The Net Effect : Supreme Court Decency Ruling Won’t Take the Heat off Access Providers
Digital victory banners flapped on the Internet, online newsgroups cheered and free-speech advocates staged public rallies from San Francisco to Austin, Tex., on Thursday in celebration of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Communications Decency Act.
But beneath the confetti, Internet company executives and online activists acknowledged that there is more pressure than ever to give consumers greater control over what comes through the ether and into their homes.
“We hear from customers that they have seen content on the Internet they don’t want their children to see,” said Tom Evslin, vice president of AT&T; WorldNet, an Internet access service with about 900,000 subscribers. “They’ve been asking for control, and we need to make sure subscribers have the tools they need.”
What those tools might be, and who might supply them, are questions for which there is no clear answer. But Evslin and others were satisfied on Thursday that future solutions are more likely to come from their industry and not the federal government.
Efforts to develop some kind of self-regulation scheme will likely accelerate in light of President Clinton’s call Thursday for industry officials, parents and educators to get together and find ways to “help ensure that our children don’t end up in the red-light districts of cyberspace.”
Industry officials were quick to back Clinton’s proposal. Ken Wasch, president of the Software Publishers Assn., said that while the organization is “pro-free speech, we recognize the legimate concerns of parents, the president, legislators and other citizens.”
But many Internet free-speech advocates are wary of possible ratings schemes that might prove to be “voluntary” only in theory.
Indeed, while the battle to defeat the law pulled together an array of unlikely allies--ranging from corporate powerhouses such as Microsoft Corp. and America Online Inc. to libertarian-leaning organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation--the anti-Internet censorship alliance is likely to fray as new approaches to the issue emerge.
On Thursday, however, the allies basked in the Supreme Court’s decision to toss out a law passed by Congress last year that would have imposed fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms up to two years on those who disseminate “indecent” material over the public portions of the Internet.
Many in the industry said they expect Congress to make another run at regulating the Net, this time with a more narrowly tailored approach that might appease the courts. But the more immediate impetus for change, industry leaders said, is coming from consumers and their pocketbooks.
“There is a lot of market incentive right now to come up with the best parental control tools,” said Bill Burrington, director of law and public policy for AOL, the world’s largest online service, with about 8 million subscribers. “It’s become a competitive issue for us.”
AOL scores points with parents, and attracts new subscribers, by offering different levels of access to users in different age groups. A service called “kids only,” for instance, gives children ages 6 through 12 access only to content and Web sites that have been pre-approved by AOL. Parents determine their children’s access when they subscribe to the service.
Among one of the company’s core subscription groups--families with children using the service--about 30% are already using access control tools. And that number is expected to grow, Burrington said.
But even Burrington acknowledged that the there is still no foolproof way of protecting children from Internet threats ranging from pornography to pedophiles.
So far, the best-known approaches to the problem center on software that filters out inappropriate sites. Internet service providers including WorldNet and Netcom Online Communications encourage their subscribers to download copies of products such as CyberPatrol and SurfWatch, which allow users to limit access to pre-approved sites.
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser has a function that allows users to visit only sites that have rated themselves voluntarily with a system called PICS, forprogram for Internet content selection.
But Jeff Fox, an editor at Consumer Reports magazine, said even the best of these products failed about 20% of the time to block access to sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate sites during a recent test.
“They’re better than nothing,” Fox said, “but there’s still lots of room for improvement.”
Industry leaders were quick to point out that software filters have improved dramatically in a relatively short time and that most people don’t encounter pornography or other inappropriate material unless they go looking for it.
Most agreed that for the Internet to advance beyond the 15% or so of American households it reaches now and become a truly mainstream medium, parents will need to feel comfortable. But Internet service providers said that while they will push for advancement in filters and other technology, they remain reluctant to control access to content themselves.
“What we sell isn’t our editorial judgment, it’s reliable access,” said AT&T;’s Evslin. Controlling content is likely to be a growing business, he said, “but not one for AT&T.;”
That sentiment would have played well among the 200 or so Netizens who gathered at a park in San Francisco to celebrate the downfall of the decency act.
Onlookers, many of them clad in jeans, sunglasses and assorted piercings, cheered speakers including Bruce Ennis, the lawyer who argued the case before the Supreme Court earlier this year.
But despite the elation over the courtroom victory, even the staunchest defenders of online freedoms had a somewhat subdued take on the day’s events. Stanton McCandlish, program director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, cautioned that there will be plenty of fights over Internet freedoms in the future.
“It’s an interesting time,” he said, “in the sense of the old Chinese curse.”
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
The Court Rules . . .
The government’s interest in keeping children away from harmful materials “does not justify an unnecessarily broad suppression of speech addressed to adults.”
JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Communications Decency Act was anxiously awaited in cyberspace, where most Netizens were concerned that it unduly infringed upon free speech. Several sites on the World Wide Web have posted information about the ruling and how Internet users can maintain a safe and wholesome environment online. Here are a few examples:
* The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition has posted the court’s decision on its Web site at https://www.ciec.org. The site also reviews the history of the act and its progress through the courts, along with reaction from members of Congress.
* The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has an online guide called “Child Safety on the Information Highway” at https://www.missingkids.org/childsafety.html that suggests ways for parents to reduce risks and offers guidelines for online safety.
* The Voters Telecommunications Watch has prepared a “Guide to Internet Parenting” at https://www.vtw.org/parents. The site explains different methods of policing the Web sites that children visit--including rating systems, keyword filters and government restrictions--and explains what options are available to parents.
* Suggestions offered by Enough Is Enough at https://www.enough.org/safeguards.htm include keeping the computer in a public area, reviewing the software and computer magazines your child receives, monitoring how much time your child spends online and instructing kids never to give out their real names, addresses or phone numbers.
Researched by KAREN KAPLAN/Los Angeles Times
