CYBERSPACE — To hear the anti-porn forces talk, every other website on the internet must be packed with sexually explicit images. At the very least, one might reasonably expect the majority of Web properties to focus – or obsess, depending on one’s definition – on sexuality of some sort, most likely aberrant or taboo. Given this kind of popular wisdom, it may surprise some to find that according to a study conducted late last year, the internet is actually an astonishingly sex-free piece of real estate. In fact, it looks like a mere one-percent of the ‘net is smutty; hardly worth all of the sturm und drang that it receives from the Right Wing.
This bit of insight was presented in Philadelphia during a case against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, brought by the American Civil Liberties (ACLU) in November of 2006. Perhaps ironically, given the purpose of the study, its funding came not from the ACLU – but from the Department of Justice, which had hoped to prove that criminal penalties are necessary to protect minors from being exposed to sexually explicit online content and, by extension, that the Child Online Protection Act is a necessary part of achieving that goal.
The data was compiled by statistics professor Philip B. Stark of the University of California-Berkeley, whose team analyzed various internet search queries and randomly selected websites found in the indices of Microsoft MSN and forced by subpoena from Google.
At specific issue was the effectiveness of internet filters, presented in the June 2005 Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on enforcement of COPA on constitutional grounds, until more information was available.
Catherine Crump of the ACLU believes that the fact only six-percent of queries returned explicit sites shows how little material is online. “One of the things we think came out of the government’s study is that the chance of running into graphic content on the Web when filters are on is extremely low,” she opined. This, in spite of the popularity of search queries associated with sex. Unfortunately, filters that block sexually explicit materials were also found to block unrelated content, as well.
Nonetheless, witnesses for the government had insisted that even if the overall percentage of sites is low, their number is still high enough to be concerned about – and to slide past filters.
The study stands in sharp contrast to a report published by Carnegie Mellon University undergraduate Marty Rimm, who insisted that 83.5-percent of all Usenet discussion groups were pornographic. U.S. Senators opposed to internet erotica embraced the report without investigation and Time magazine covered its conclusions.
Although Stark supports the implementation of governmental control of online content, he admitted that filters blocked between 87 – 98-percent of explicit of the most popular results and that half of the sexually explicit sites were foreign and would not be affected by COPA. The most rigorous filtration was provided by AOL’s Mature Teen, which blocked 91-percent of sexually explicit sites in the indexes. Less exacting filters caught a minimum of 40-percent of such sites.
Chris Hansen, an attorney for ACLU observed that “Filters are more than 90-percent effective, according to Stark. Also, with filters, it’s up to the parents how to use it, whereas COPA requires a one-solution-fits all.” The effectiveness of COPA, in Hansen’s opinion was far less. “COPA – right out of the bat – doesn’t block the 50-percent overseas, so COPA is substantially less than 50-percent effective.”
