National Academy of Sciences panel hears about porn & kids

[Declan McCullagh]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40653,00.html

    How X Rates With 'W'
    by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
    8:00 a.m. Dec. 13, 2000 PST

    WASHINGTON -- Advisory committees inside the federal bureaucracy
    usually inhabit that featureless terrain between obscurity and
    futility: There's no pay, scant power and little prestige.

    But when a group is created by the respected National Academy of
    Sciences, and when the topic is the politically heated brew of sex,
    kids and the Internet, traditional rules no longer apply.

    With an eye to making a recommendation to Congress next year, the
    academy's committee on Internet pornography and inappropriate material
    met on Wednesday to hear social science experts describe the effects
    of smut and violence on the youth of America.

    It's a sure bet Washington will be paying close attention to the
    results. Republicans have pledged that the Justice Department will
    pounce on "obscene" websites should George W. Bush gain the
    presidency. Bush himself has railed against offensive content online,
    and he has endorsed library and school filtering.

    "One of the reasons we've had very little success (getting sex and
    violence off TV) is that television controls the message," said Joanne
    Cantor, a communications professor at the University of Wisconsin.

    "The positive thing may be that television is more willing to focus on
    the horrors of the Internet than the horrors of television," Cantor
    said.

    Cantor, like the other presenters, didn't confine her remarks to porn.
    Although figuring out how to shield kids from digital prurience is the
    group's primary task, it's also charged with considering "other
    inappropriate Internet content."

    That's arguably a pretty vague mission, but the committee members were
    too busy agreeing with the speakers to quibble.

    [...]

    Wednesday's meeting of the National Academy of Sciences panel was
    designed to explore "non-technical" strategies for protecting children
    from offensive material -- such options include providing guidelines
    for parents and educating kids about sexuality. Technical options the
    panel will weigh include filtering software, the creation of a new
    top-level domain, rating systems, and regulations or new laws directed
    at sexually explicit sites online.

    The committee's stated goal is to "provide a foundation for a more
    coherent and objective local and national debate on the subject of
    Internet pornography" while avoiding "specific" recommendations
    directed at new laws or regulations.

    This week's meeting is the third. The group will next meet in March in
    the San Francisco area to discuss technical options, and finally in
    June 2001 in Chicago.

    [...]