The Internet has become such a vast and quickly growing technology that law makers have had difficulty keeping up with the technological advances within the internet grid and the sick minds of individuals. One specific area of concern is internet safety regarding minors, especially in the area of pornography. There is a controversy that surrounds the policing of the Internet for illicit activities such as pornography that has been going on since the early 1990’s between the U.S. government and the American Civil Liberties group that claims policing the Internet would take away personal freedoms from Americans in the form of freedom of speech. This issue has even gone to the highest court in our country, the United States Supreme Court. “Leaving the Internet alone” has been the nations Internet policy since the Internet was first commercialized in the mid-1990’s. The primary government imperative then was just to get out of the way to encourage its growth (Strickland, 2012). In 1998 President Clinton signed COPA (Child Online Protection Act) into law, but it was never enforced (Information Week, Nov. 2006). The rate of pornography viewed in the United States has grown, and continues to grow in viewership to this day with few arrests being made for those distributing the sites or for those who are viewing them where minors are concerned.
In 1998, when President Clinton signed the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, it was supposed to place restrictions on websites concerning pornography. It was supposed to require that a user submit their name and age to verify that the person viewing the material was at least 18 years of age. However, the American Civil Liberties group filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice...
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...nformation Week in an article written in June of 2007, most of the pornographic material is being arranged to log into remote servers in places like Amsterdam to or other places overseas that is far from the reach of the United States jurisdiction where the law is concerned. Another problem is that catching people who make these sites and are doing illegal things like using children for pornography are really hard to catch because they use a web address only for a few weeks before they change it. It makes it hard to catch their criminal behavior.
Most people who are into technology feel that the best place for policy makers to start as a role is defined is what our actions should be is to preserve and maintain trust in the internet. (Strickland, 2012). According to him, we have a much higher expectation of the internet today than we’ve had in years prior to now.
In this essay, we shall consider the so-called "reputable" mainstream American companies that are reaping huge profits from Internet porn, as well as related considerations.
Imagine a place where you have access to anything and everything one could want. Some would say that is only existent in a utopia, and some would say that describes the Internet. Many adults go on to the net and access pornographic material that would be unsuitable for children. This is called cyberporn. The controversy lies in the fact that children are accessing these materials also. Government, activist groups, and concerned parents are fighting to regulate obscene material found over the Internet to protect children. The first amendment is the only thing protecting adults from losing their rights to obtain pornographic or indecent material on the net. Under the first amendment the government must not regulate cyberporn. Online sex has been around since the first bulletin boards were available over the computer in the early 1980's. People would pay to down load pornographic pictures and talk dirty to each other. Usenet groups took control of porn after the Internet came about. They did not charge people to down load picture and to interact with others. In result, Internet porn grew (Rosen 16). Things have changed drastically since then with over a million different sites available to access porn. Now it is not just for adults. Children are accessing the obscene materials. This brings rise to issues of how to protect them from problems that can arise. The materials they view, could influence children. They could also be subjected to cybersex in a chat room full of people that could be three times their age. Worst of all pedophilias could influence children to meet with them outside of the computer. The government and the United States citizens must now figure out how to protect our children from the effects of cyberporn, and y...
Since their founding, computers and the Internet have become a tool that nearly every man, woman, and child in the World have been able to use. E-mail has become one of the Worlds fastest growing ways of communication and the Internet has become one, if not the largest source of information available today. You can find just about everything you wanted to know about anything with the stroke of a few keys on the keyboard. However, along with these positive aspects of the Internet, there lies much negativity surrounding the internet and its use. Access to teenage pornography, bestiality, brutal murder pictures, XXX stories, and other un-ethical sites is extremely easy. In fact, the pornography industry has grown 63% since the Internet was first available for use.(Bishop 91) It is one of the leading industries on the Internet and has become quite a controversy in the United States. Censorship of such sites has done very little due to the fact that most parents feel that these sites are not accessed by their children. We have currently found no solution that has worked and many government officials see the problem only getting worse. Pornography on the Internet though should not be banned, but rather better controlled and censored due to its availability and graphic nature.
In this paper we shall present an important case involving the governments attempt to defend a child-protection law designed to guard minors against internet pornography. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 00-795, the court heard arguments over the Child Pornography Protection Act of 1996 (CPPA).(Ashcroft)
Tears begin to fall down a child’s face. Her body goes into shock out of fear. Her mother warned her about watching inappropriate content, and there it was, right on her computer screen. This could not have happened though. All she was doing was casually browsing the internet before a pop-up appeared. Although it may seem hard to believe, the major cause of events such as this is the lack of censorship on the internet. Internet censorship relates to the removal of offensive, inappropriate, or controversial content published online. The current problem with the internet is that there are few restrictions on what can be published or viewed. Several sites on the internet only offer a warning about inappropriate content that can easily be bypassed by agreeing to the terms. Other websites provide access to private or military information. More dreadfully, however, are websites that use their explicit content as a promotion. These factors bring the conclusion that anybody of any given age can view and publish inappropriate or dangerous content. The current problems with the internet serve for clarification as to why the United States should create a nonpartisan assembly to censor the internet in order to protect its citizens from the mental, emotional, and physical harms the internet creates.
Ashcroft vs. ACLU, 00-1293, deals with a challenge to the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which Congress passed in 1998. The law, which is the subject of this essay, attempts to protect minors from exposure to Internet pornography by requiring that commercial adult websites containing "indecent" material that is "harmful to minors" use age-verification mechanisms such as credit cards or adult identification numbers.(Child)
The internet provides ground for individuals to create, access, and share child sexual abuse images world wide at the click of abutton. Child pornography images are readily available through virtually every Internet technology including website, email, instant messaging.
You just finished a day's work, have arrived home, unlocked the door, step inside, and just as you are about to yell, "anyone home," you hear hooting and hollering coming from the family room. As you enter the room you see your children and their friends glued to the computer screen, which is covered with explicit images not intended for the eyes of children. According to an article written by P.J.Huffstutter, "Yahoo, MSN Criticized for Offering Easy Access to Pornography," (C1) these two large Internet companies, have made it possible for everyone of all ages to access these adult communities. They require no proof of age, making it far too easy for under-age children to freely view the pornographic pictures and videos of their choice While adults may find leaving a site easy if they are uncomfortable, trying to restrict children from accessing these sites is a different issue. To watch your kids every moment is unrealistic and would not please anyone. According to Net Nanny, "Kids need to learn Internet safety practices and differentiate between right and wrong, because their parents won't always be there." There must be some sort of compromise. We, being responsible adults, need to take charge of what our children are doing when online, since little effort is required to gain entry to pornography sites. I used Microsoft's MSN search facility to look for "porn," and the only warning I received was that I had entered a search term that was likely to return adult content. While that may be more warning than in the past, it still isn't enough to keep children away. Then I was directed to a related link entitled NightSurf, and within two minutes I was presented with images of nudity...
McCarthy, M. (2005). THE CONTINUING SAGA OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP: THE CHILD ONLINE PROTECTION ACT. Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal, (2), 83-101.
With over 759 million registered domain names, the Internet has proved to be the definitive source of information (Hunter). Covering a full spectrum of subjects and services, it is an entity that we can not do without. However, despite all this usefulness, more than 14 percent of all websites are dedicated to pornography (Ward). To further worsen the matter, more than 13 percent of all searches made daily are
A major threat to the people who use the internet, especially children, is the sex industry. It is very hard to ignore as there are thousands of sites of which many have very unobvious site names. This makes it very easy for children to access accidentally sites which are very inappropriate and can have great harmful effects on a young childs very impressionable mind. It is not acceptable for a young person to be exposed to the intimate world of adult pornography which can include anything from child porn to bestiality. Fortunately y...
It used to be almost impossible for children to get pornography. Comer stores would place adult magazines such as playboy on the top rack behind all the other magazines so that only the title was visible and it was out of reach of children. Movie stores would have separate rooms at the front of the store for their porn videos; this way they could monitor who went into the room. In today's technologically advanced society, pornographic magazines and videos are becoming extinct. Computer users can easily search for sex sites, with millions and millions or results. All it talks is the click of the mouse and children can visit any site they want. There is know way for Internet sites to monitor who is on there site, if you click the button that says your over 18 they let you in, so a 15 year old can easily get on to the site. Pornographic websites also place other moral and social problems not just on underage teenagers but on adults as well.
Free speech on the Internet is a very controversial subject and has been the key problem surrounding the Internet today. The attempt to regulate and govern the Internet is still pursued by government officials. This subject has been intensified due to terrorist attacks against the United States and around world within the past years. The government believes that by regulating the Internet, it will protect the general public from criminal actions and eliminate the exposure of children to pornography or vulgar language. Senator Jim Exon of ...
Many opponents say that Internet censorship can protect their children from accessing bad websites which have a lot of violence and sexual content. Also, they believe that these materials can be harmful to teenagers and make them addicted. However, parents are the ones who should be completely responsible to prevent their children from accessing bad websites, such as pornography, and it is not the government’s responsibility. According to Opposing Viewpoint reporter Adam Thiere, “parents should be the ones to impose censorship on children, not the federal government.” Besides, some websites, which have educational information about safe sex or disease awareness, were blocked. Everyone has the right to use the Internet to find answers to private questions. In addition, teenagers can educate themselves. For example, when I have some questions about sex or sexually transmitted diseases, I cannot ask my parents because of my embarrassment. Thus, the Internet is the best choice for me. Nevertheless, when I searched those questions on the Internet at home, they were restr...
In recent years, pornography has established itself as perhaps the most controversial topic arising out of the use of the Internet. The easy availability of this type of sexually explicit material has caused a panic among government officials, family groups, religious groups and law enforcement bodies and this panic has been perpetuated in the media.