In October of 2006 I came across a website containing child porn, and was alarmed not just by the content but by the run around I got trying to report it. My first thought was contacting the FBI, but there was nothing on their website. I then tried calling my local police department and the person who answered the phone gave another phone number to call. This phone number was to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The lady that picked up was very nice but informed me that I had to report the site I found on the center's website. I then had to search through my history to find the illegal site and copy and paste the URL into the form.
The process was incredibly frustrating, so a few weeks later I started my own website with a direct link to the page where people can report incidents of child porn hoping to save others from the frustration I experienced.
Since the summer of 2007 I have been working with a lady who is trying to get a new law passed that would make web site hosts responsible for the content of the sites they have on their servers. In trying to assist her I have found nothing but apathy towards the subject. I know it's a revolting subject, one I don't like thinking about but it is important to remember that children don't have a voice of their own, not with the way our society is set up.
When molestation cases appear on the news there's always the question of whether the child is telling the truth. People don't want to believe child porn exists so they ignore the problem allowing pedophiles to keep praying on innocent children. Internet Child Porn exists and is a major problem. One website on crime reports that child porn is a $2 to $3 billion a year industry. How many children are forced into sex for the pedophiles to earn this money?
People need to wake up and realize that child porn exists outside Law and Order episodes, we need to work together to better police the internet. Everytime a child porn website is created it was at the cost of multiple children's innocence.
1 comment:
Mark- I admire your drive and involvement in the legislative process. However, I would have to oppose this type of legislation. I am a webmaster of a child advocacy organization and also have a MySpace cite for a related one. The problem with making the host provider responsible for content is that the provider would then have to screen all content. This would result in extraordinary cost to those of us who use the internet. Think of every time someone puts a bulletin or comment on MySpace that it must first go through a screening process. We have access to over 500 people in our immediate community through MySpace. If a child goes missing an we want to post a bulletin about it the delay could be days.
We update our sites daily. That could result in the cost of our webhosting going from $125 a year to easily over $2000 considering the amount of content we post.
Additionally, there are already both criminal and civil penalties that can make the website host liable. Don't be discouraged from your efforts. Instead I suggest you look at getting procedures put in place that make reporting easier. Best Regards,
Stuart Showalter, Exec. Dir.
Boone County Fathers
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