Cyberscare Scrapbook

This past summer America witnessed a truly bizarre media blitz on the dangers of Internet pornography. On the floor of the Senate, James Exon (D-Neb.) orchestrated a private tour of online copulation to enlist votes for his Communications Decency Act. The Georgetown Law Journal had published a dubious research paper by Carnegie Mellon undergrad Marty Rimm that claimed--among other things--that 83.5 percent of all digital images on Usenet were pornographic. Time, which got an exclusive first look at Rimm's Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway: A Study of 917,410 Images, Descriptions, Short Stories and Animations Downloaded 8.5 Million Times by Consumers in Over 2000 Cities in 40 Countries, Provinces and Territories, devoted its July 3 cover story to the research and congressional debate. Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition appeared on Nighiline sputtering a statistic pulled out of thin air and demanding government intervention. The Senate obliged, voting 84-16 to punish ''indecent'' and ''filthy'' words and images in cyberspace.

It didn't take long for antiporn zealots to latch on to Rimm's study, claiming it proved that women were being tortured, raped and objectified in digital space. But few people bothered to read Rimm's 86-page study or the many detailed critiques that immediately popped up on the Internet.

Unfortunately, the many efforts to show Rimm's study for what it was (a sloppy grab for media attention) and Exon's legislation for what it was (censorship by prior restraint) were too little, too late. The idea that the Internet is saturated with harmful and vile pornography available at the ''click of a button'' had already entered the American psyche. Only those willing to look past the initial rhetoric discovered that the reality of the situation wasn't so neat and tidy.

Just a Click Away?

Rimm's research failed to emphasize that 99.7 percent of the images he studied were found on private, adult bulletin boards, which are not part of the Internet and not accessible to children. From the study: ''In order to collect descriptive lists of the pornographic images available on each bulletin board system, as well as a representative sampling of the images themselves, the research team placed more than 300 hours of longdistance telephone calls to the adult BBSes selected by the team. Every BBS asked members of the research team to provide a real name, an address, business and home phone numbers, date of birth, password and type of computer and modem. Most asked where the members of the research team had heard about their BBS, and approximately half of them required photocopies of a driver's license with proof of age before granting further access to their systems. Still others asked for the user's mother's maiden name (purportedly in case the password was forgotten) and required users to read legal disclaimers related to pornographic files.''

At one point in his study, Rimm makes it clear his research of porn on the Internet didn't really involve the Internet. ''It is difficult to estimate the extent to which the Internet is being used to carry pornographic images,'' he writes. ''Unfortunately, no reliable data are available to answer this question.'' Rimm's numbers may not stand up, but he's no dummy. A study called Marketing Pornography on Private, Adult Bulletin Boards Not Available to Children would never have made the cover of Time--or the Senate floor.

Falsies

Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) speaking on the Senate floor the day Time's article hit newsstands: ''Of the images reviewed, 83.5 percent--all on the Internet--are pornographic.''

There are thousands of newsgroups on the Internet, but Rimm chose 32 groups that deal with images. His bias is evident. ''Of 32 digital image newsgroups located on Usenet, 17 contained pornographic imagery. Among the 15 non-pornographic groups, 827 image posts were counted during the sevenday period. Among the 17 pornographic newsgroups, 4206 image posts were counted, or 83.5 percent of the total posts from all 32 groups.'' In other words, in a study of 32 newsgroups in which more than half were devoted to pornographic images, 8 in 10 of the postings were pornographic images. Eureka!

Rimm subsequently pointed out that because the Usenet represents only 11.5 percent of the Internet, its pornographic content represents 0.35 percent of all Net traffic.

Take One

Senator Grassley, on Rimm's study: ''It's the only comprehensive study dealing with pornography in cyberspace.''

Take Two

Senator Grassley, after dropping Marty Rimm from the witness list before a congressional hearing a few weeks later to discuss cyberpon: ''Now under criticism, that study is under review, as it should be.''

Department of Rash Generalizations, Shameless Parroting of Bogus Statistics and Antimale Propaganda

Antiporn zealot Catharine MacKinnon, reacting to Rimm's study: ''Pornography is a huge amount of the activity on the Internet. When men make new communities, they bring their pornography with them. More than that, they bond through it. Pornography takes up much of the Internet's collective brain. Over 80 percent of all pictures available on the Usenet are pornography.''

One More Reason Why Bulletin Boards Should not be Confused With the Internet

Mike Godwin, general counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, reacting to Rimm's study: ''It's as if you did a study of bookstores in Times Square and used it to generalize about what was in Barnes & Noble stores nationwide.''

Most Underreported Fact

In an article accompanying Rimm's study, NYU Law School Professor Carlin Meyer reports: ''Interestingly, the Carnegie Mellon study never found such descriptions as snuff, kill or murder and rarely found such others as pain, torture, agony, hurts, suffocates and the like. The term rape appeared fewer than a dozen times in descriptions of more than 900,000 images.''

Weirdest Defense of Study

Professor Meyer: ''The Internet makes it possible for people with enormously varied backgrounds and religious or moral belief systems to engage in distanced and therefore relatively safe discussion of otherwise emotionaly difficult subjects such as sexual beliefs and practices. Imagine, for example, an uninhibited cross-cultural discussion of the Colombian Caribbean coast practice in which teenage boys matriculate to manhood by having sex with donkeys. Subscribers to sexual-, anthropologic-, zoophilic- or bestiality-related newsgroups could debate whether this ritual may be a more effective way to prevent teen pregnancy than those rituals promoted by their own cultures. They could argue about whether proving one's manhood with donkeys is worse than doing so by abusing young women or by purchasing the services of prostitutes.''

Great Moments in Pseudoscience: Stare at an Image Long Enough and You'll See a Video!

A major flaw in Rimm's methodology was that his team did not actually view all 917,410 images he claims were downloaded from 68 adult BBSes at least 8.5 million times during two months. Instead, to complete ''the first systematic study of pornography on the information superhighway,'' the researchers collected ''descriptive listings'' used to market the images. The team analyzed 3823 different words found in the one- or two-line blurbs (you can't see the images until you've paid to download them), then broke them down into 63 categories. At times, this aspect of Rimm's study provides for entertaining reading as he struggles with how to classify the 10,000 images his team actually viewed: ''This is as much a study of words as of images, of words that describe images, of words as revealing in their accuracy as in their inaccuracy. Consider the description 'She has one fist in her girlfriend's asshole and another fist in her pussy.' Examination of the downloaded image revealed that only two fingers were in the anus. The research team did not classify this as anal fisting. However, the bulletin board customer who has a fetish for anal fisting of women and who downloads the image may not be upset to discover that only two fingers, and not the entire hand, are inserted in the anus. In fact, the photo may serve as the starting point of another fantasy. The divergence between word and image suggests a certain flux. The dichotomy between now and later is an extremely clever way for the pornographer to make a still image assume a certain motion. In the viewer's mind, it may even become a movie.''

Dear [email protected]

A prayer written by Senate chaplain Lloyd John Ogilvie and read into the record by Senator Exon before debate on his online decency bill:

''Almighty God, Lord of all life, we praise you for the advancements in computerized communications that we enjoy in our time. Sadly, however, there are those who litter this information superhighway with obscene, indecent and destructive pornography. Virtual but virtueless reality is projected in the most twisted, sick misuse of sexuality. Violent people with sexual pathologies are able to stalk and harass the innocent. Cybersolicitation of teenagers reveals the dark side of online victimization. Lord, we are profoundly concerned about the impact of this on our children. We have learned from careful study how children can become addicted to pornography at an early age. Their understanding and appreciation of your gift of sexuality can be denigrated and eventually debilitated. Pornography disallowed in print and mail is now readily available to young children who learn how to use the computer. O God, help us care for our children. Give us wisdom to create regulations that will protect the innocent. Lord, give us courage to balance our reverence for freedom of speech with responsibility for what is said and depicted. Now guide the senators when they consider ways of controlling the pollution of computer communications and how to preserve one of our greatest resources: the minds of our children and the future and moral strength of our nation. Amen.''

What You're Missing

Excerpts from a New York Times Magazine article by James Gleick that was entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), one of 16 senators who voted against Exon's legislation:

''At first glance, there's a lot of sex on the Internet. Or not at first glance: Nobody can find anything on the Internet at first glance. But if you have time on your hands, if you're comfortable with computing and have an unflagging curiosity about sex--in other words, if you are a teenager--you may think that you've suddenly landed in pornography heaven. Nude pictures. Foul language. Weird bathroom humor. No wonder the Christian Coalition thinks the Internet is turning into a red light district. There's even a Red Light District World Wide Web page. So you explore. Some sites make you promise to be a grown-up. (OK: You promise.) You try Girls, a link leading to a computer at the University of Bordeaux in France. The message flashes back: Document Contains No Data. Girls at Funet, Finland seems to offer lots of pictures (Dolly Parton, Ivana Trump), but is Connect Timed Out. Girls--courtesy of Liberac University of Technology in the Czech Republic--does finally, with painful slowness, deliver a 112,696-byte image of Mädchen Amick. You could watch the image spread across your screen, pixel by tantalizing pixel, but instead you go have lunch during the download. When you return, there she is--in black and white and wearing clothes.

''The Conservatoire National dès Arts et Métiers has turned off its Femmes Femmes Femmes Je Vous Aime Web page. The good news for erotica fans is that users are redirected to a new site where 'You can find naked women, including nudity.' The bad news is that this new site is the Louvre.''

Know Thine Enemy

It comes as no surprise that those who would censor the Net know little about it:

• ''I have not figured out how to use the VCR yet. I have a blinking 12. I do not know how to get rid of it.''

--Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), co-sponsor of the Communications Decency Act

• ''I certainly do not claim to be an expert at the Internet system.''

--Senator Exon

Rimm's Numbers

Number of ''descriptive listings'' collected by Rimm for study: 917,410.

Estimated percentage of duplicate images: 36.

Of 1000 adult bulletin boards contacted by Rimm, percentage that had gone out of business: 50.

Percentage of images on five Internet sex groups that Rimm found originated on private bulletin boards: 71.

Percentage of images downloaded from the five sex newsgroups by Rimm that were damaged and could not be viewed: 13.

A Voice of Reason

''Maybe someday we will accept the fact that there is some responsibility on the part of parents, not on the part of the U.S. Congress, to tell children exactly what they should do and read and see and talk about as they are growing up.''

--Senator Leahy, arguing on the floor of the Senate against the passage of the Communications Decency Act

Most Unlikely Voice of Reason

Newt Gingrich on the Communications Decency Act: ''It is clearly a violation of free speech, and it's a violation of the rights of adults to communicate with one another.''

For you Horny Surfers Out There

From Rimm's study: ''The largest selection of sexual imagery was discovered on the following five Usenet newsgroups:

alt.binaries.pictures.erotica

alt.binaries.pictures.bestiality

alt.sex.fetish.watersports

alt.binaries.pictures.female

alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless''

Best New Internet Jargon

rimm (v.): To publish sensational and unsubstantiated facts without the benefit of a peer review and with the sole intent of demonizing the Net. Example: The data on which Senator Exon based his bill rimm.

rimmed (adj.): Fundamentally flawed, botched. Example: Jack did a rimmed job analyzing the average production of widgets.

Best Sex Lie of the Religious Right

''This is bestiality, pedophilia, child molestation. According to the Carnegie Mellon survey, one quarter of all the images involve the torture of women.''

--Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, on Nightline shortly after Rimm's study was released. Reed was parroting Senator Coats, who had made the assertion on the Senate floor before its vote on the Communications Decency Act. The figure appears nowhere in Rimm's study. As for kiddie porn, Rimm says none of the images he studied depicted intercourse with or oral or anal penetration of children. Instead, the images described by BBS operators to their customers as child porn turned out to be nudist camp photos or pictures of young adults.

The Making of a Porn Researcher

Within a week of the release of Rimm's study, the knights of the Internet had uncovered a few embarrassing facts about its author. Among other projects, Rimm had written a self-published book, The Pornographer's Handbook: How to Exploit Women, Dupe Men and Make Lots of Money. While he was supposedly studying patterns of use on adult bulletin boards, he was also offering his services to adult BBS operators: ''Do you know which of your customers like facial come shots? And in exactly what quantity?'' reads a letter that circulated on the Internet. ''Can you answer such questions as 'How many facial come shots should I have on my adult BBS? Do customers prefer facial come shots involving just one or two, or more, women? Should the ejaculate drip from the model's lips, or should it splatter her face? And how many customers have a fetish for ejaculate in the hair? In the nose? In the eyes? In the ears?' You probably can't answer these questions, because your BBS software does not give you these answers. But mine does.'' Rimm says the book was intended as satire.

History Repeats?

From a Cato Institute report on Exon's legislation: ''In 1864 an alarmed postmaster general reported that 'great numbers' of dirty pictures and books were being mailed to Civil War troops. It seems that one of the most popular early uses of photography was the tintype version of the pinup. As is often the case, invention became the mother of repression. Congress reacted quickly to the postmaster's report, passing a law in 1865 making it a crime to send any 'obscene book, pamphlet, picture, print, or other publication of vulgar and indecent character' through the U.S. mail.''

A Sort of Retraction

Rather than apologize for its error in trumpeting Rimm's study to justify its story on the dangers of cyberporn, Time simply shrugged its shoulders: ''It would be a shame if the damaging flaws in Rimm's study obscured the larger and more important debate about hard-core porn on the Internet.''

Takes One to Know One

A warning on the opening page of the ''Arts Link'' section of Time Warner's online site: ''Some of the images contained in this site may be considered offensive and unsuitable for children.''

No Easy Solutions

Christopher Anderson in the July 1 issue of The Economist: ''The problem is that obscenity on the Internet can appear under an infinite number of guises. Some of them are obvious, including newsgroups with names such as alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.children, along with Web sites put up by Penthouse, Playboy and a host of amateurs. Others are harder to find: live 'keyboard sex' on Internet Relay Chat channels, secret libraries known only to porn traders, even a live video sex service where real women obey the typed commands of paying viewers. Cutting off the more obvious pornography newsgroups is easy, but that will merely make them adopt a heavier disguise. More generic filters are bound to fail. No computer on earth can recognize an obscene picture.''