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Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1999 A walk in the redweb district DURING a recent conference presentation, it was claimed that over 35 per cent of all Web searches are sex-related. This revelation, followed by my accidental discovery of an undesirable site, prompted me to investigate the scope, depth and threat of the pornography problem. I suppose I should hasten to add that this was a legitimate investigation, related to the provision of user-safe sites. A large number of the sites visited at random presented nothing more threatening than a Page 3-type pin-up, followed by warnings of the sexually explicit material available inside. Many had "only click here if you are over the age of 18", and some demanded credit-card details before you could see anything. At least demanding money or more clicks gives some warning, but I was surprised by the huge number of sites presenting grossly pornographic material for free, without warning. There now seems to be an infinite supply of pornographic pictures, movies and stories to satisfy every niche in the market. To my mind, the increase over the past five years has been dramatic. While I'm not really too concerned what consenting adults do in private, there are clearly access and involvement issues. Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the whole experiment was the innocent combination of words that now result in direct access to such material. Even apparently innocuous sporting references can result in material you wish you had not seen, and certainly you would not wish your children to see. My first action was to talk to some young people to check out their views and opinions. To some extent they restored my faith in humanity. First, they had reasonably balanced views on the subject, and second, they were not outwardly disturbed. Within families there seems to be some semblance of a paternal approach where the older keep an eye on the younger. The parents look after the interests of the teenagers, and the teenagers look after the younger family members. Of course, all individuals and families are not the same, and some will never see any control or constraint. It really is about learned behaviours and attitudes passed from down generation to generation. The problem is, technology has skipped at least one generation - and this problem is outside their experience. The accidental discovery of dubious pages originating in South East Asia by one of my children prompted me to consider an active policy of Net denial. But I quickly concluded that the upside of the Net is so huge I could not afford a depriving regime. In this case, deprivation is a double-edged sword. For our future progress as individuals and as a society, it is essential we pursue policies giving bit access as a right. At best we may contain the pornography and other offensive materials to some redweb district in cyberspace. Here, access could be by credit card only, after multiple warnings and clicks. For sure, there is not a hope of total Net control. We already have major problems unifying legal systems across nations, and in the end it will come down to the policing of gross crimes alone. Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is: |
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