From senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!bass!clarinews Mon Jul 10 19:25:36 1995 Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!bass!clarinews Approved: khaight@clarinet.com Comment: O:3.2H; From: C-ap@clarinet.com (AP) Newsgroups: clari.tw.new_media,clari.news.sex Distribution: clari.apo Subject: Internet Porn Survey Debated Keywords: General financial/business news Copyright: 1995 by The Associated Press, R Message-ID: Date: Sun, 9 Jul 95 11:40:09 PDT Expires: Sun, 23 Jul 95 11:40:09 PDT ACategory: financial Slugword: Internet-Porn Priority: regular ANPA: Wc: 813/0; Id: V0577; Src: ap; Sel: -----; Adate: 07-09-N/A; V: 0813 Codes: APO-1310 Lines: 80 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu clari.tw.new_media:1729 clari.news.sex:1788 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Sharp questions have been raised over a widely-reported study about the availability of sexual images through computer bulletin boards and the Internet. The furor surrounding the study by Carnegie Mellon University researcher Martin Rimm, released two weeks ago and given cover treatment by Time magazine, illustrates the confusion that generally surrounds computer networks and their usage. For instance, estimates of the number of people who are connected to the Internet vary from 10 million to 30 million because a way to take a precise count hasn't developed. Ironically, this disagreement also demonstrates the power of the Internet as a forum for debate. The people involved, Rimm and Vanderbilt University researchers Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak, have dissected each other's work on-line. They have even connected their World Wide Web pages, making it possible for a computer user to flip from one academic argument to another. More than just another interesting use of the Internet, though, this particular debate comes as Congress tries to decide whether and how it can regulate communication that occurs with the assistance of computers. Many people who regularly use the Internet and other computer networks oppose regulation. And there are many doubts about how rules would be enforced. The Senate attached rules for the Internet to a telecommunications reform bill last month. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has raised questions about the viability of such rules, however, and two other congressman have proposed a bill that would prevent the government from regulating data communications. Into this atmosphere stepped Rimm with a study that found pornography is one of the largest, if not the largest, recreational uses of computer networks. In a typical week, 83.5 percent of the digitized photos transmitted over a portion of the Internet called Usenet newsgroups were pornographic, the study found. The numbers themselves caused problems with some on-line experts. ``The net as a whole does not generate good information about what people are doing. It generates good information about the quantities of material that are posted, but it doesn't tell us who's downloading what, who's reading what,'' said Mike Godwin, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Washington. But several news accounts of the study inflamed the matter. The Time cover story, for instance, failed to note that Rimm's study was not only of the Internet but also of several thousand ``adult'' computer bulletin boards. Such bulletin boards, privately-operated, require that people first prove they are over 18 and then pay for each image they download. Rimm's study actually found that on the Internet's Usenet, only 3 percent of all the messages are pornographic image files. Nonetheless, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said on the Senate floor ``83.5 percent of the 900,000 images reviewed -- these are all on the Internet -- are pornographic.'' The senator's comment was ``a direct result of the Time cover story, which gave credibility to the Rimm study which was neither warranted or deserved,'' said Hoffman, who is a professor in Vanderbilt's Graduate School of Management. She and Novak used the World Wide Web to post a critique of the study and Time's story in particular. Rimm responded with a critique of the critique. Newsweek, ABC's ``Nightline'' and other news organizations also reported about the survey. But Time was given exclusive access to more of its details and wrote a cover story about it. Time technology writer Philip Elmer-Dewitt said the magazine couldn't be held accountable for Grassley's characterization. However, he said time should have reported that questions had been raised about the survey. He also regrets not making a clearer distinction between adult bulletin boards and the Internet. ``I could have used a real big fat paragraph high up,'' he said. ``The fact is, there was a sentence that made the distinction between bulletin boards and Usenet and the Internet. But I had to cut 50 lines, and that was one of the most clunky sentences in the story and I took it out.'' Here's how the debate can be observed on-line: Internet newsgroup -- alt.internet.media-coverage Hoffman's World Wide Web page -- http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/ Rimm's Web page -- http://TRFN.pgh.pa.us/guest/mrstudy.html