Re: Time/Newsweek Cyberporn Stories

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: 05 Jul 95 13:27:37 EDT
From: Jan Ziff <72662.3351 () compuserve com>


Dear David:


I commend to you and the list, the editorial by Bill Laberis in Computerworld
6/26/95. Called "'net losses" - it's a cool and unemotional look at what can
happen when a kid gets onto the Internet and is unsupervised. 


The hype and hysteria that have surrounded the issue of Cyberporn - and
notwithstanding the flagrant and blatant lies told folks like Ralph Reed of the
Christian Coalition on ABC's Nightline last week - show there's clearly cause
for a certain degree of concern.


But not alarm, and certainly not panic and hysterics.


If parents exercised the same degree of concern over the temperature of the
bathwater they put their little kids in, or the direction of the handles the
pots and pans face in the kitchen on the stove within a three year old's grasp,
as is being expressed over porn on the Internet - there'd likely be fewer
accidents.  


In my columns and on the radio I place the responsibility for kids and their
access to porn on the 'net, fair and square on the parents. Who after all, pays
the bills?  How many Internet services will open accounts for kids? And have
none of these parents heard of a password if they're that worried that the kids
will get into mischief with their computers? 


Sadly - as a former foreigner - this appears to me as yet another example of the
devolution of the American family, such as it is. It's a sad day when people
turn to Government to legislate what should be standard practice in the home -
supervision, concern, and the education of our children - because they're not
prepared to take that responsibility themselves. It's the ultimate buck passing.
And worse, they aren't the only ones who will pay for it. The kids will, the
development of the Internet will, and ultimately we all will. 


Once we allow Government the power to further legislate what we see, what we
read, what we hear, what we say, and how we do all that, we will have given up
the one thing that separates us from the rest of the pack; what makes us
different from other so called "democracies." And that's free speech. 






Climbing down from my soap box, 


Regards as always,


Jan Ziff