IP: "Has the government gone mad?" Re: DoJ Brief

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

Posted-Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 21:10:03 -0500
From: Donna Hoffman <hoffman () colette ogsm Vanderbilt Edu>
Subject: Re: IP: DoJ Brief is Filed [and they insulted the Public and the
Executive Branch by using the Rimm "study" djf]
To: farber () central cis upenn edu (Dave Farber)
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 20:16:02 -0600 (CST)


Dave:


Has the government gone mad?


> February 15, 1996
> Web posted at: 12:30 p.m. EST
>
> PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The Justice Department filed its
> written response Wednesday to a lawsuit seeking to block the new
> computer "indecency" law, saying criminal prosecutions are needed to
> stop a huge increase in the availability of pornography.
[snip]
> "In the end, plaintiffs cannot dispute that a large and growing amount
> of pornography is presently available on-line and easily accessible to
> children in the home, far exceeding anything available prior to the
> advent of on-line computer services," the government said.


What?  How can the plaintiffs dispute that which has not been demonstrated!  
Is there really a "large and growing amount of pornography...online...far
exceeding anything available prior to the advent of on-line computer
services"?


Large and growing compared to what?  The Web is currently enjoying
phenomenal rates of growth.  Digital's altavista search engine currently
indexes over 15 million unique URLs.  A reasonable hypothesis is that the
number of URLs which would be considered pornographic is small relative to
the total and that the proportion may actually be *shrinking* as the total
grows.  Does the government have evidence to the contrary?


It is estimated that there are over 15,000 Usenet newsgroups on the
Internet.  In a recent case, CompuServe denied its subscribers access to 200
of those groups.  Now, all but 5, yes FIVE, have been restored.  A
reasonable hypothesis is that the number of Usenet newsgroups which
would be considered pornographic is small relative to the total number of
groups and that the proportion may actually be *shrinking* as the total
grows.  Does the government have evidence to the contrary?


If we examine commercial activity on the Web, using latest available data
sources, we can easily argue that there are at least 100,000 Web sites and
that at least 25% of those are commercial.  As the number of Web sites grows
and as commercial activity continues to explode, we would expect that the
amount of commercial pornographic activity, as a percent of total, will
continue to *decrease*.  Based on this simple argument (and we could get
much more complicated by using different measures), there is no evidence 
that the amount of pornography on the Internet is either large or growing,
as a proportion of the total amount of material available on the Internet.


Indeed, an interesting exercise for the government might be to examine all
the different ways this problem can be measured and see what each tells us.


Now, what about the idea that the amount of pornography on the Internet far
exceeds anything available in the terrestrial world?  Well, what proportion
of content on pre-recorded videocassettes is pornographic?  Is that
proportion rising or falling?  What proportion of content on cable
television is pornographic?  Is that proportion rising or falling?  What
about print media?  What proportion of print content is pornographic?  Is
that proportion increasing or decreasing?  What are the best ways to measure
this activity in these different media?


It is interesting that the government has made these statements, because it
suggests they have access to data which support them.  While no one disputes
the availability of sexual content on the Internet, I know of no credible
studies to support the government's contentions that the amount of such
content is large, growing and exceeds that available in traditional media. 


DLH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Professor Donna L. Hoffman                  hoffman () colette ogsm vanderbilt edu
Owen Graduate School of Management          615-343-6904 voice
Vanderbilt University                       615-343-7177 fax
Nashville, TN 37203                         129.59.210.109 CU-SeeMe


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