Respondents Aren’t Much Concerned About Privacy Invasion; Porn Ban Backed

Southern Californians aren’t all that worried about electronic invasions of their privacy, and they’re willing to support a law against online pornography, according to The Times Technology Poll.

The inclinations of those polled toward cyberspace’s most controversial issues run sharply counter to the prevailing politics of the Internet--where protection of private data from the government and others has long been a paramount concern--and the position of the high-tech industry, which has sought to limit government regulation of the new communications media.

But the results also appear linked to whether the respondents had ever actually used a modem to connect to an online service.

When Congress passed a law earlier this year that prohibited the distribution of indecent material to children over computer networks, for example, Internet activists were instantly up in arms.

The law ignored the basic realities of how information is passed over digital networks, they said, and would result in a chilling effect on all forms of electronic communication.

In May, a federal court panel barred the government from enforcing the measure.

But most Times poll respondents said they would favor such a law.

Of those answering the question, “Would you favor or oppose a law that would make it illegal for a computer network to carry pornographic or adult material,” only 36% indicated they would oppose it. Fifty-six percent said they would favor it and 8% said they did not know.

The degree to which respondents were concerned about pornography appeared to be dictated at least in part by their familiarity with online communications, however. More than half said they were “very concerned” about pornography being available to young people on the Internet. But only 14% of those respondents said they used a modem.

Among those who said they were “not too concerned” or “not at all concerned,” by contrast, about a third were modem users.

Of the 1,200 randomly selected Southern California residents polled by telephone, just 19% overall said they used a modem.

About half those polled said that they were not very worried about computers and telecommunications devices being used to invade their privacy, whereas 20% said they worried “a lot” about it.

“I’m more concerned about getting connected,” says Diana Hale, a Los Angeles publicist who has never used a modem. “I don’t have anything that’s so secretive that I’d need to protect it.”

Online activists say that as more people begin to communicate electronically, such issues will become more important to a wider swath of society.

“It’s the sort of thing people don’t notice until it hurts them,” said John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and leader of the cypherpunks, a group of electronic privacy activists. “And ideally they shouldn’t have to. We ought to structure society so people don’t have to care as much.”