www.nasa.com

[Sheryl Dwinell]

At 01:24 PM 7/1/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Has everyone heard about www.nasa.com?
>A filtering vendor told me about it.  WWW.NASA.GOV is *the* most popular
>site for children.  WWW.NASA.COM contains PORN ADS!!
>This is the best example yet of Internet "porn pushing" to minors.

Oooh, too bad the CDA didn't pass, we could find their ISP and lock them
all in jail for 2 years! Geez! Get a grip.  First, how do you know that
NASA is THE most popular site for children? What demographic data supports
this assertion?  Second, aside from the ad banner at the top for a porn
site, the rest of the site looks pretty innocuous. Third, how many kids sit
down at a terminal and type in www.reallycoolplace.whatever.  Fourth, when
you link to NASA from any resource like Infoseek, Excite or Yahoo you'll
get the 'real' NASA.  Fifth, how is this an example of porn pushing to
minors?  Considering that you have to be a 'member' to really see the
'goods', it seems they're pushing to adults, the ones who have the credit
cards. Emblazoned all over the nasty site are warnings that this is for
adults only.  Legally, the providers of this site have done everything they
need to do.  

For every example like this there are a thousand more wonderful,
educational, and fun sites that kids can access.  

If we keep yammering incessantly about porn on the Net, don't you think it
will just make kids more and more intrigued?  Why do you think there is so
much porn on the Net, anyway? Because it is profitable. In fact, it is one
of the most profitable markets online. Who do you think is paying for it?
10 year olds? Of course not. It's adults. Were these adults exposed to
massive amounts of porn on the Net when they were growing up...oops, no
there wasn't a Net was there. People have always been fascinated with porn
and always will.

If you want to keep kids away from the possiblity of even stumbling across
this stuff, then propose a remedy for your own library.  Not every library
has a problem or a crisis with kids accessing porn, so let's not blow this
issue even more out of proportion than it already has become.

Sheryl Dwinell
Cataloger/Database Management Librarian
Memorial Library * Marquette University
P.O. Box 3141 * Milwaukee, WI 53201-3141
414-288-3542 * dwinells at vms.csd.mu.edu