Okay, I go allong with what you are saying.  I am starting to wonder, 
however, what is the issue of cyberporn - in fact.  There is shocking 
stuff on the internet, and there are extreme libertarians on the internet 
who are saying pornography is not a problem, and a lot of people are 
getting mad, because they perceive it is a problem.  

But, let us assumeRimm is not the great panotpical seer TIME made him out 
to be - we all probably concur along those lines now.  Then what is the 
extent of offensive porn on the internet that requires us to have 
draconian legislation that DOES jeopardize civil liberties? Does anyone 
really know.  If no one knows how many internet users there really are, 
how can all assume we KNOW the degree of offensive porn on the internet.  

USA Today, by the way, did do a fairly responsible job of reporting on 
cyberporn a few weeks back.  They put their reporters on the WQeb, then 
documented exactly what they did, and what they saw.  And, would you 
believe, they found what most people who actually cruise the net know - 
that it is there, but it is hard to find, and it certainly isn't the 
menace to children the mythmakers like Rimm would have us believe.  Now 
that's not a scientific study.  If journalists would simply do their own 
reseaqrch, and not simply quote "experts" whose background they rare vet, 
as they used to do, we might not have the problem we do with this issue.

What we are saying is a clash of passionate paradigms depending on 
whether you fear online culture and its onslaught, or revel in it.  The 
fact is we are in the midst of an enitire communications revolution, and 
revolutions tend to polarize people, and cause strange reactions in 
people.  I doubt the fear-mongering of the anti-nettites will succeeed 
for very long.  All you ahve to do is connected, and you change your 
perspective.  Lincoln Was right about not being able to fool the poeple 
very long...

On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Donovan White wrote:

> RASCHKE  wrote 
> 
> > But, at a more important level, the difficulty lies with the failure oof  
> > the mewdia to differentiate between something as esoteric and as shadowy 
> > as USENET and the entirety of public internet applications.  What if TIME 
> > had a cover story entitled "Sex in Magazines"?  Everyone would yawn, 
> > because we know that there are dirty magazines and legitimate 
> > magaazines.  But we don't seek to discredit magazines because some have 
> > pictures of people in bondage.  Now tell me where I'm off the mark on 
> > this observation...
> > 
> I don't think anyone's trying to discredit the Internet because of 
> alt.sex newsgoups.
> 
> But to your earlier point, if Time magazine had published an article 
> saying that 80%+ of magazine content was pornographic or erotic, there 
> would be a lot of reaction. There would also probably be similar 
> reaction - attacks on the methodology of the study, attacks on the 
> credentials of those involved, attacks on the motivations of those 
> involved. 
> 
> All of this, of course, distracts people from considering the nature
> of the problem - how do you isolate and contain certain types of
> content that now reside openly on the Internet? 
> 
> Spare me your "information wants to be free" and your "it's just like the 
> stuff sold at the corner store" flames, please. 
> 
> If you are going to put your newspaper or magazine online, connected 
> to the Internet, and if you are going to bundle your content with 
> Internet access, you can't just wash your hands of the problems posed 
> by undesirable content and walk away. Your customers are going to 
> hold you accountable for ALL the content accessed through your 
> service. 
> 
> So what are you going to do?
> 
> dw
> 
>         Donovan White
> 
>         Online Information Development and Design
> 
>         dwhite@iii.net           DonovanWhite@ichange.com
> 
>         (508) 597-5321           (508) 597-3285
> 

------------------------------

End of online-news-digest V1 #239
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