After decades of trying to curtail the amount of pornography available on the Internet, a glimmer of consensus has been reached. But the moment might be fleeting.Historically, it seemed like the one thing the industry, government, and Internet safety advocates could agree on was that child pornography—the depiction of minors engaged in sexual acts or provocative poses—is despicable and should be wiped off the face of the web. It’s hard to find a person who disagrees with the sentiment. But, as always, the disagreement comes in the definition of what child porn is and what chain reaction might be set off as information is censored.
For years, child porn chatrooms and groups were quietly allowed to do their thing on the net. After a bit of pressure was applied by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office, three of the major Internet service providers, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications, and Time Warner Cable, announced that they will now block access to child pornography sites, newsgroups, chats, and anything else having to do with child porn.
The companies also promised to speed up their efforts to respond to reported incidences of child pornography and have donated money to help law enforcement be more responsive, too.
Social networks MySpace and Facebook have agreed to block Internet access to known predators. MySpace is also promising a tool to help parents keep tabs on their networked kids. The companies’ determination to deter sex offenders and child pornographers is laudable.
But, at the same time, a more subtle discussion is brewing. Each time the government tries to regulate Internet content, there’s a predicable outcry from civil liberties groups. One of the arguments is that there are already sufficient laws on the books to thwart child predators. Another is that private ISPs should not be deciding what to censor; they should be conduits, not arbiters. In a recent article in First Monday, an online journal about the Internet, the author labels those who see legislation as a way to legislate Internet content as “technopanics” fueled into action by sensationalized media. For more on free speech and the Internet debate, see The Washington Post article.

This may sound uncharacteristically conservative of me, but I think child porn is so heinous that if all we did was agree to block the commonly known and well-documented sites that cater to child pornography we’d be doing the entire world a service. Cuomo’s office used a heavy hand to make the ISPs do what is unquestionably correct. Adult pornography is a different issue and free speech should be held paramount.