On TV as I am hacking here, is some Tabloid Trash called "The Crusaders", which I would have definitely flipped off once the late movie was over, if it hadn't been for these 'intriguing' sound bites they ran: "Your children may fall victim to pedophiles in the safety of their own bedroom! And the Crusaders are out to stop them..." "The newest high tech scheme sex offenders use on your children, and how you can stop it! Child molestors on your home computer!" I am staying tuned through stories on adoption reunions and nursing home neglect, just to see how to protect my children... (20 min. later) They show a lot of kids using computers, then modems and BBS systems. They mentioned the usefulness of nets for 'homework' and games, but: "We recently tapped into a bulletin board containing hordes of files, from lingerie shots to shocking pictures... that show anything goes." "10% of the adult population on the boards are looking to solicit children, says a police chief in (Amish country in PA)."
From there I expected a lot worse, but actually it got a whole lot better:
"Talk to your kids, and don't use the computer as a babysitter... parents need to know there are dangerous people out there..." An FBI expert said that the 'best way' to combat pedophiles was to educate police how computers work, and second to make people aware without implying that a computer is a bad thing. He said he thought teenagers would seek out sexually explicit material and that current 'protections' (e.g. warnings on explicit files) were inadequate. [What this had to do with pedophilia he didn't say. All the kids interviewed had been solicited on other premises... e.g. one had been lured to a pedophile's home to install a non-existent net. It seems that none of the pedophiles had lured kids with sexual materials but no point was made of this. They indirectly implied a relationship.] Other advice offered was to keep kids from offering personal information on the BBSs, and to accompany your child the first time they go to meet someone they met on a BBS. There was no brainless advocacy of censorship, nor a call to ban anoynimity (although the police chief in PA said he thought pedophiles were 'emboldened' by the 'anonymous computer environment' which is probably more or less true), even though they talked directly to one (male) kid who'd actually been raped. This was exploitative, but it was also real, and it was just stark enough to make the point. No hysteria, the kid was calm. This was the kid who had been lured to install the net. Given that they actually gave practical advice that might actually work and was not generally hysterical, it was about as good as one might expect. They fell short of saying that the pedophilia was isolated and unrelated to most of the graphic material on the boards. The "10%" was the only number they offered. Apparently they could find only 2 convictions for BBS-related pedo- philia in the US. Actually it seemed to me that the most objectionable things was this crazy 10% estimate, which might mean 10% of the adults on purely porn-oriented BBS sites, but it was left implied that 10% of *all* adult BBS/network users were trying to lure children into sexual situations! After that the most objectionable thing was the hysterical tag lines which are mandatory on Tabloid TV. They didn't seem to be written by the reporter. Reporter's name was Howard Thompson, editor was Ralph Herman Fax number for the show is 818-841-6500. Transcripts of the show are available for $6 at 1-800-777-T-E-X-T (Burrelle) Craig