Largest Recreational Past Times Of Internet Users example essay topic

A new development being worked on now is Kid Code. This would allow a rating system for each web-page, the user then would be allowed to set the ratings of the pages allowed to their children. Other protective programs are also available such as The Internet Filter, which sends e-mail to the parents if a child enters a sex site. Cyber Patrol is time sensitive and allows restraint on certain times of use and total time online can be set by parents not wanting their kids be on the Internet all day instead of doing their homework, or not allowing them to be on after 9 pm.

Surf Watch comes with a list of sites containing sexual material that may not be changed. With Cyber Sitter, parents can add to the menu to unwanted sites but not remove any. Surf Watch denies access to sites such as Hustler automatically, it also restrains newsgroups with words like "porno"", ", or "sex" in their topic. Microsystems Softwares Cyber Patrol program filters 12 content subjects such as sex, violence, and hate speech, then parents can add sites to a "CyberNet" list. (4) Indecent material is protected by the First Amendment, much of the materials printed in America including articles from Cosmopolitan magazine or James Joyce's Ulysses could be called indecent. Many civil-rights groups were involved in calling the bill unconstitutional and prevents the citizens rights to free speech and privacy.

If the U.S. succeeds in censoring the Internet, they will be in a position to mediate much more then just porn. Anything they wished could be controlled such as private conversations to each other. Porn, sex, smut isnt only found on the Internet, it can be found in books, magazines, films, television, music video, newspapers and many other places. People can walk into a corner video store and walk out with a pornographic video at only $4 a night. A team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, conducted an extremely detailed study of online porn.

Some of their findings resulted in their conclusion in which the trading of sexually explicit pictures is one of the largest recreational past times of Internet users. At one unnamed university, 13 of 40 most frequently visited newsgroups had names like "alt. sex. stories" (6), "rec. arts. erotica", (7) and "alt. sex. bondage. (8) 40 71% of sexual images on the Internet originally can from the thousands of privately owned Bass whose operators sell their contents at a mere $10 to $30 a month (long distance call not included), the largest of these take major credit cards and make up to an excess of $1 million a year. The team found consumers in more then 2,000 cities in all 50 states and 40 countries, also in China, where possession of pornography can be a capital offense.

The censorship of the Internet should be the responsibility of the child's parents and not the governments responsibility. There are many options for a parent to use when restraining their child such as informing themselves better about whats in the Internet and taking precautions before hand. The average adult with children on the Internet might very well likely not know as much as the child. Perhaps a reason people want the government to censor it is because they dont want to take the time it takes to learn about the Internet and find a private censor program. A parents laziness is no reason to restrict others who enjoy spending their time collecting indecent pictures or reading medical documents about sex. The government admitted to being Internet dumb and not knowing of the goings on held within a persons computer screen, when one person could be skimming for subjects like fantasy role-playing games, another person might be secretly trading child porn.

With over 60 million users on the Internet, no one can guarantee that no pornography will stray down from someone.

Bibliography

1) Electronic Privacy Information Center. Communications Decency Act. February 02, 2002.
web 2) First Amendment Cyber-Tribune. AMENDMENT I. November 7, 2003.
web 3) Kimberly S. Young. What Makes the Internet Addictive: Potential Explanations for Pathological Internet Use. August 15, 1997.