Transcript Internet Safety

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
OBSCENITY:
PERVASIVENESS, THREAT AND
HARMS
Presentation Prepared By
Donna Rice Hughes
Overview
• The World Of CyberSex
– What’s happening?
• Just Harmless Fun?
– Why should we care?
• The Search For Solutions
– What should we do?
THE WORLD OF CYBERSEX
INDUSTRY
Cyber-Porn Beginnings
• BBS (Robert Thomas) –Newsgroups- Web
• Barriers of access to all types of sexually-explicit
material is virtually obliterated by the Internet
– Anonymity
– Ease of Access
– Porn of choice (including black-market porn)
– Inexpensive
– Under law enforcement radar
National Research Council
Independent Study, 2002
• Large amounts of very graphic sexually explicit
content on the Internet
• Easy to access
• Can stumble across it inadvertently
• Sometimes pushed on people (including minors)
• Some would have been prosecuted if in print
under past policy
• Some more graphic and shocking than what is
easily available through non-Internet sources
•
National Research Council, (NRC) Independent Study, 2002
THE CYBERSEX INDUSTRY
Scale
• Online pornography is the first consistently
successful e-commerce product (C-net, 4/28/99)
• Generates approximately $1 billion annually
• Expected to grow to $5-$7 billion over next 5
years, barring unforeseen change
• Total Adult Industry- estimates from $4 billion to
$10 billion (NRC, 3-1)
THE CYBERSEX INDUSTRY
Structure
• Subscription sites exceed 100,000 in U.S. operated by
about 1,000 U.S. based firms
• The two largest individual buyers of bandwidth are U.S.
firms in adult online industry
• Structure of industry consists of small number of large
firms and larger number of small firms
(NRC, 3-1)
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Generation of Online Porn Revenue:
• Consumer sales
• Mousetrapping- Referral fee
• Advertising (1 million annually (CRC 3.2))
– CPA model-Cost per acquisition
– CPC model-Cost per click
– CPM model- Cost per million
(CPM, CPC, & Mousetrapping Models have no incentive
to distinguish between child and adult traffic)
(NRC Study, 2002)
FUTURE TRENDS
• Due to saturated market:
– More aggressive marketing
– Incentives to niche market:
– Well-established firms testified sex sites
becoming more specialized to accommodate
any preference or extreme material as route to
future growth (NRC 3.5)
Free “Teaser” Images
• 74% of adult commercial sites display free teaser
porn images on homepage, often porn banner ads
• 66% did not include a warning of adult content
• 11% included such a warning but did not have
sexually explicit content on homepage
• 25 % prevented users from exiting site
(Mousetrapping)
• Only 3% required adult verification
(Child-proofing on the World wide Web: A Survey of Adult Webservers,2001, Jurimetrics. NRC Report 2002)
Porn-Napping and Hijacking
•
•
•
•
40,000 expired domain names porn-napped
New owners offer re-sale $500-2,000 (NRC)
Extortion or Blackmail?
Hijacked to porn or gambling sites (5/30/02 Agency
France Passe)
– Moneyopolis.com –hijacked to XXX siteFormally an Ernst &Young site for kids
(NYT, 2001)
Deceptive Marketing Practices
•Misspelled Words- (shareware vs. sharware) (17% NCMEC)
•Innocent Searches- (toys, boys, pets, etc)(47% NCMEC)
•Stealth Sites- (whitehouse.com; coffeebeansupply.com;
teenagershideout.com; http://clothingcatalog.com;
watersports.com)
•Brand Name Misuse (Disney, Nintendo, Barbie, Levis, etc)
•Unsolicited email- Spam
Pornographer’s Use of Brand
Names
• 26 popular children’s characters, such as
Pokemon, My Little Pony & Action Man, revealed
thousands of links to porn sites
• 30% were hard-core (Envisional 2000)
• 25% of porn sites are estimated to use popular
brand names in search engine magnets, metatags
and links- Disney, Nintendo, and Barbie (Cyveillance
Survey, 1999)
•
COFFEEBEANSUPPLY
(Hijacks)
•
Free Teaser Images in each Category
• Animal; stories; gay; anal; www.sex.com;
oral;alt.sex; sex.com; teen; pictures; gals;
pics; chicks; indian; black; with animals;
****;stories; interracial; pictures; hot; pics;
lesbian; group; hardcore; asian; adult;
cartoon; dog; live; phone; preteen; teenage;
etc
ONLINE OBSCENITY
• Watersports.com
– Photos of women urinating
– Live ‘streaming’ video
• Boys.com
-Hijacks to “Man Alert: Leading Gay Content
Site”
-Photos of gay sexual activity
A Picture’s Worth a Thousand
Words
Influence
1. Public opinion
2. Media (NYT story)
3. Congress
4. Jury
WAYBACK MACHINE
• Hosted in U.S. at www.archive.org, Archives
earlier versions of websites including obscenity
and child pornography
Child porn:
[warning: contains graphic photos of children being raped]
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://Illegalheat.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://Sexteens.com
Obscenity
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bestiality.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://rotten.com
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://scatcafe.com
YAHOO!
• Yahoo’s Clubs, Members Directories and
Geocities sites host child porn and
encourage child sex abusers
• Yahoo! Family Incest Club
• Yahoo! Rape Club
• Yahoo! Incest Directory
• Yahoo! Child Pornography Crimes
Directory
Child Pornography
• 345% increase in child pornography sites between 2/2001 7/2001 (N2H2 press release, 8/01)
• Child Porn Spam Increase- Children at risk
-less careful online
-use chat rooms where their email addresses
are collected by unknown people
-increases chance of kids viewing spam sent to
them by email (NCMEC, Pioneer Press, 12/17/01)
• Virtual Validation-Like-minded communities
PORNOGRAPHY- Tool used by
Pedophiles
• to arouse the child,
• to lower the child’s inhibitions,
• to demonstrate to their victims what they
want them to do,
• to communicate that a particular sexual
activity is okay.
The World of Cybersex
Consumer
INTERNET ACCESS
(As of September 2001)
*143 million Americans (54 % of the population) have Internet
access
*90 % ( 47.4 million) of children between the ages of 5 and 17
use computers at home or school
*75% of teens ages 14-17 use the Internet
*65% of preteens ages 10-13 use the Internet
(Source: CNN report, 2/7/02, Commerce Department Study)
1999 Yankelovich Survey
• 50% teens admit to visiting porn sites*
– 79% found porn on school or library computers
– Increase of 70% since 1997
– 67% accessed porn at home
– 64% accessed porn at friend’s house
-75% of parents claimed to know ‘everything’ or
‘fair amount’ about their kids Internet activity
Kaiser Family Foundation Study 2001
Among youth ages15-17 year:
• 70 % have accidentally stumbled on porn online
– ‘Very’ or ‘somewhat’ often (23%)
• 55% were ‘not too’ upset
• 45% were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ upset
• 63% favored CIPA (filtering in schools & libraries)
Of youth ages 15-24:
• 2 in 3 say being exposed to online porn could have serious
impact on kids under age 18.
• 59% think seeing pornography on the Internet encourages
youth to have sex before they are ready
2002
• Adult industry says some traffic is 20-30%
children (NRC Report 2002, 3.3)
• 9 in 10 kids ages 8-16 yrs have viewed porn online, mostly
unintentionally, and when using the Internet to do
homework (UK:News Telegraph, NOP Research Group, 1/17/02)
• 11 year old girl doing homework, She logged into a website
labeled "Adolf Hitler pictures", faced with child pornography,
"gaysexfreepics".
• Two brothers, aged 10 and 12, found homosexual images
instead of pop band Boyzone
National Center For Missing &
Exploited Children Study
•
•
•
•
•
71% searching the Internet
29% IM or email
Home- 67%
School- 15%
Library- 3%
•
(NCMEC, Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth (Sample of 1,501 youth
ages 1-17 who use Internet regularly, June 2001)
CYBERSEX- CRACK COCAINE
OF SEX ADDICTION
• “Sex on the net is like heroin. It grabs them and
takes over their lives.” Dr. Mark Scwartz, Masters & Johnson, NYT, May,
2000
• Cyber-sex is a public health hazard exploding
because very few are recognizing it as such or
taking it seriously (MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, AP 2000)
• Cyber-sex reinforces and normalizes sexual
disorders (Dr. Robert Weiss, Sexual Recovery Institute, Washington Times, 1/26/00)
Skinner Box Effect
Etiology
• Internet browsers force the blind selection of images; and
not all images are equally stimulating to the user.
• The user does not know WHICH image selection
(behavior) will yield high level stimulation
(reinforcement).
• Like placing coins in a slot machine, a "payoff" sometimes
occurs within three image clicks, then perhaps 10, etc.
• The user is thus placed on a classic Skinnerian variable
ratio schedule of reinforcement--the SAME mechanism
that drives gambling addiction.
•
(Grundner, T.M. The Skinner Box Effect: Sexual Addiction and Online Pornography. New York:
Writers Club Press. 2000)
The Skinner Box Effect Implications
• Etiology of online pornography addiction is
essentially the same as that of gambling addiction.
• NOT a "moral disease.“ Personal morality has
nothing to do with the origins of the behavior.
• The Bad News: Gambling addiction is REALLY
tough to treat. (Grundner, T.M. The Skinner Box Effect: Sexual Addiction and Online
•
Pornography. New York: Writers Club Press. 2000)
CYBER-SEX COMPULSIONS
• 60% of all web-site visits are sexual in nature
• Sex is the # 1 searched word online
• 25 million Americans visit cyber-sex sites between 1-10
hours per week. Another 4.7 million in excess of 11 hours
per week. (Does not include children who are becoming
addicted)
• 200,000 considered “sex addicts” either lost their
marriage, job, or both
• 20 million people visit sex sites each month
(MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Survey of 9,265 people, 2000)
• 37% of pastors say it is a current struggle (Christianity Today,
Leadership Survey,12/2001)
STUDENTS & CYBERSEX
• Students were most at risk for cybersex
compulsions
• Due to a combination of increased access to
computers, more private leisure time, &
developmental stage characterized by increased
sexual awareness & experimentation.
(All stats from MSNBC/Stanford/Duquesne Study, 2000)
JUST HARMLESS FUN?
JUST HARMLESS FUN?
A rope with five strands: (No Smoking Gun)
•
•
•
•
•
Advertising
Impact of sexually-oriented businesses
Controlled research studies
Correlational research studies
Experience of clinical psychologists
(+ anecdotal evidence of people whose lives have been harmed)
(Just Harmless Fun? Special Report, Enough Is Enough!, 2000, Watson & Welch)
I - Advertising
• If images don’t influence behavior, how do we
explain the existence of the advertising industry?
• Visual images create brand images:
– Marlboro Man, Pepsi Generation, Nike, etc
• What brand of sexuality is pornography
promoting?
Overall Messages
• Advertising impact attitudes & behavior
• Sex sells
• Pornography advertises sex:
– Without relationship
– Without commitment
– Without consequences
Portrayal of Women
• “The characteristic portrayal of women in
pornography [is] as socially nondiscriminating, as hysterically euphoric in
response to just about any sexual or
pseudosexual stimulation, and as eager to
accommodate seemingly any and every
sexual request”
(Zillman & Bryant, 1984)
Missing Messages
• STD’s: Waiting for the results of an HIV test
• Unwanted Pregnancy: A girlfriend pregnant at 16
• A student facing prosecution for date rape because
he couldn’t decode the word “no”
• His partner, traumatized
• Negative impact on families and marriages
II - Sexually-Oriented Businesses
• “You don’t need a moral micrometer to recognize
the sex industry turned Times Square into a slum”
George Will, Newsweek, 1996
• Zoning of SOBs is constitutionally permitted
because of “secondary harmful effects”
– Sexual offences, property crimes, decrease in values
• Ever wonder what causes “secondary harm”?
III –RESEARCH STUDIES
Two types of research on pornography:
1) Controlled research – lab conditions, controlled
to neutralize extraneous variables: identifies
causation
2) Correlational studies – observation of real world
events: identifies correlation (i.e. that certain
things happen together), not causation (i.e. that
one thing caused the other)
Controlled Research
• Correct test is the preponderance of the evidence
• Best approaches bring together multiple studies:
– “review studies” (that compare the results of
multi original research studies)
– “meta-analyses” (that aggregate original studies
meeting stringent tests of comparability)
Example Review Study
• 1994 review study of 81 original peerreviewed research studies:
– “the empirical research on the effects of
aggressive pornography shows, with fairly
impressive consistency, that exposure to these
materials has a negative effect on attitudes
toward women and the perceived likelihood to
rape”
Lyons, Anderson and Larsen
Example Meta-Analysis
• 1995 meta-analysis based on 24 original
experimental studies:
– “violence within the pornography is not necessary to
increase the acceptance of rape myths”
– which is of concern because “several recent metaanalyses demonstrate a high correlation between
attitude and behavior”
Allen, Emmers, Gebhardt & Giery
IV - Correlational Studies
• Must be used with care, since silent on causation
• ACLU asks: “Does pornography cause rape, or are rapists
simply the sort of people who like pornography?”
• Why don’t they ask: Does drunk driving cause accidents,
or are reckless drivers simply the sort of people who like to
get loaded?
• Correlation is an accepted tool as the second blade on the
social science research scissors:
– One blade for causality
– One blade for real-world application
Examples Of Correlational
Studies
• Oklahoma City: Closed 150 out of 163 SOBs in five years;
reported rapes declined 27% in same period, while rising
19% in rest of state
• Porn magazines: various studies found “strong evidence of
very robust, direct correlation between circulation of sex
magazines [in a state] and rape rates,” even after
controlling for other variables
• Rape has increased by 500% in US since 1960, parallels
growth of pornography industry (Protecting Your Child In an X-rated World,
LaRue, York Tyndale, 2002)
V - Clinical Psychologists
• Fortune magazine cover story, 5/15/99 -“Addicted
to Sex” – described destructive effects of
pornography, prostitution and promiscuity on
individuals and businesses (neutral source)
• Study of 932 sex addicts, 90 % of men and 77% of
women said pornography played a significant role
in their addiction (Patrick Carnes, (1991), whose clinic was featured in the Fortune
article
Four Stage Progression:
Dr. Victor Cline, University of Utah:
1. Addiction- The need to keep coming back for more
(drug of choice)
2. Escalation- The need for more explicit, rougher &
more deviant images for same effect
3. Desensitization- Material once shocking or taboo is
acceptable
4. Acting out- Tendency to sexually act-out behaviors
depicted in porn (promiscuity, bondage, rape, child
molestation, Public safety issue)
Market Illustrates Trend
• The first three stages describe precisely the “progression”
of the commercial “men’s” magazine over the last thirty
years:
– Penthouse 1970 – NO full frontal nudity
– Penthouse 2000 – oral sex, vaginal intercourse (PCV),
anal penetration with object, female urination
– 2001- Vaginal & oral sex too tame-- progression to
anal sex to maintain the excitement. (2001), writer
Martin Amis did an investigative piece for The
Guardian newspaper
– Penthouse 2001, Bob Guccione explains the growing
market for a thing called bukkake, ("facials" with
multiple males participating).
Biological Brain Responses
Why? Imprinting
• Adrenal hormone – Epinephrine – responds
to emotional stimuli by locking in memories
• Hormone- Opioids – released by nerve
endings in response to pleasure – reinforce
the body’s desire to repeat the process
•
(1983-James McGaugh, Phd, American Psychologist)
Factors Particularly Affecting
Children
• Why are there no controlled research studies on
impact of pornography on children?
– Because they would violate ethical and professional
guidelines
– Ethical Principles of American Psychological
Association require “fully informed and competent
decision to participate” with risks “understood by
participants”
Teenagers
• Dr. Jennings Bryant, in a study of 600 American
males and females teenagers, 91 % males and 82
% females exposed to hard-core porn. Over 66%
of males and 40% of females wanted to try out
some of the sexual behaviors. 31% of males and
18 % of the females admitted actually doing some
of the things they had seen in pornography within
a few days after exposure. (Cline, Pornography Effects)
Harms to Children
Kids Online: Protecting Your Children In Cyberspace, Rice Hughes 1998
• Interferes with a child’s development and
identity
• Shapes attitudes and Values
• Promotes Desensitization
• May incite children to act out sexually
against other children
• Typical age of first exposure- 5 yrs old!
(Protecting Your Child In an X-rated World, LaRue/York Tyndale, 2002)
JUVENILE PERPETRATORS
• Juveniles• 48% of overall solicitations
• 48% of aggressive solicitations
• Adult solicitors• Most of the “adult” solicitors were ages 1825
• 24% of solicitations
• 34% of aggressive solicitations
•
(NCMEC, Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth (Sample of 1,501 youth
ages 1-17 who use Internet regularly, June 2001)
Child Rapists
• Nearly half of the nation’s child molesters
were children (Philadelphia Enquirer 1993)
• Juvenile sex offender programs:
– 22 in 1983
– 755 in 1993
– 1200 in 2002 (Protecting Your Child In an X-rated World, LaRue/York Tyndale,
2002)
THE SEARCH FOR
SOLUTIONS
What should we do?
PREVENTION:
THREE- PRONG SOLUTION
•A shared responsibility between the
Public- Parents, Schools, Libraries, Businesses,
Churches
Technology Industry
Legal Community- Law Enforcement & Public Policy
•Each provides an essential layer of protection
•Homeland defense: Evil of online pedophile or
pornographers invading and intruding into the lives of
Americans
PUBLIC PRONG
ROLE OF PARENTS, TEACHERS, & LIBRARIANS
-Awareness, education and empowerment
-Safety Rules and Software tools- Both are
essential, one without the other is
ineffective
-Gov’t can’t parent, & parents can’t enforce the
laws
Techno-Phobic and Internet
Challenged Parents
• 43% of children who have visited x-rated
sites said they do not have rules about
Internet use at home (Time/CNN Poll, 2000)
• 62% of parents are unaware that their
children had accessed objectionable sites
(Yankelovitch Partner Survey, 9/30/99)
• 1 in 2 parents don’t use protective software
(FamilyPC, 2000)
PUBLIC LIBRARIES
-Public Libraries had 82 million Internet sessionsannual porn incident rate of between 400,000 and
2 million (Dangerous Access, 2000)
- 7,000 porn sites accessed in 2 days in Chesterfield,
Va’s 9 public libraries. Board of Supervisors voted
to filter all terminals (June 2001)
TECHNOLOGY PRONG
WHAT CAN THE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY DO?
•Develop technological solutions
•Implement technological solutions
•Industry Code of Conduct
•Choose not to offer newsgroups offering child
pornography & obscenity
•Cooperate with law enforcement
Toxic Environment
How do we protect ourselves, our children,
from the secondary effects in a culture that
allows such toxic material to flourish?
 How do we protect our children from others
who may act out violently against them
because of their own exposure to
pornography?

Acting Out
• 11/98- 11-year-old Josh had been looking at graphic
violent porn on the Internet for 20 minutes
immediately before stabbing 8-year-old Maddie
Clifton to death.
• 6/29/98- 13-year-old (boy) was in the Phoenix
Burton Barr Library viewing porn on the Internet.
He followed 4 year old into the bathroom and asked
the younger boy to give him oral sex. (Dangerous Access
2000)
LEGAL PRONG
GOVERNMENT & LAW ENFORCEMENT
•Aggressive enforcement of current laws (child porn,
obscenity, child stalking laws)
•Federal, State, & Local cooperation & coordination
•Law enforcement training
•The public should not have to shoulder the burden of
protecting against illegal content and criminal activity
Legislation
– Child Online Protection Act (COPA)-Adult
verification required on porn sites *(Safety Net )
– Child Pornography Protection Act- Extend law
to include computer-generated child porn. Supreme Ct struck down
– Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA)Requires Schools & Libraries to filter
– Loopholes- New Laws and Rulemaking: Spam,
Deceptive Marketing Tactics, Mousetrapping
COPA Commission Recommendations to
Law Enforcement
• Gov’t at all levels should fund, with significant
new money, aggressive programs to investigate,
prosecute and report violations of federal and state
obscenity laws,” including efforts to protect
children from obscenity
• Make available a list of Internet sources (no
images) found to contain child porn and obscenity
• Pursuant to Congressional rulemaking
Enforcement- deceptive, unfair business practices
(mousetrapping, deceptive meta-tagging, spam)
National Research Council
Recommendations
• “Vigorous prosecution of obscene material”
• Civil liability
• Enforcement of record-keeping
requirements
• Streamline process of handling violations
• New rulemaking (spam, mousetrapping)
Public Support for Enforcement
• 76% of Americans think Internet porn
should be banned
• The more accessible the medium, the less
permissible sexually-explicit content should
be: (% allowed)
Video 37%
Premium Cable 41%
Magazines 55%
Basic Cable 74%
Internet 76%
(State of the First Amendment, 1999 Freedom Forum)
Wirthlin Survey , 2002
• Eight out of ten Americans (81%) believe federal laws
against Internet obscenity should be vigorously enforced,
and seven out of ten (70%) believe that strongly. A higher
percentage of women support vigorous enforcement of
federal laws against Internet obscenity than men (90%
versus 72%).
• On the other hand, seven out of ten Americans (70%) say
they do not believe these laws are currently being
vigorously enforced.
Adult Internet Industry
Conference
(source:www.ia2000.com)
• “Peaches & cream as far as prosecutions”
(Paul Cambria, CNS News, 9/24/00)
• The industry has enjoyed “benevolent
neglect” under Janet Reno (Adult Video News 2000)
• “If (Bush) gets elected, … fasten your
seatbelts…” (Clyde DeWitt, CNS News, 9/24/00)
Enough Is Enough!
-Appeal to Law Enforcement
• Public opinion drives public policy
• The pornographers have and will continue
to push the envelop
• Take back the ground we’ve lost
• Collective & coordinated united front
• Only law enforcement can turn the tide
You can make all the difference, We’re
counting on you