---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 08:05:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce@vorlon.mit.edu Subject: The Cartoon Decency Act? from the Netly News *********** http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1055,00.html The Netly News Network June 13, 1997 The Cartoon Decency Act? by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) We all know what threats confront our children today: War. Hunger. Poverty. Ignorance. But animated cartoon characters on the Net? Actually, the Center for Media Education and its allies ignored the others and just zeroed in on the looming menace of Net-toons yesterday during the Federal Trade Commission's interminable privacy hearings. CME's Shelley Pasnik warned, "Animated product spokescharacters are coming into our childrens' computers... Parents are deeply troubled by the intrusive nature of the online [world] coming into our homes." Hadn't she read Kurt Anderson's editorial in The New Yorker this week, that the onslaught of 'toons signals a cultural renaissance in the U.S.? Doh! The Center for Media's alarums sound familiar. Supporters of the notorious Communications Decency Act cried that "pornography is coming into our home computers" and used the same excuse of "protecting children" to justify passing the law. [...]