Internet Pornography Freedom Of Press Or Dangerous

Internet Pornography: Freedom Of Press Or Dangerous Influence. Essay, Research Paper

Internet Pornography: Freedom of Press or Dangerous Influence.

The topic of pornography is controversial many times because of the

various definitions which each have different contexts. Is it nudity, sexual

intercourse, art, or all of these. Is it magazines, videos, or pictures. For

the purposes of this paper, pornography will be defined as any material that

depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement. With all of

the arguments presented in this paper, it seems only a vague definition of this

type can be applicable to all views on the subject. Pornography on the Internet

has brought about difficulties pertaining to censorship. All of the arguments

in this paper can be divided into one of two categories: those whose aim is to

allow for an uncensored Internet, and those who wish to completely eliminate

pornography from the Internet all together.

All arguments for an uncensored Internet all cite the basic rights of

free speech and press. While arguments in this paper are international, almost

everyone of them cites the First Amendment of the United States. In many of the

papers it is implied that the United States sets precedent for the rest of the

world as far as laws governing the global world of the Internet. Paul F. Burton,

an Information Science professor and researcher, gives many statistics showing

that presence of pornography on the Internet is not necessarily a bad thing. He

gives one example that shows that “47% of the 11,000″ most popular searches on

the Internet are targeted to pornography. This fact shows that pornography has

given the Internet approximately half of its clientele (2). Without this, the

Internet would hardly be the global market that it is today. Most on the

Internet are not merely the for pornography either. It is just a part-time

activity while not attending to serious matters.

At another point in his paper, Burton cites reasons why the Internet is

treated differently than other forms of media. The privacy of accessibility is

a factor that allows many people to explore pornography without the

embarrassment of having to go to a store and buy it. The fact that anybody,

including children of unwatchful parents, may access the material. However,

Burton believes that these pornographic web sites must be treated the same way

as pornographic magazines or videos.

One fear of many people is that children will happen across pornography,

but as Burton writes in his paper, the odds of someone not looking pornography

and finding it are “worse than 70,000:1″ (Holderness in Burton 2). Even if a

child were to accidentally find an adult site, he or she would most likely see a

“cover page” (See Figure 1). These cover pages, found on approximately 70% of

adult sites, all have a lot of law jargon that summed up says, “if you are not

of age, leave.” This cover page will not stop children in search of

pornography because all that is required is a click on an “enter” button and one

can access the site. Adult verification systems, such as Adult Check and Adult

Pass, have been very effective in governing access to these site, but with only

11% of adult sites having a verification of this nature, this system does not

seem realistic. Another method of controlling access is use of a credit card

number to verify age. This method opens many doors for criminals wishing to

obtain these numbers for unlawful use.

According to Yaman Akdeniz, a Ph.D. researcher at the Centre for

Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Leeds, pornography is not as wide

spread as some governments would have us believe. With a total of 14,000

Usernet discussion groups (a place where messages are posted about specific

topics), only 200 of them are sexually related. Furthermore, approximately half

are related to serious sexual topics, such as abuse or rape recovery groups.

Akdeniz also makes the point that “[t]he Internet is a complex, anarchich, and

multi-national environment where old concepts of regulation…may not be easily

applicable…” (15).

This makes a very interesting case about there general nature of the

Internet. It is the first electornic media source that is entirely global, and

although some countries will and have tried to regulate it, there is no way to

mesh what every country does to control the Internet. Germany made an attempt

at regulating the Internet within their country, however, the aim was not only

to ban pornography but also to ban anti-Semitic newsgroups and web sites.

Prodigy, a global network server, helped the German government by blocking these

Web sites. When Prodigy was pressured by groups like the American Civil

Liberties Union, Prodigy stopped blocking these Web site, and there was nothing

Germany could do.

This just s

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать