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Internet measures to protect children announced
December 2, 1997
Web posted at: 1:43 p.m. EST (1843 GMT) In this story:
- Parents' hot line, new conferences planned
- Gore: Make screening technology simple
- Related stories and sites
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As part of its efforts to make the Internet a more kid-friendly place, the online industry has agreed to report activities involving child pornography to law enforcement officials.
Vice President Al Gore announced the initiative on Tuesday when he addressed a conference on ways to make the Internet a safer place for America's youngsters.
He said the agreement involves industry groups covering 95 percent of home Internet users.
Companies doing business on the Internet are using the conference to promote the steps they are taking voluntarily to protect children, but conservative groups are calling for new laws.
Under the new policy, Internet providers would remove child pornography from their own bulletin boards and services, said Donna Rice Hughes, a spokeswoman for Enough is Enough, an advocacy group trying to get child pornography off the World Wide Web.
"We have made some headway," she said.
Parents' hot line, new conferences planned
Vice President Gore at a Cabinet meeting Monday Gore also said the government would issue a parents' guide to the Internet and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children would set up an emergency toll-free hot line where parents could report suspicious or illegal Internet activity, including child pornography.
While applauding the commitments to help keep Internet smut away from kids, Gore also challenged the online industry to come up with ways to protect children's privacy, shield them from exploitative marketing and provide them with more "safe" places to go online.
And he announced that the Commerce Department will hold conferences on these issues next year.
"There is a danger for this effort to degenerate into a discussion about how to avoid regulation. To be successful, it must be elevated to a discussion about how to meet the needs of America's families," Gore said.
"Industry will never be able to meet those needs unless it devotes the same resources and commitment to designing parental controls that it would devote to the design and launch of any new product."
Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education, an advocacy group that wants to make the Internet safer and more educational for children, praised efforts to improve children's programming on the Internet.
"We need to do more than protect children from bad content; we need to ensure that there is quality, good content," she said.
Building on pledges made to President Clinton in July, industry groups on Monday -- the first day of a three-day conference -- discussed how to educate parents about anti-smut screening and how to highlight Internet sites that are clean enough for kids.
"I hope it works," Clinton said Monday of the industry's efforts. "I encouraged them to do it, and I'm glad they're doing it. I wish them well."
Gore: Make screening technology simple
New browser technologies help filter out adult material Gore told the industry that it needs to make screening and blocking tools as widely available and as easy to use as the TV remote.
The Center for Democracy and Technology, a group that works to protect computer users' civil liberties, says all major providers of Internet access to consumers offer screening technology free or at a nominal cost.
But a survey of 750 families by the monthly Family PC magazine found that only 26 percent use screening software, most of them because it is built in to their Web browsers or offered by their online service providers.
Just 4 percent of parents use screening software when they buy and install it on their computers, the magazine survey said.
The Supreme Court in June struck down a law designed to keep cyberspace's seamy side away from children. It said the 1996 Communications Decency Act, in attempting to protect children from indecent material on the Internet, improperly restricted the free-speech rights of adults.
Hoping to avoid the kind of tough government regulations that some in Congress and some anti-pornography groups want, the industry has been working on voluntary efforts, backed by the administration, to make the Internet a safer place for children.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Related stories:
- Online providers promise safer Internet for kids - December 1, 1997
- A new battle over keeping the Web clean - August 7, 1997
- Supreme Court strikes downInternet smut law - June 26, 1997
- White House readies new policy for Internet decency - June 16, 1997
- Leave children out of the decency debate - July 4, 1997
Related sites:
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- The Center for Democracy and Technology
- Online Advertising Targeting Children, Center for Media Education
- Telecommunications Act of 1996
- National Campaign for Freedom of Expression Home Page
- American Library Association Home Page
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