The number of pornographic images on the internet has swelled up increasingly over the years. The increase has made it even more possible for young children to view these obscene and indecent images. The Carnegie Mellon study showed that 83.5% of images on UseNet are of pornographic material. These images are just another example of marketing pornography on the information highway. We need to have restrictions on the use of the internet, in order to limit the amount of images passed to one another and to keep it away from the children.
Bills passed through by congress during the 1990’s have helped limit pornographic images available on the web. The Exon amendment, Communications Decency Act has helped control broadcasting, telecom, and telephone systems. This now extends out to the internet as well. The CDA is an act that doesn’t deal with just obscenity but also deals with indecency as it tries to not allow indecent materials to pop up on the web. But there have been issues with this act. As the debate between Exon and Leahy goes on, Leahy argues that the internet should be free. We should have someone study it to see if it as a problem before we fix it. Also groups such as the Electric Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology have argued against the CDA. They believe that things that were legal before shouldn’t be illegal now. But the idea behind the CDA was that we are treating the internet as a broadcast medium. The internet has the same laws applicable to them as there are laws applicable to broadcasting and telecommunications.
