THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506240360
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES COATES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
LENGTH: Long : 127 lines
Just about everybody agrees that Scout troops shouldn't be downloading pictures from Penthouse and Playboy while using the Internet to work toward computer merit badges.
Yet it's easy enough for them to do. Penthouse, Playboy and far more explicit fare are just a mouse click away on the Internet's World Wide Web.
So are thousands of obscene and racist jokes, as well as stories replete with bestiality, incest and child molestation. Offensive content is only a tiny fraction of what's available on the Internet - but there's no denying it's there.
Why, you might ask, is this allowed to go on?
Can't such popular on-line services as Prodigy, CompuServe and America Online - the very services that youngsters are likely to use - simply monitor their lines? Then, when things are inappropriate, they can remedy the situation.
The answer is, yes, they could. But once they do - and here's the catch - they also assume legal liability for whatever information does go over their lines. Call it the Catch-22 of cyberspace.
If they do nothing, they protect themselves but not anyone else. But if they take steps to protect customers, they place themselves in legal jeopardy.
Prodigy, which has monitored its lines, learned that lesson recently when a New York state judge ruled against the company in a libel case involving a message sent by one of its users.
Judge Stuart L. Ain condemned Prodigy's efforts to stop stalkers from using obscenities on its bulletin boards by censoring their submissions.
Because of such efforts - and because Prodigy uses them as a selling point for its ``family-oriented'' service - it has made itself responsible for messages users send while using the service's public forums, the judge ruled.
``It's a Catch-22 all right,'' said Brian Ek, Prodigy's vice president for marketing. ``This certainly is a disincentive for us to act as we know we should to protect families who want to enrich their children's lives with technology from needless abuse.''
By contrast, Ain ruled, Prodigy's two major competitors, CompuServe and America Online,which make no effort to censor their lines, are not responsible for on-line mayhem. If they made such an effort, they would be.
As it took this strange turn, the Prodigy case underscored the complexities that society is encountering as it tries to assimilate the powers of the Internet into American life.
Even as the nation's largest and most respected companies rush to stake out a presence on the global network of computer networks, social and political leaders warn that the electronic frontier is a real and often rough-hewn territory - one where rules are few and the potential for abuse, particularly against children, can be substantial.
Finding solutions can prove elusive. But with such media giants as Time Warner Inc., Walt Disney Co. and Viacom Inc. heavily committed to an on-line future, pressure for a resolution is strong. And many say the Prodigy case may show the way, even though the company got into trouble.
One of the things that hurt Prodigy's case, said Ek, was its well-meaning effort to install software that would monitor all words input by those using the service. This software, sometimes called a ``Bozo filter,'' keeps obscenities and slurs from appearing on the screen.
Thus, if someone tried to type in filthy language in an area such as the ``American Girl'' section of Prodigy's ``Baby-Sitters Club'' bulletin board, those words would not appear.
The New York ruling, which Prodigy intends to challenge, was the kind of decision that people in the industry had been fearing for some time.
Not only was it bad for the on-line service, it was also a major setback for many in the free-speech movement who are trying to convince Congress that it is possible to shield children from on-line indecency using technology rather than heavy-handed censorship.
Even ardent civil liberties activists like Jerry Berman, formerly of the American Civil Liberties Union and now with the Washington-based Center for Democratic Technology, say something must be done.
``We need a new federal law which will recognize that this (on-line communications) is a new media,'' Berman said.
Without such a law, Berman and his allies fear, state legislatures will pass far more restrictive measures. And this ``crazy quilt'' of rules would be more onerous to free speech than would be the case even if hardliners in Congress prevail with efforts to clamp down on smut, Berman said.
Berman leads a coalition trying to blunt a major legislative thrust now under way. The more hawkish forces in the debate want to penalize anybody who puts on-line via personal computer and modem any material deemed ``indecent'' for people younger than 18.
Their leader has become Sen. Jim Exon, D-Neb., sponsor of a proposed Communications Decency Act now on the front burner in Washington, which would crack down hard on people who disseminate offensive material.
Exon, who says he expects a vote on his bill within three weeks, would levy a $100,000-plus fine on anybody using a computer and a modem to put ``lewd and lascivious'' material in front of anybody younger than 18.
Those such as Berman's group, who are urging a softer line, say that instead of imposing draconian penalties, they want to find ways to use technology to filter or lock out objectionable material.
Civil liberties groups have rallied behind Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. Over the next few weeks, he will try to amend Exon's bill to require the government to explore ways of filtering smut before considering harsh penalties.
Doug Miller, a lobbyist for the Software Publishers' Association, which has joined the coalition led by Berman, said computer industry experts remain convinced that technology still can come to the rescue.
The association ``believes that there are technological solutions to the problem of cybersmut that should be explored by Congress,'' he said.
Exon argues that Congress should lay down the same rules for using personal computers as already are in force for telephones.
For example, he noted recently, use of ``lewd, filthy, obscene and lascivious language'' over the telephone remains a federal offense - although it has rarely been prosecuted in modern times.
But his law would keep that prohibition alive and extend it to all ``telecommunications devices.''
Exon also would raise the penalty to $100,000 from $10,000 and add a two-year jail term. The law would target the individuals putting the offensive material on-line rather than the providers of the major on-line services, Exon aides said.
``Children should be protected from the pornography and smut that I fear could turn the Information Superhighway into a red light district,'' the senator said in a statement. ``My amendment . . . will make those who would misues a computer to spread obscene material, or harass others, think twice.''
Berman responded, saying Exon's harsh penalties will eliminate much of the richest content, the adult discussion and free exchange of ideas and opinions now available on the Internet.
``If we do everything to make the Internet yield totally to the needs of children,'' he warned, ``it will only be fit for children.'' by CNB