restrictive option. The judge ruled that because parents can use Internet filters on their own computers to prevent their children from accessing pornographic sites, relying on parents is the least speech-restrictive option available. But just because I understand it doesn't mean I have to like it.

The thing is, doesn't it make a whole lot more sense to have a Web site verify the ages of its viewers as opposed to hoping every computer where a kid will have access has an adequate filtering system? I mean, whose kid hasn't gone over to a friend's and looked up things on the Internet that they can't look at when they're at home? And this stuff can be a whole lot worse than the old sneaking into your uncle's closet to look at Playboy kind of stuff. As one government attorney said, "It is not reasonable for the government to expect all parents to shoulder the burden to cut off every possible source of adult content for their children, rather than the government's addressing the problem at its source." That's why I'm irritated about this.

But now that I've gotten all of that off my chest, I will acknowledge that this Internet pornography problem isn't quite as simple as we might wish to believe. I probably can live with this decision despite my irritation. I mean, I'm not one of those self-appointed morality monitors.

For one thing, the law is already out of date.

Technology experts said parents now have more serious concerns than Web sites with pornography. For instance, the threat of online predators has caused worries among parents whose children use social- networking sites such as News Corp.'s MySpace.

If parents really want their kids to have a safe online experience these days, they need to be involved because there is no Internet police force that will stop predators from reaching them. And then, of course, we have to worry about privacy concerns of those who would have to enter their credit card or driver's license information to win access to pornographic Web sites:

The case sparked a legal firestorm last year when Google challenged a Justice Department subpoena seeking information on what people search for online. Government lawyers had asked Google to turn over 1 million random Web addresses and a week's worth of Google search queries.

We also have to think about the realistic consequences of regulations that apply only to U.S. purveyors when the Internet is a World-Wide Web.

The Web sites that challenged the law said fear of prosecution might lead them to shut down or move their operations offshore, beyond the reach of the U.S. law.

And only Internet filters and involved parents can protect children from that.

Posted by Becky at March 22, 2007 03:13 PM