Since the issue of pornography has been central to recent debates within film studies on the representation of sexuality, I thought that these comments from the Electronic Frontier Foundation might be interesting. --Jeremy ----------------------original message------------------------ They detail a recent Senate hearing about "Cyberporn." EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 14 July 26, 1995 [log in to unmask] A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * Subject: "Cyberporn" Hearing and Exposure of Flaws in Rimm Study ---------------------------------------------------------------- A July 24 hearing chaired by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on the issues surrounding children's getting access to so-called "indecent" material on the Internet, did not go exactly as planned for the Senator. In the absence of Sen. Grassley's planned star witness -- a self-styled expert on online pornography named Martin Rimm -- ranking minority member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) effectively controlled the hearing. Grassley's attempt to center his hearing on Rimm's controversial pornography study had backfired. Though the Iowa Senator had termed it the "only comprehensive study dealing with pornography in cyberspace", now, thanks to recent articles discussing the motives and ethics of its undergraduate author, Grassley was forced to disavow it: "Now under criticism, that study is under review as it should be." EFF lawyer Mike Godwin had taken the lead weeks before in coordinating efforts to challenge former CMU student Martin Rimm's "study" of sexually oriented material online and Time magazine's decision to promote it as the basis of a cover story on "cyberporn." Time has been widely criticized for promoting the study without allowing any prior critical review of it by independent experts. Working with EFF interns Beth Noveck and Ben Manevitz, Godwin had arranged for copies of the study to get into the hands of reporters and academics across the country. This in turn had generated press coverage that led both to the discrediting of the Rimm study (which is riddled with methodological flaws and unsupportable conclusions) and to Time magazine's seemingly unprecedented disavowal of its own cover story in a followup article only three weeks later.. "The Rimm affair shows the potential of the Net for both political action and academic inquiry," Godwin said. "A decade ago, the study and its author might have been accepted without question for months, continuing to distort public-policy debates about regulation of the Net." Godwin sought evaluations of the Rimm study from professors Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt and Jim Thomas of Northern Illinois University, as well of from pioneer Internet researcher Brian Reid of DEC. He also helped ensure that the first critique of the Rimm study, from EFF Policy Fellow David Post, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, was quickly and widely circulated. In subsequent weeks, Godwin became a clearinghouse of information about the so'called "CMU study" and its controversial author. It is widely believed that the critical response to the Rimm article is what led to Rimm's removal last week from the witness list for the July 24 hearing sponsored by Sen. Grassley, who is sponsoring legislation purportedly aimed at protecting children from so-called "indecent" content online. At the hearing, Sen. Leahy commented that, "he [Rimm] got disinvited when the study that everyone embraced as gospel was a little bit less than that. I would expect any time now to see _Time_ say that even great media can be conned." In point of fact, _Time_ Senior Editor Philip Elmer-Dewitt has essentially done so, in public forums on the WELL, the online service where much of the dirt on the Rimm study was unearthed and examine. "The voice you didn't hear at that hearing," Godwin later said, "was that of would-be star witness Martin Rimm, who may have hoped his study would establish him as the national expert in online pornography." Once Rimm and his questionable study were discredited, Godwin said, "the hearing lost a lot of drama, but it gained a lot of balance." There was still some drama, however. Two women, one a minor, testified that they had been stalked online, and anti-porn lobbyists demanded legislation to "fix" the online porn problem. Sen. Leahy's questioning, however, revealed that the problems are already covered by local, state and federal law. Leahy concluded, of course, that the problem was one of law enforcement resources, not any imaginary gaping holes in the law itself. Sen. Leahy was also had critical words for the majority of his colleagues: "The Senate went in willy-nilly and passed this legislation [the similar Exon/Gorton Comm. Decency Act]. Most senators who voted wouldn't have the foggiest idea of how to get on the Internet." In his turn, journalist Barry Crimmins noted, for whatever reason, that he was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and warned that America Online, the popular online service, is a den of iniquity: "I am here to tell the American people that not only are their children unsafe on America Online, their children are unsafe because of it." This may have been just a bit too much for even those Senators ready to believe in Internet horror stories. Grassley himself tried to cut Crimmins off to no avail. These antics do not appear to have been enough, fortunately, to turn this hearing into a media circus, or a censors' feeding frenzy, unlike the recent hearing on "violent" materials on the Internet. By and large, sensible testimony ruled the day. Jerry Berman, representing the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Interactive Working Group (a coaltion of non-profit and industry organizations, including EFF and many others), delivered solid oral testimony, showing the Grassley anti-porn bill to be an unconstitutional attempt to ban protected speech. EFF Staff Counsel Mike Godwin submitted written testimony, which appears below. Also combatting hysterical testimony from anti-porn group Enough is Enough were Michael Hart of the Project Gutenberg electronic library, AOL's general counsel, and the exec. dir. of the Recreational Software Advisory Council. Several important ideas were aired without serious challenge in the hearing, mostly by Sen. Leahy and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin): * The Exon and Grassley legislation is inconsistent with the current Congress' and Administration's expressed goal of "keeping government off our backs" * The legislation is unlikely to solve the problems they purport to solve * The right and responsibility to decide what is and is not appropriate for a child lies with that child's parents * Current law already suffiently covers this area * Software tools and special services will enable individuals to "filter" online content for themselves and their children. * These censorship bills fail to distinguish between obscenity, which is illegal (though defined different in different jurisdictions), and indecency, which is constitutionally protected and subject to regulatory control only under specific and very narrowly defined circumstances. * The legislation would chill speech not only directly, in attacking indecency, but indirectly by, in effect, requiring online services such as Netcom, the WELL, AOL or local BBSs, to become full-time censors, and forcing them to censor anything that *might* conceivably be indecent. Otherwise, they would be in grave danger of prosecution. Sen. Exon attempted to rebuff civil libertarians' concerns by claiming that he is being "viciously attacked", and by repeating tired arguments that such legislation will "protect children." However, we think reason finally prevailed in this debate, and that the time is right to push forward. Please see the "What You Can Do" section of this newsletter. [Thanks to Declan McCullagh for comparing his notes from the hearing with ours.] ------------------------------ ===================================================================== Jeremy Butler * [log in to unmask] * [log in to unmask] SCREENsite -- a Film/TV-studies site on the World Wide Web: http://www.sa.ua.edu/TCF/welcome.htm Telecommunication & Film Dept. * University of Alabama * Tuscaloosa ===================================================================== ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? 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