Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> writes:

The WSJ op ed page today has an article on the 1st Amendment in Cyberspace by Stephen Bates that focusses (analytically) on pedophiles and Usenet. It is not hysterically negative but discusses the "downside" of our technology.

Just what the world needs. Another reporter who spends a short time on Usenet and emerges to proclaim to the clueless masses that the Internet is bursting at the seams with child porn GIFs and that the pedophiles are frolicking uncontrollably. While it would be difficult to list all the inaccuracies and misstatements of fact contained in Steven Bates' WSJ article in a single message, the following leap out at even the most inexperienced Internet user. The newsgroup, alt.sex.pedophile.mike-labbe, originally formed to discuss the legal problems of a BBS Sysop, is almost dead and averages no more than a few posts a week. While pictures are occasionally posted, they are almost without exception art taken from legal sources. While some messages have been posted which might seem to solicit illegal activity, such messages are regularly flamed by other readers of the group, and illegal activity is discouraged. Calling this group "alt.sex.pedophile" and characterizing it as the Internet's official distribution point for illegal child porn is a gross misrepresentation of reality. The newsgroup, alt.sex.intergen, formed to discuss issues surrounding intergenerational relationships, including those between adults and minors, is represented as a place where pedophiles congregate to plot their evil deeds. But discussion of the sexual rights of minors is only one issue covered under the alt.sex.intergen charter and it would be ludicrous to suggest that pedophiles are the only people to whom such issues are important. You don't have to be a member of a sexual minority to find fault with American sex and censorship laws, and such issues are discussed by people representing all ages, sexual orientations, and professions. Taking a few lurid-sounding quotes out of context from many months of postings does little to correctly convey the tone of this newsgroup. Mr. Bates repeats the popular myth that Europe is some bastion of readily available child porn easily accessed via the Internet. This is simply not the case. All the European and Scandinavian countries now have laws against distributing such material with severe penalities for violations. With the large number of American net.cops trolling the Internet looking for illegal pornography and the cooperation of foreign law enforcement agencies in shutting down sites, no such operation could stay in business for long. The comparison the article makes between "advocating pedophilia" and Holocaust Revisionism should be equally offensive to Jews and non-Jews alike. Suggesting that teenagers should have the right to choose their own sexual partners cannot be compared to denying the deliberate killing of six million men, women, and children. Dr. Fred Berlin, who should have known better, is quoted in the article as suggesting that people in general, and pedophiles in particular, are prone to do in real life everything they contemplate in fantasy. Since the world of fantasy is largely devoid of the moral and social inhibitions which constrain our real-world behavior, this is unlikely to be the case. Since Dr. Berlin is the world's foremost authority on the treatment of paraphilias, we should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was either quoted out of context, or like Ken Udut, deliberately misled as to the purpose for which his comments were being solicited. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $