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B 5 Yziw

Futures, Vol. 27. No. I, pp. 749-162, 1995

Copyright 0 lYY5

Elsevicr Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain.

All rights rescrvcd

0016-3287195 10.00 + 0.00

0016-3287 95)00039- 9

COMPUTER PORN PANIC

Andrew Calcutt

Cyberculture is plagued by panic over computer pornography. Although

computer pornography is a phantom epidemic, the inflated concern it has

generated expresses a general culture of fear. The computer porn panic

provides the backdrop to the taming of cyberspace, and has helped to

catalyse a corrosive atmosphere in which net users and non-users alike are

encouraged to think the worst of everyone else, and to seek protection in

the embrace of authority.

We are fortunate in having so small a computer culture that this has not so far

encroached upon us.

I

shall be keeping my girls off joysticks and on their hockey

sticks for as long as possible .

These are the words of a Scottish headmistress, speaking at a conference on

computer pornography in schools. The conference took place in London in August

1994 and was jointly organized by IBM UK Ltd and Intercept, an industry-based unit

which assists law enforcement agencies.* Her remarks provide a useful snapshot of

the debate on computer pornography.

The Scottish headmistress had never come into contact with computer

pornography, nor was there any trace of it at her school; but she was worried

nonetheless. This is one instance of the enormous discrepancy between concern

expressed over computer pornography and actual experience or knowledge of its

contents, availability or effects. Likewise the unbounded publicity surrounding

computer pornography is out of all proportion to the limited availability of this new

horror3 in schools and elsewhere. Nevertheless the not ion that the prevalence of

computer pornography constitutes a serious threat to the moral well-being of young

Andrew Calcutt is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of publications

including The Modern Review and Living Marxism He has recently appeared at Cyberia (Europes first

Internet cafe), and on the BBC television programme, Jhe Net He may be contacted c/o The London

International Research Exchange, BMLIRE, London WClN 3Xx, UK (Tel/fax: +44 (0)181 808 9223;

e-mail: andrew.calcutt@easynet.co.uk).

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people is already an important influence on attitudes, behaviour and policy in

relation to the emerging cyberculture.

There are other respec ts in which the remarks of the Scottish headmistress are

worthy of note. First, that having so small a computer culture can be regarded as a

cause for celebration-such is the fear of technology and its alleged effects even

among the professional classes.

Second, that in the recent furore over computer pornography, womens voices

have occupied the top rank in the hierarchy of the credible (this is not at all typical of

earlier debates about pornography). This time around, the voices of women in

positions of authority, like the Scottish headmistress, have been granted exceptiona l

weight. The debate about computer pornography is one of a rapidly increasing

number of instances in which authority now speaks with a womans voice.

Finally, there is perhaps a hint of self-mockery in the remarks of the Scottish

headmistress. These are the words of someone who knows shes going over the top,

but is utterly serious all the same. This is a contradiction in terms, but it seems

entirely in keeping with todays social climate in which the moral entrepreneurs are

far from confident, yet doubly determined to tighten up the boundaries of soc iety.

The debate about computer pornography is not what it seems. It presents itself

as an expression of concern over the conjuncture of sex, new technologies and the

young. But the phantom disease of computer pornography should be understood as

both the projection of various fears and uncertainties (sometimes only partially

related or even entirely unconnected to the subject in hand), and also as the point of

leverage which has facilitated and legitimated the development of a wide range of

formal and informal controls in cyberspace.

Loose definition

Definitions of computer pornography are as fast and loose as the newspaper stories

warning of its dangers. The free-form usage of the term computer pornography is

reminiscent of the apocryphal remarks of a pre-war Direc tor of Public Prosecutions

in the UK, who is alleged to have said I dont want obscenity to be defined because

it would cramp my style.

Computer pornography is a blanket term which defies close definition. It has

been applied to an extremely wide range of electronically transmitted information

and imagery, from a handful of highly secretive paedophile bulletin boards to the

elements of masturbation4

allegedly inherent in the playing of popular computer

games such as Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. Among those predisposed to

worry about computers or pornography, or both, the suggestion is that the machismo

of GameBoy (they dont call it GameBoy for nothing5) may lead the vulnerable

young player on to on-line pornography and even to participation in bestial sexual

practices. The incremental stages in this hypothesis are never spelt out. If they were,

the supposed behaviour pattern would resemble the following:

Isolated in a two-dimensional world where gratification is all,j Little J ohnny is

upstairs playing with his computer. As a socially-maladjusted, anorak-wearing

male, his mental and physical well-being are at risk: Otaku [computer nerds] are

soc ially inept, information-c razed, often brilliant, technological shut-ins; video

toys blamed for poor sight;g health campaigners warned that who

spend much time video games watching TV risk heart

disease; more than a third of children who regularly play computer games show

behaviour patterns similar to those adults addicted to gambling.

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Like as not, Little J ohnny is playing the sort of games in which, according to

Londons police commissioner Sir Paul Condon, to win you have to get your own

characters to kill other characters . . I wonder what on earth it is all doing to the

perception of youngsters.*

His perceptions already warped, Little J ohnny will

probably fall into Segas Night Trap, described by Margaret Ford, deputy director of

the British Board of Film Classification as pretty unpleasant-a scantily clad woman

being stalked and attacked.13 Already participating in an atmosphere where,

according to Tim Reeves of the British Computer Society, boys become abusive to

girls,14 Little J ohnny graduates to swapping software slime in the playground,

picking up X-rated games such as Virtual Valerie at car boot sales, and logging on to

adult bulletin boards and explicit on-line services. According to Vicki Merchant,

chair of the Nationa l Harassment Network and author of the first national survey of

computer pornography in UK schools, at this point Little J ohnny is being dragged

into a spiral of abuse.15

The poor lad may even be approac hed by on-line paedophiles, warn the

American authors of Child Safety on the Information Highway; and care must be

taken to protect him from the greater tendency to deprave and corrupt which the

UK parliamentary home affairs select committee unhesitatingly ascribes to

pornographic virtual reality-even though it has hardly yet been developed.

According to the panicmongers, Little J ohnny will either become a victim of

computer pornography, or else it will turn him into a predator. If parents, teachers

and police fail to observe whats on his bedroom monitor his obsession with

computers and pornography may tip him over the edge into heinous crimes such as

rape and murder: computer porn drove boy aged just 13 to try rape;18 this baby was

killed by her computer addict father because she cried when he was playing one of

his games;

skinhead loner [accused of murdering a schoolgirl] who lived for

heavy metal songs and computers.*

Fear realizes itself

Half-victim, half-predator, the adolescent-computer-nerd-sex-fiend answers the

description of the urban myth as defined by Gilbert Ryle in The Concept

ofMind 2

namely, the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms

appropriate to another. The ensuing image of computer-driven degradation is

comparable to the hazy picture of the dope fiend which accompanied the

criminalization of drugs in the 1930s and 1940s. It was suggested then that the

journey from first toke to final fix was inexorable. Likewise, the suggestion today is

that playing the wrong kind of computer games is the first step on a road which, once

embarked upon, will necessarily lead to moral blindness and total degradation.

Once this fantastic image becomes established in the public domain, the

commentariat direc ts its apprehension at the frightful creatures of its own fantasy. In

this self-fulfilling prophecy, sex and violence in addictive computer games and

on-line services have been denounced as: next to crack

. . .

the most addictive

product yet invented;** tantamount to the injec tion of heroin in a childs

school-milk;23 and technologys HIV.24 The accompanying warnings are as dire as

the descriptions are lurid: every computer literate child could be in danger;25 a

story which will frighten any parent, or indeed, any partners of a home computer

addict.26

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Flimsy evidence

Throughout 1994, a succession of pundits and politicans broadcast a new horror

and a story which will frighten any parent. Surely they have some strong evidence

to match the extravagance of their headlines? Far from it. In the UK, nearly all the

journalistic and political rhetoric of the past two years has been legitimized on the

basis of two documents notable for their lack of substance-the aforementioned

home affairs select committee report on computer pornography, and the survey of

computer pornography in schools by Vicki Merchant.

The deliberations of the home affairs committee were anything but conclusive,

as indicated by the following exchanges taken from the published account of its

hearings:

Barbara Roche (Labour MP for Hornsey) asked Christine Stewart, head of

Criminal Department (C4) at the Home Office,

is there evidence to show that

paedophiles have been interested in computers as a medium because they are so

readily accessible to children?27

Yes, answered Stewart. But her affirmation was a simple assertion, entirely

unsupported by the uncertain explanation which she then gave to Roche.

There is certainly anecdotal evidence of computer disks, for example, changing

hands in school playgrounds containing pornographic material. Again I am afraid we

have no hard and fast evidence information about that.28

Committee chairman Sir Ivan Lawrence MP QC was prompted to interject: That

only indicates the number of children who are interested in pornography.29

Speaking on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, Chris Newell (director of

casework) admitted he was not in a position to be able to say whether computer

pornography is used to any significant extent to that end [seduction of children]

rather than ordinary pornography.30

Despite widely reported claims to the contrary, the allegedly unique connection

between computer pornography and the entrapment of children into paedophile

rings remained unsubstantiated.

So what of the slightly lesser charge, that computer porn disks are swamping the

playgrounds of the world and undermining the morals of young people to an

unprecedented degree? How large is Lawrences number of children interested in

pornography on disk? The committees deliberations on this point were equally

inconclusive:

Roche: You have mentioned, Miss Stewart, the swapping of disks in school

playgrounds, a difficult question for you but to what extent do you think that children

have already been exposed to computer pornography and what sort of numbers are

we talking about? Is all the information just anecdotal at the moment?

Stewart: I am afraid it is. We have not,

I

am afraid, got any figures of the

number of cases in which children have had access to such material.j Fully aware

that we do not have hard evidence, Stewart ploughed on regardless: I think

instinctively one would assume that it is likely to increase as a problem.

A memo from the Crown Prosecution Service provided a more sober assessment

of the spread of obscene material by computer: Since 1 January 1991, the CPS areas

have dealt with 11 cases of computer pornography, in four of which no prosecution

was advised.2

The home affairs committee listened attentively to a series of assumptions as to

the prevalence and dangers of computer pornography; and on the basis of these

assumptions, it recommended new legislation and a host of informal controls over

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the use of computers and telecommunications. The committees findings and

recommendations were trumpeted at every level of the press and media, from tabloid

to broadsheet to trendy arts programmes. But there was no mention of a number of

important memoranda which the committee chose not to publish in its report.

Submitted by various groups and individuals including Feminists Against

Censorship, Community (whose request to become the British chapter of the

Elec tronic Frontier Foundation was turned down in 1994) and the Nationa l

Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Act, many of these documents

blow the whistle on some of the trumped-up stories about computer pornography.

For example, in evidence to the committee, Dennis Evans (Criminal Department,

Home Office) referred to one apparently quite significant case in the Bedfordshire

area.j3

Yet a submission to the committee by David Webb of the National

Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Act should have laid this

rumour to rest:

.

alleged widespread circulation of computer porn disks at a Dunstable [Bedfordshire]

school. A senior Luton police officer was interviewed on TV

. .

boasting about their haul of

754 pornographic disks . it now transpires, however, that all 754 of the seized disks have

turned out to be c lean and have had to be returned to their owners.34

Among the memoranda which remain unpublished by the committee, there is a great

deal more information in the same vein. Yet access to these documents was confined

to those who made an appointment to view them in the House of Lords library at the

Palace of Westminster, London, until some enterprising individuals recently entered

a number of extrac ts on to a Cix bulletin board.

By suppressing such information while at the same time making loud noises

about the new horror of computer pornography, it seems that Lawrence, Roche et

a/ have indeed lived up to the title of the parliamentary select committee for home

affairs.

The survey into computer pornography in schools by Vicki Merchant is held by

many to provide the proof lacking in the home affairs committee report. Its

publication in J une 1994 prompted headlines to the effect that explicit computer

porn plagues SO per cent of schools.35

In September 1993, Merchant sent out 28 000 questionnaires. She received

replies from 7644 headteachers, half of whom said that computer pornography was

available to their pupils. Out of Merchants 28 000 potential sample, less than 4000

headteachers-approximately 14%-stated that their pupils have access to

computer pornography. But the questionnaires returned to Merchant can hardly be

said to provide reliable evidence either for or aga inst the prevalence of computer

pornography. They are nothing more than improvised guesstimates; and their lack

of substance is demonstrated in the following extracts from Merchants preliminary

findings which she submitted to the home affairs committee:

Many infant and primary school heads . said that they had not heard of

computer porn . until they received the questionaire.

Others.

.

point out that their own ignorance of its presence does not necessarily

mean that it is not in fact present.

Some respondents, whilst not aware of computer pornography in their own

schools, cite other schools where they believe it exists.

Many respondents say that pupils with home computers are aware of computer

porn and know someone who has a disk.36

Reports from headteachers to the effect that their pupils say they know someone

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who has a disk are some way short of the hard evidence which Merchant is alleged

to have furnished in the public interest. Merchants contribution to the debate is

more in line with hearsay, staffroom gossip, and the manipulation of public fears and

insecurities in the self-interest of moral entrepreneurs.

Nobody knows

Merchants interpretation of the prevalence of computer pornography among young

people is not the definitive study it purports to be. To date, there has been no such

study. Nobody knows how much computer pornography is available in school

playgrounds. But pornography has always been available in school playgrounds,

and the public figures who are shocked by the thought are only expressing their own

pruderie.

No one knows how much computer pornography is accessible on the Internet,

although Wendy Grossman of PC

Wor /d3

recently estimated that talk about

pornography is nearly 10 times as prevalent as pornography itself. Nobody knows

exactly what every teenager can access if he surfs the l-way on

his fathers modem.

But most of the hardcore material on the Internet is heavily encrypted by

pornographers who do not want to be traced by the authorities. In general, teenagers

are very unlikely to gain entry to these c losed circles.

It seems likely that most of the playground trade in computer pornography

consists of nudy pictures scanned from mainstream publications.

The

transformation of this clandestine but unremarkable activity into headline news

requires a large helping of hype and a severe shortage of memory on the part of the

press and media. For example, in February 1993 The

Observer

(London) published

an article, disapproving in tone, which cited a report in the magazine

Virus News

internat ional

that children had been selling each other pictures copied out of

Madonna s book Sex. Photographs from the book, which is explicit but not illegally

pornographic, are scanned and put on to graphic format for computers.38 But the

explicit but not illegally pornographic images might not have been scanned directly

from Madonna s book. They could just as easily have originated from the Sunday

paper which relaunched its colour magazine in November 1992 on the basis of

being the first publication to print pictures from Madonnas Sex. That paper was

none other than The

Observer

and the episode is indicative of the current readiness

to make a mountain of grave concern over molehills which in other circumstances

may not have caused undue alarm.

Why now?

The standard argument in favour of concern and control is that the proliferation of

new technologies has been accompanied by the unprecedented accessibility of

distasteful and even obscene material. Young people are said to be particularly

conversant with computers, and therefore particularly at risk from computer

pornography. Yet only a tiny minority of young people have full access to the

Internet, and, in any case, pornography has been available on computer since the

1970s. The question remains, why did the combination of youth, sex, and

computers become such an explosive cocktail in 1994?

It seems reasonable to suggest that the plague of computer porn is fantasy, but a

fantasy which is nevertheless representative of the distorted soc iety in which we live,

and of the unprecedented fears and insecurities by which we are bedevilled. The

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computer porn epidemic is a moral panic. It is false, but it is also true to our times.

The worst of times

After a brief moment of superficial triumphal m, the post-Cold-War West is beset by

a plague of insecurities which is as unprecedented as it is far-reaching. Every section

of society is destabilized. No one is immune.

Senior politicans are acutely aware that they have no solutions, only holding

operations. Bill Clinton is the clearest example. Institutions which embody

traditional authority, such as the British Royal Family, have been made painfully

aware that their writ is paper-thin.

The middle classes have suffered an epidemic of downsizing, delayering and

uninstallation. In the flexible society theres no such thing as a job for life-even for

bank managers.

The working class used to find shelter in a tradition of collectivity. In the USA

this tradition broke down 40 years ago. In the past few years, the rest of the Western

world has just about caught up. After many years of decrepitude, the 200-year-old

tradition of European collectivity may now be said to have collapsed completely,

leaving every atomized individual feeling directly exposed to the chill winds of

social change and uncertainty.

When the outside world is so uncertain, more and more people are prompted to

privatize their existence as much as possible-to focus all their energies on the

home, family and the sanctity of the body. But these are not immune either: even our

most intimate concerns are violated by external pressures.

The panic over computer pornography is virulent because the notion of the

epidemic of software slime purports to provide an explanation for the widespread

sense of violation. In fact it explains nothing, but it has a resonance in that it

describes the prevailing social mood of nervousness, disquiet and vulnerability.

Computer pornography could only have acquired such unwarranted

significance from so many quarters in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The

panic over computer pornography is an expression of the general culture of fear.

In addition, there are characteristics specific to the combination of sex, youth

and new technologies which make it a particularly appropriate vehicle for the

circulation of social insecurity.

Industrialists are apprehensive that digital technology can make copyright

unworkable (software is widely regarded as shareware), and therefore has a

capacity to undermine the global network of private ownership and control.

Agencies of social control are concerned that the Internet is a relatively

unregulated space. At a time when every other public space is being closed down,

they are horrified to see cyberspace opening up. The authorities are acutely aware of

their own isolation and fragmentation. It may be that the demonization of the lonely

computer nerd is an unconscious projection of this insecurity.

It is interesting that the allegedly anti-social computer freak is starting to replace

the teenage gang member at the top of the list of folk devils for suburban policy

makers. Collectivity is no longer a threat to suburban stability, but atomization is

more corrosive of the social fabric than ever before. In the comic-book world of

moral panics, the revenge of the nerds is a representation of these underlying

changes.

Likewise the sense that the changing world has outstripped the capacity to

comprehend it is an unwelcome familarity to the todays intelligentsia. Perhaps the

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notion of computer pornography turning post-rationa l Man into a primitive is itself a

projec tion of the loss of rationality.

Among the general population, the fear of what the computer is doing to our

children may well be a fantastic recognition of the fact that the youngsters of today

comprise the first generation for 50 years which is likely to experience a standard of

living lower than that of their parents.

Inflated concern and extended control

Incoherence is now the norm among those in positions of authority. Nowhere is this

incoherence more discernible than in relation to new technologies. Nor is the

recognition of incoherence confined to a ruling elite; it is shared by the wider

population. In this context, widespread concern over computer pornography is an

inflated expression of the loss of certainty. With the intention of replac ing lost

certainties, many more people are now articulating a demand for new forms of

control; and the supposed threat of computer pornography has come to serve as a

focus for this demand. Yet the same uncertainties which have disarmed the

traditional institutions of authority also render them incapable of spontaneously

generating a new modus operandi. They are forced to remedy their own incoherence

by borrowing from the most unlikely sources. The current debate about computer

pornography demonstrates how those in authority have become suprisingly reliant

on the language of feminism, as the means to give shape to the new forms of soc ial

control.

The unhealthy union between feminism and authority is demonstrated by the

recent spate of role swapping which has taken place among feminists and police

officers. (This is now occurring in Britain a decade after the onset of a broadly similar

pattern in the USA.)

Dr Susan Edwards is a feminist criminologist with a record of research into

domestic violence. While engaged in a research project for the Obscene

Publications Branch of the Metropolitan Police (London), she submitted a report to

the home affairs select committee in which she argued for more state interference

into the activities of alleged computer pornographers. Edwards justified this proposal

by saying the privacy argument can be defeated by appealing to the public policy of

protec ting the young.39

It works both ways. Mike Hames, head of Londons Obscene Publications

Squad until his retirement in November 1994, has more than once stated his

objections to computer pornography on the grounds that it is oppressive to

women.40

In contemporary debate, feminists sound like police officers and police officers

sound like feminists. There are those who choose to believe that this ideological

cross dressing is indicative of an ongoing process in which womens voices are more

highly valued in an increasingly pluralist soc iety. It seems more likely that those in

authority have sampled the language of feminism in their attempt to evolve a

credible operating style for the end of the 20th century and beyond.

Yob culture

In the emerging lexicon of soc ial control, computer pornography is listed as

Elec tronic Yob Culture. First heard at the British Conservative Party conference in

November 1993, yob culture is a phrase coined by J ohn Majors speech writer. But

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the underlying idea was developed by feminists such as Beatrix Campbell, who

argues that soc iety is at risk from male criminality driven by macho propaganda

more potent in its penetration of young mens hearts and minds than at any time in

history-they were soaked in globally transmitted images and ideologies of hutch

and brutal solutions to lifes difficulties.4 The same notion of the

global-village-gone-macho featured in a number of contributions to C yberville, a

recent UK television investigation into cyberculture.42

In this outlook, pornography is blasphemy: its very existence is a sin against

women and soc iety. No one is allowed to question whether computer pornography

is as prevalent or as harmful to soc iety as it is made out to be. Rationa l investigation

is dismissed as rape of the mind by masculinist reason. This is the politically correc t

formulation of Majors nostrum after the infamous killing of Merseyside toddler

J ames Bulger by two young boys: condemn more, understand a little less. Hence the

forward march of soc ial control has come to be redefined as freedom from

pornography and respect for victims such as women and children.

Concern over computer pornography emerged as an expression of insecurity,

and prompted a demand for the affirmation of authority, which in turn offers scope

for the development of new techniques for securing-or controlling-cyberspace.

This chain of events is most clearly demonstrated by IBMs recent call for strict

certification of Internet software in response to the opening of what was claimed to

be the first on-line brothel. Writing from Washington for The independent in

London, Susan Watts gave a good account of this episode:

The Internet brothel, run from Mesa, in Arizona, and known as Brandys Babes, includes the

spec ifications of its employees and their rates. What distinguishes it from similar services on

the net, according to IBM, is that it offers interac tive c ybersex with rea l-time moving pictures.

The brothel uses a video system called CU-SEEMe, originally developed for classroom

projects.

There are apparently still some kinks in the software which have delayed the brothels

official opening Ac cording to IBM, visitors make appointments but members can drop in

any time between 8pm and midnight on Tuesdays. The site is not free, and is expected to be a

money-spinner for Brandy .

She c laims the services are restricted to users over the age of

18, although the introductory page simply asks if the new visitor is old enough to go further

.

Visitors enter a private virtual room with a dancer who poses for them. The babes will

also ta lk to visitors over the telephone.

The connec tion failed earlier this week when an IBM researcher tried to ac cess the

brothel from the worlds largest Internet trade show in Washington DC

.

Some Internet

users who have accessed the brothel say it does not provide moving pictures.

IBM claims to be looking at a number of ways to restrict childrens access to such

services. One idea is to rate software and set the so-c alled browser software used to search the

Internet so it can only find material it is authorised to see. The problem is deciding who should

set the ratings. Such a proposal is anathema to the fundamental principles of the Internet.

We are very serious, an IBM spokesman said. We dont have any answers at the

moment, but if there is some way that IBM can provide leadership in this, we will. There is

certainly a demand for protocols to deal with this.J 3

With the ostensible aim of restrict[ing] childrens access, IBM is attempting to lever

itself into pole position in the race to establish protocols on the Internet. Writing

nearly six months earlier in the Sunday Times (London), Stephen Amidon had

predicted as much: Theres nothing these big corporations would like more than a

draconian style of information control, especially if it is backdoored in under the

guise of protec ting innocent little children.44

More broadly, the debate about computer pornography has provided the

essential backdrop for a variety of agencies to introduce a range of governmental,

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professional and commercial controls over computer use and telecommunications.

Amidon was also prescient on the broader implications: the newspaper taxes of the

nineteenth century were ostensibly enacted to protect public morality, when in fact

they served as a form of political control over the rabble. Are we on the verge of a

new information tax by a government frightened of unfettered discourse?.45

Worldwide web

The Internet may be expanding, but not as fast as the proliferation of control over its

users. In todays society, privatization and regulation are the price to be paid for the

expansion of the Internet, and the inflated debate about computer pornography has

been used to give the impression that this price is a fair one.

It is well nigh impossible to overestimate the number of new controls which

have been booted up against the backdrop of the computer porn panic. Suffice to say

that the fastest growing aspect of cyberculture is now the worldwide web of rules and

regulations, ranging from legislation empowering certain governments to look into

every bulletin board they choose, to the niceties of Netiquette, and the forest of

advice for parents about inappropriate computer games for their children.

Recently introduced legislation includes: (USA) the Digital Telephony Act

requires telephone companies to write software that allows authorised government

agents to capture the data stream in all new technologies; (France) all cryptography is

to be licensed, with the government entitled to a copy of every key. In the UK,

transmission between computers now constitutes publication under the Obscene

Publications Act. The Criminal justice and Public Order Act (1994) extended the

definition of obscenity and upgraded local trading standards officers into a national

agency for tracking down pirate disks.

The UK government is setting up a committee to devise regulations for

video-on-demand and virtual reality. It has banned decoders capable of receiving

satellite porn-TV from the European continent. Libel cases have established the

jurisdiction of the UK courts over the Internet. Also in the UK, the police have set up

sting bulletin boards to entrap Net users engaged in illicit activity. In the USA, the

authorities are using sniffer programs to track anyone who logs on to inappropriate

bulletin boards.

Self-censorship

The parameters of cyberculture are now being established in law. In addition, many

commercial enterprises have developed codes of conduct which are more restrictive

than the legal requirements. Launching its Internet service in November 1994, BT

(formerly British Telecom) manager Mick Head said that traffic would be censored if

it is deemed to be offensive.46 Nintendos US marketing chief Peter Main looked

askance at Segas Night Trap: a game that would never be allowed to appear on any

Nintendo format.47 Virgins Tim Chaney is living up to the company name, saying

were working on horror product, nothing sexual at all.48

All the major computer game producers are members of the European Leisure

Publishers Association, which in 1993 drew up its own set of guidelines in

conjunction with the Video Standards Council (UK). The VSCiELSPA guidelines go

far beyond the requirements of the relevant legislation (principally the Video

Recordings Act

1984):

Certain matters must be treated with great caution or avoided altogether. The guidelines

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contain a list of such matters which deal with almost every subject which could cause offence

and which range from sexual and violent subjects to the use of sexual expletives, blasphemy,

racial hatred, alcohol and drug abuse, and encouraging criminal acts The VSC rules and

guidelines represent a mixture of the law, proper business practices and common sense. They

will ensure that ELSPA members adopt standards which go far beyond those which the law

requires.4

Professional and academic bodies are equally cautious. The main entry point for

Usenet messages into the UK is the University of Kent at Canterbury. Its policy is not

to pass on messages in conferences which are overtly pornographic. In its

memorandum to the home affairs select committee, the British Institute of Data

Processing Management recommended that the use of unauthorised software should

be a disciplinary offence at work and college:

We believe that management sanctions against computer misuse in general, are likely to be

more effective in discouraging the production and dissemination of computer pornography

than unenforceable laws or impractical technical solutions. These sanctions should include

using the threat of disciplinary action. This should also have an effect in changing attitudes

among staff and students.

The IDPM has recommended that the use of

any

unauthorised software on corporately

owned systems or networks be made an explicit disciplinary offence and that all staff be

notified accordingly. This enables immediate action without waiting for the courts to decide

what is, or is not, pornographic.

The IDPM memo refers to unenforceable laws and shows a preference for

changing attitudes. Likewise, Amidon noted that to control it (cyberspace) . . the

BBFC (British Board of Film Classification] or the police would have to be given

access to every phone in the nation . . (and) open warrants to peruse any disk.5

Kurt Baumann, founder and chairman of the Internet Business Association (USA), has

pointed out that the Internet is not controllable by one organization or overseeing

body.52

The effectiveness of old-fashioned hierarchies is indeed limited by the nature of

the new technologies, and, perhaps more important, by the fragmentation of

authority. But the computer porn panic has played its part in offsetting these

obstacles to social control. By popularizing the notion that cyberspace is an

inherently dangerous place, inflated concern over computer porn has fostered a

debilitating climate of self-censorship and restraint, catalysed by the occasional

high-profile instance of on-line stalking or harassment.

These trends are exemplified in the case of 32-year-old Andrew Archambeau,

the first person to be prosecuted under a new Michigan law against cyber-stalking

after he sent 20 e-mail messages in two months to a 29-year-old teacher in Detroit.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern that the law is too broad, but

refused to take up his case.

In todays culture of fear, everyone is caricatured as either a victim or a

predator. Net users are not immune from this anti- (other) people outlook. The notion

that cybersex is dangerous, together with the idea that the Net is somehow inherently

anti-woman, 53 is now as widespread as the celebration of teledildonics when sex in

cyberspace was first talked about less than a decade ago.

The ramifications of this corrosive atmosphere are even wider than the Internet

and its users. Millions of people-far more than have access to it-first heard about

the Internet through the panic about computer pornography. They are called on to

accept that their game-playing children are in danger of being sucked into the moral

vacuum of cyberspace; and only a package of media education, counselling and

codes of practice can save them.

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In the UK parents are currently undergoing a bombardment of advice from

ELSPA, the Nationa l Council for Education and Technology, the British Computer

Soc iety, teachers, academics, the police, and a succession of government ministers.

Both broadsheets and tabloids are hectoring in tone: make children show you

whats on EVERY computer disc theyve got;54

say no (to Night Trap) because there

is too much violence in modern soc iety already.55

If all this advice were followed through to the letter, the result would be a chain

of politicians, pundits, police, soc ial workers and educationalists monitoring parents

and checking on their dedication to watching over their own children. This scenario

is as unworkable as George Orwells 7984 is outdated. Nevertheless the repeated

advertisement of this scenario as a desirable state of affairs has served to catalyse the

panic-stricken mood in todays soc iety.

Parents who ignore or reject this dogma run the risk of being categorized as

feckless and scapegoated as real-life equivalents of the Addams Family. Given the

intensity of contemporary insecurity, however, most people will be tempted to make

some sort of concession to the idea of a benign authority protecting their privatized

existence from the monsters in public cyberspace.

Anyone so tempted should heed the words of J ohn Perry Barlow, Grateful Dead

lyricist and founding father of the Elec tronic Frontier Foundation, the most prominent

Stateside lobby group aga inst censorship on the Internet. Barlow says that trusting

the government with your privacy is like having a Peeping Tom install your window

blinds.56

Dependency culture

The overall effect of this atmosphere is to create a dependency culture in which all of

us-Net users and non-users alike-are encouraged to rely on the embrace of those

in authority to save us from each other and from the beast within ourselves. This is an

insidious invitation. The more we come to rest on the bosom of the state (regardless

of how soft it feels), the more we are rendered incapable of acting outside the

clutches of authority. This is the authority-trap; and unless we reject the politics of

safety as expressed in the arguments for reining in the Net, and the anti-people

assumptions behind those arguments, we will find ourselves locked into it. This

aspect of contemporary soc iety is more dangerous, debilitating and demoralizing

than any amount of computer pornography could ever be.

Notes and references

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Duncan Campbell, Schools ignore computer porn,

Gua rd i an

20 August 1994.

Ib id .

Parliamentary select committee for home affairs, First Report on Computer Pornography (London,

UK, HMSO, February 19941, Introduction, page v.

Gavin Hills, Screen dreams, The Face, December 1992.

Barbara Kantrowitz, Men, women and computers,

Newsweek

16 May 1994, pages 36-40.

Nicola Tyrer, Dehumanised by hi-tech pornography, Daily Mail, 4 March 1994.

A Stallabras, Nightmares in the video arcade, New Lef t Review No 198, March/April 1993.

Eight ways to be an info freako, The Face, August 1992.

Christine McCourty, Video toys blamed for poor sight, Daily Teleg rap h 20 January 1994.

Howard Smith, Patten backs campaign to curb video game violence,

London

Evening

t anda rd 24

January 1994, citing a video produced by the Consumers Association and the British Heart

Foundation, You can prevent heart disease.

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11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

Jacqui Thornton Sad symptoms of computer children, Daily Telegraph, 22 September 1994, page

4, report on a paper given at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society, Downing

College, Cambridge by Dr Mark Griffiths, Plymouth University, and Dr Catherine Hilton, Havering

Health Trust.

Sir Paul Condon, Metropolitan Police commissioner, quoted in

The Daily Star

Top cop blasts

killing games, 12 March 1994.

Margaret Ford, deputy director of the British Board of Film Classification, quoted in Sex and

violence, fc/ge magazine, Bath, UK, November 1993, pages 63-67.

Tim Reeves, British Computer Society, quoted by Daily Telegraph journalist Elizabeth Grice, 25

February 1994 in Showing on a screen near you.

Vicki Merchant, speaking at the press launch of the first national survey of computer pornography in

schools, reported in The Daily Telegraph 16 June 1994, Computer porn spreads to one in ten

schools, page 6.

Child Safety on the Information Highway published jointly by the Interactive Services Association

and the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Washington, DC, December 1994,

reported in

The Daily Telegraph

12 December 1994, Child perils on super highway, by

Christine McGourty.

Computer Pornography first report of the parliamentary select committee for home affairs, London,

HMSO February 1994, Section D, Conclusion, page xv.

Guy Patrick, Computer porn drove boy aged just 13 to try rape-he pounced on girl, 6,

The Sun

3

March 1994, page 7.

Dick Saxty and Martin Sharpe, This baby was killed by her computer addict father because she

cried when he was plaving one of his games-fury at 7-year sentence, The Sun 28 January 1994,

page 5.

Cuv Patrick, Skinhead loner who lived for heavv metal horror songs and computers,

The Sun 30

Ma h 1994, page 5.

Gilbert Tyle, The Concept of Mind (Harmondsworth, UK, Penguin, 1963), page IO, quoted in

Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan-A History of Respectable Fears, (Basingstoke, Macmillan Education,

1983), page 205.

Hookeb?zCatherine Bennett penetrates the secret world of video games,

The Guardian 2

December 1993, Section Two, pages l-4.

Labour MP Frank Cooke interviewed on Screen Generation, BBC 2s Reportage, 6 January 1993.

Elizabeth Grice, Showing on a screen near you,

Daily Telegraph 25 February 1994.

Nicola Tyrer,

ibid.

Roger Cook, The Cook Report (ITV), 7 September 1993.

Computerpornography first report of the home affairs committee, London, HMSO, February 1994,

page 2.

Ibid

page 2.

/bid

page 2.

Ibid page 2.

Ibid

page 3.

Ibid

page 2.

Ibid

page 3.

Unpublished memorandum to the home affairs committee by David Webb, National Campaign for

the Reform of the Obscene Publications Act.

Howard Foster and Andrew Alderson, Explicit computer porn plagues 50 per cent of schools,

Sunday Times June 1994, page 5.

Vicki Merchant, preliminary findings of the first national survey on computer pornography in

schools, as submitted to the home affairs select committee, winter 1993-4.

Wendy Grossman, editor PC

World

interviewed on Newsbeat, Radio One, Tuesday 16 November

1994.

John McGhie, Computer graphics let child porn slip through, The Observer 28 February 1993.

Dr Susan Edwards, unpublished memorandum to the home affairs select committee, winter

1993-4.

Superintendent Mike Hames, head of Obscene Publications Squad, Metropolitan Police, speaking

on the Today programme, Radio Four, 18 May 1994.

Beatrix Campbell, Goliath: Britains dangerous places, 1993, quoted in Ros Coward, Whipping

boys, Guardian Weekend 3 September 1994, pages 32-35.

Cyberville, part of Channel 4s Equinox series, 11 December 1994.

Susan Watts (in Washington), Brothel on the Internet alarms computer giant,

independent

(London,

UK), 9 December 1994.

Stephen Amidon, Lost in cyberspace, the culture essay,

Sunday Times

17 July 1994.

Amidon,

ibid.

Azeem Azhar, Big brother role for BT,

Guardian

Online, 1 December 1994.

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47.

48.

49.

Sex and violence, Edg e magazine, Bath, UK, November 1993.

Ibid.

50.

51.

52.

Video Standards Council, submission to the home affairs select committee, published as an

appendix to the select committee report.

Institute of Data Processing Management, submission to the home affairs select committee,

published as an appendix to the select committee report.

Amidon, ib id .

Baumann, quoted in Susan Watts, Brothel on the Internet alarms computer giant, I ndependen t 9

December 1994.

53.

Barbara Kantrowitz, Men, women and computers,

Newsweek

15 May 1994, pages 36-40.

54. Peril of porn, Sun editorial, 4 March 1994.

55.

Fighting video violence,

Gua rd i an

leading article, 10 February 1994.

56.

John Perry Barlow, Jackboots on the infobahn,

Wired

April 1994, page 40.

762