Seeing Red and Not the Light
The most telling Internet-related images of recent days mirror conflict and confusion: At one end of the spectrum was the spectacular use of the medium to speed digital signals from Mars around the globe to millions of interested viewers; at the other was the continuing fear reflected in the “decency” debate that somehow the Web will hasten moral decay and ruin our children.
There is more to be learned from each case than may at first seem obvious.
The huge scientific success of steering a computer-driven spacecraft through the improbable loop-the-loop that brought it to Mars’ rocky surface was rendered even richer by the ability of the Web to make the information available quickly to a worldwide audience.
Easily a dozen sites--including several put together by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the news sites at MSNBC and CNN, the Los Angeles Times site and others--moved quickly to publish composite digital images from the Mars rover. NASA said its main site drew well more than 100 million hits a day. The sites were lush, featuring a mix of pictures, video, audio and informative text.
A week earlier, the Supreme Court had issued its decision overturning the Communications Decency Act as an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech. The White House called for new technology and ratings systems that might enable parents to block data feeds that might be deemed inappropriate.
As a society, we seem to find ourselves stuck.
Knowledge and information are good, and quick and available information is better, says the Mars example. We should celebrate it.
But some knowledge is not good, the government decreed in the CDA, and we need rules to tell us which is which.
I know the court case will have a lot of fallout. I wonder if the Mars example will.
What seems the best lesson of the day is that information that teaches, attracts and otherwise amuses, like that from Mars, will capture our attention.
Here’s a small proposal: Instead of worrying so much about what not to look at on the Internet, let’s pursue information that might just enhance our knowledge and attract our attention at the same time. Let’s support and celebrate those who create content that is useful, educational and artistic.
Among the sites that have followed the Communications Decency Act debate closely (Wired’s Netizen pages at https://www.wired.com and the Electronic Privacy Information Center at https://www.epic.org, as well as special reports at https://www.news.com, among others), there has been plenty of discussion about the case. There are broad suggestions about what to expect next and reports on some of the efforts underway.
* Even as the U.S. high court was overturning this decency argument, Germany’s counterparts were approving a similar law barring content deemed child pornography, and German prosecutors have charged CompuServe with knowingly allowing child pornography to reach German readers. Look for more international regulation.
* Although the Supreme Court has decided that the federal law was too broad and ill-defined, there are attempts to extend more localized, if more narrowly construed, bans. A law in New York banning indecent content on the Internet was knocked down by a federal court, but there are now laws in Oklahoma barring state employees from storing obscene materials on computers and a Virginia law restricting use of publicly financed computers in posting, printing or storing sexually explicit material.
In addition, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Kansas, Maryland, Montana and Texas all have extended child pornography laws to specifically include transmission by computer.
* Local authorities--including the state of Ohio; the city of Boston; communities including Gilroy, Calif., Warren, Mich., and, this week, Los Angeles--are considering laws governing operation of computers at local libraries, so as to block access to offensive sites from public machines.
* The White House wants Web sites to rate themselves to help parents decide what their children should see.
What I see is societal confusion about whether the Internet is friend or foe. What has struck me is that porn sites, gambling sites and others that first come to mind as potential dangers for children already identify themselves--quite proudly--as being for adults only.
Sure, there are real conflicts over the costs of protecting free speech on the Internet, but I question whether we truly need a guarantee about the nature of answers before we even utter an electronic question.
For a brief moment while watching the Martian landscape being beamed into my own home, I mused about the potential reaction if the robot cameras had focused on a bunch of naked Martians walking across the rocky soil. Would we have flipped to discover interstellar life? Or would we have covered our children’s eyes to keep them from seeing naked bodies?
By inviting us as readers and viewers inside their home, the folks at NASA and the JPL deserve applause for more than the science of their achievements. They have reminded us that our world(s) can be fascinating and worth our attention.
Perhaps that would make a better icon for government policymaking than the worry beads of authorized learning.
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Terry Schwadron is editor of Life & Style and oversees latimes.com, The Times’ Web site. He can be reached via e-mail at terry.schwadron@latimes.com
