Interesting story to come out in the last few days: A couple of senators--Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana--have proposed to revive legislation from last year to create new domain suffixes for websites. The new suffix would be ".xxx." The suffix would of course be appended to websites that peddle pornography. Last year the legislation made the suffixes optional, but the legislation faced heavy opposition and ultimately was rejected.
Well these two Congressmen have brought it back and they've upped the ante. Now not only would the dot-xxx be made able to porn-peddlers, it will be made mandatory. So playboy.com would have to trade in its current URL for a "playboy.xxx."
However, there's apparently a sizable contingent of people from both sides of the pornography issue who are all working towards the same goal: killing this legislation like the last one. The movement to protect the pornography industry, spearheaded by the Free Speech Coalition, is actually working towards the same goal as conservative pro-family lobby organizations who would like to see the pornography industry in shambles both on and off the internet. These organizations include Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. The reason the two sides are working towards the same goal however is because they have radically different ideas of how the legislation will affect online pornography.
The Free Speech Coalition complains that the "dot-xxx" would lead to the "ghetto-ization" of online porn. Well ... yeah. On the other hand, pro-family coalitions like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are concerned that this might create a "virtual red-light district" that would actually consolidate the online pornography industry and may thereby make it stronger. Who's right?
As best as I can read this, whether or not the legislation proves beneficial or counterproductive ... depends. It depends for one thing on whether the peddlers will comply with it. Many of them may not, but that’s true of any law that regulates anything. It also depends on whether one has a moral compass. Those who have rightly formed consciences will see a dot-xxx and they will know to avoid it. Those who do not have rightly-formed consciences will see one and be enticed to consume it. It gives parents the opportunity to protect their kids, but it doesn't actually constrain the ability of vice-peddlers to distribute their materials, or perverts and addicts to consume it.
I have to say from a Catholic standpoint on this issue I can see both sides. On the one hand, creating dot-xxx domains would seem to legitimize the practice and stop short of what should be our ultimate goal of eradicating pornography completely. I can see how it would be somewhat like allowing contraception into the curricula of junior high and high school sex ed classes in the hope that it would reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. It appears to put a band-aid on the problem, but might it only make the problem worse?
On the other hand, I can't get over the fact that these online pornography-peddlers actually target youngsters. They use innocent or familiar domain names--Disney, Barbie, ESPN etc--to lure people in so that they will stumble upon the material accidentally (for the consumers, but not for the peddlers). A dot-xxx would make such insidious ploys all but impossible. “Barbie.xxx” is clearly distinguishable from “Barbie.com.” The way it is now, the cyber-porn industry is more or less able to just blend into the crowd, getting new accidental users hooked every single day.
Consider it this way. There are many pornographic films that stylistically resemble legitimate genres of film. There are sci-fi porns, romantic comedy porns, medieval fantasy porns, western porns, etc. Right now all those movies are in the same section at the video store. Granted, those video stores are public places whereas the internet is at least ostensibly private. But it does create the effect of marking the material, placing all of it under the same umbrella according to similar content.
Imagine if there was no such section. Suppose all the sci-fi porn was in the sci-fi section, romantic comedy porn in the romantic comedy section, and so forth. It would be much more difficult to navigate a video store without bumping into that kind of filth. That’s how it is right now on the internet. Granted, we should work to eradicate such material from video stores anyway. But in the meantime it helps to know which part of the store merits boycotting.
Dot-xxx is the closest idea anyone has had to creating that kind of effect in cyberspace. It would be simple as pie for parents to cordon off all the dot-xxx’s if cyber-pornography peddlers were mandated to switch over. Would all the vice-peddlers on the internet comply with this legislation? Maybe not, but it might be a start. If there’s a better way to hamper this business then somebody needs to come out with it.
I welcome people’s opinions on this as I am still trying to form my own. All I know for certain is that this is an industry that makes $2.5 billion on the internet and $12 billion overall in the United States each year, with 72 million online consumers, the largest portion of that being children ages 12 to 17. (These numbers and others are rather eye-opening.) It is an industry that violates the dignity of the human person, male and female, in a most egregious and violent way, and it is time we took the fight to them. I don’t know if dot-xxx is the best way to do it, but it’s something that needs to be seriously discerned by those interested in promoting the common good.
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