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Lightning Crashes, An Old Freedom Dies (Updated)
I'm not a public speaker, and I hadn't stood before an audience in quite a while. The feedback I'd gotten from my first presentation on SurfWatch was that I talked too fast and too much. At the time, I'd wanted to communicate as much as possible of what the Censorware Project had learned over the last two years, in a half hour. An impossible task, and I shouldn't have tried.
But I felt I could do better, so I wanted to try again. That's the effort that ended up becoming Thursday's presentation.
My main problem is that the subject is complicated. Many computer professionals have this problem when trying to communicate computer-related ideas to nonprofessionals. If these things were simple, we wouldn't need computers. But trying to get across too much information in a half hour didn't work.
The other thing I'd tried that didn't work was borrowing the computers of the Family Research Council. The FRC had two computers set up, one filtered and one not, run by two volunteers. I'd thought it would be a clever coup to use their own computers to show their software failing.
But it wasn't impressive for one reason: when I showed an innocent Web site blocked, all that showed up was the "Blocked by SurfWatch" screen. I was using the FRC's filtered computer and their other one was turned off. Nobody had any idea that valuable information was being blocked, except me.
Kind of the way the censorship works in the library. But not an effective demo.
For my second go at it, I rented a ballroom in downtown Holland, advertised it in the paper, and brought my own computers. I purchased SurfWatch and installed it on one of them. And I spent some time thinking over which issues were important enough to hit and which were just too technical to mention.
Setting up was great fun, if by "fun" I mean wrestling with a network under a deadline. The 10baseT jack didn't seem to be connected, one of the extension cords didn't work, a projector wouldn't turn on, and finally I was faced with Windows' endless dialog boxes of options just to use DHCP. But it all worked out with time to spare.
I began my talk by explaining out why I was there and why blocking software was wrong. Currently, Holland's opposition to the software is being waged largely on political issues: chiefly, the fact that three-fourths of library taxpayers cannot vote on the ballot. To many, what the blocking software actually does is a non-issue.
But these are mere procedural concerns. Every community is going to have to face the core problem squarely, sooner or later; it might as well be now. So I began my talk by laying out, from the beginning, my belief that blocking software inherently violates the First Amendment.
After talking about some of the myths put forth in the community's debate, my next step was to display some pornography on the big screens. The local Family Research Council has been trotting out a presentation that focuses on some of the most graphic stuff available on the web: bestiality, fisting, etc. I'd decided to try not offending my audience quite as much. I chose some milder Web pages, mostly softcore, though several of the sites I chose also contained harder material.
And, of course, unlike the Family Research Council's, my demonstration showed the pornography appearing on both screens: filtered and un-.
I think I'll not reveal here which porn sites I showed. I want to see how long SurfWatch goes without finding them. So far it's been about two weeks, but of course revealing them here would get them blocked immediately for PR purposes.
I will say that I chose six sites that all begin with the letter "A". This was to make the point that there is plenty of unblocked pornography - there being 25 other letters in the alphabet. As if to make my point, a Tennessee paper ran that same day a story about a schoolteacher who was fired for accessing over a hundred porn sites - right through the school's "filter."
After all, if the software fails only a tiny fraction of the time, it still allows through - dozens? hundreds? thousands? - of porn sites. How many porn sites does the average person need? What's the point in blocking 99% of it, if the remaining sites are more than enough to keep anyone busy?
The next step in my talk was the flip side: showing protected Web pages unfairly blocked. Finding a plethora of wrongly-blocked pages was easy. SurfWatch uses URL keyword blocking, so, for example, the complete text of the classic book Of Human Bondage is blocked because of "bondage" in the URL. The hard part was narrowing the list down to 10 to demonstrate.
(If you're interested, here are the ten blocked pages I used: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.)
Next, I pointed out that these sorts of errors were not often corrected. What data there is suggests that most errors go unfixed. In our analysis of Web logs in the State of Utah, we found about 300 wrongly blocked sites, of which only six were overridden. Also, in the Family Research Council's $7,000 canned demo, they tried to show how easy it was to fix errors by unblocking The Onion. Since they couldn't even do their prepared site correctly (they left graphics.theonion.com blocked), how could the staff be expected to do the job on real sites, in a busy library?
I explained that the errors I'd found were intrinsic to blocking software, because of the growth of the Web. In my first talk, I spent 10 minutes talking about exponential growth; this time, I just gave the impressive figure that, during just the course of my talk, a million Web pages were created or changed. Much quicker and I'm sure it made the same point.
There seemed to be concern, in Holland, that pornography just "popsup" at any time, for no reason. I debunked that myth by pointing out that typos almost never lead to offensive Web sites. I read this quote from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Communications Decency Act, where they affirmed a lower court's conclusions:
"Communications over the Internet do not 'invade' an individual's home or appear on one's computer screen unbidden. Users seldom encounter content 'by accident.' ... Almost all sexually explicit images are preceded by warnings as to the content. Even the Government's witness ... testified that the 'odds are slim' that a user would come across a sexually explicit site by accident."
All the incidents of "verified pornography" in the Holland press seem to boil down to the same two cases over and over. In the first, a woman was reading Hotmail and, when she was done, closed the browser window. Behind it was porn that another user had left up as a prank.
There are programs that can be run between users' sessions to shut down Netscape and clear its history - my local library is using one with much success - so blocking software isn't necessary to solve this problem. I've explained this to the woman, but she continues to use her incident as an argument for blocking software.
The second incident involved a teenage girl. It seems she was at the library computer and stumbled across naked women purely by accident while doing an innocent search for chocolate chip cookie recipes. Interestingly, she didn't report this to her mother, apparently out of embarrassment, until weeks later. I'd like to speak with her as well but the local pro-filtering groups refuse to put her in touch with me.
I haven't been able to replicate this event, and neither have other people who have tried. And I know a lot about search engines. Now, I'm not saying it didn't happen. Maybe it was a misunderstanding.
What I did in my speech was hold up a $100 bill and offer it to the first person who could show me how it was done. I'll make the same offer to Slashdot readers. Let's see whether this is an urban legend or not. See the bottom of this story for the rules.
I spoke briefly about the legal issues. The Holland area has been hearing suggestions that it will be legally safer to use blocking software. In fact, though the case law is by no means definitive, the experiences of Livermore and Loudoun point toward the opposite conclusion.
Next was the fun part, where I brought up some quotes from the two organizations pushing filters in Holland to illustrate the folly of relying on unaccountable third parties for censorship. In a 1996 legal brief, the Family Research Council had mentioned Cyber Patrol by name as a product that families and libraries "should make use of." But just two years later, in a bulletin called "Filtering Out Decency," they were warning parents away from using the same software.
Why? Because Cyber Patrol had stuck to its guidelines for what constituted hate speech. They had reviewed the American Family Association, the other organization pushing filters in Holland, and found them to be espousing intolerance of homosexuals. The entire AFA site now found itself censored, by the same type of software it had been pushing. In a bulletin called "Filtering Out Morality," the AFA warned parents to think twice before using any blocking software:
"In a secularist culture, both filtering software and federal regulations may well be used to filter out Christianity along with other undesirable elements.
"Another kind of software simply informs parents what sites their children have visited. Instead of making it impossible for children to see certain sites, this approach puts parental discipline at the center. Children, realizing that their parents are looking over their shoulders, are thus taught to internalize the restraints and to develop a conscience of their own.
"As Christians get involved in these debates - before they get filtered altogether - they should keep in mind the warning of the great Puritan poet John Milton ... 'If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.'"
Teaching children to develop a moral conscience of their own? There's a radical idea. Why did it take censorship backfiring before anyone thought of that?
I wrapped things up by talking for a bit about the importance of teaching these moral lessons to children. The children of today are growing up in the 21st century. The Internet will be available to them on every street corner and desk, and mostly unfiltered. What they need is not a temporary and leaky set of blinders strapped on. They need to be given an ethical foundation and the self-reliance to make good decisions about their own lives.
Somewhere in there I called up the AFA's Web site and showed that their discussion about pornography was blocked by SurfWatch as if it were pornography. That got a chuckle from the audience and made the point: it isn't just one product that backfires. The very product that has been pushed in their community blocks the very organization that has spent $35,000 pushing it.
As I wrote in an earlier article, I'm not sure any of this will make any difference to most people. For most, the issue is and will always be pornography: to be against pornography is to support filters.
And the opposition to sexually explicit material is, at heart, an emotional one. It's a primal one. Sex and fear are two of the gut instincts that we humans carry with us from our earliest days.
The day after my talk, the Holland Sentinel carried a powerfulinterview with the man who is behind the city's ballot initiative. IrvBos is the head of the Holland Area Family Association, a branch of the American Family Association.
It seems his aversion to pornography began when he was a boy, in a dramatic incident. At the age of 12, he found a book by the side of the road - a book with stories about "pretty graphic things," a book that the young boy secreted away in his parents' barn.
When "lightning struck the barn, burning it to the ground," it must have been a frightening demonstration of God's power to the guilty child, the child who associated that barn with sneaking behind his parents' back to do evil things, to read evil words.
I think I put together a pretty good presentation Thursday night, but it couldn't have compared to a bolt from the sky striking down a house of evil - like "Sodom and Gomorra," according to Mr.Bos's recollections.
That's hard to top. I can talk about the Internet equivalents of electrons and lightning rods all I want. But I don't think anyone can get through to people who believe this battle to be an epic one, a battle of good and evil. There is something primal there.
We'll see Tuesday night how the vote comes out.
Rules for the $100 offer are as follows. Find a search result URL that shows naked people, for a search on "chocolate chip cookies" or "chocolate chip cookie recipes." I'll accept any variant that an inexperienced Web-surfer might search for. Your result must appear on one of the first five pages of results returned (typically the first 50 results). I'll accept any major search engine. Send me the exact query you used; I will only accept queries I can verify to work as claimed. You aren't allowed to put up a cookie page, submit it, then change its content; to prevent this, you have until 11:59PMEST, Wednesday the 23rd. Only the first person gets the money; order is determined by timestamp of Received: headers at my server. I'll mail you a check or donate it to your favorite charity. This offer is made by me personally, not Slashdot, Andover.net, or VALinux. Notify me at jamie@mccarthy.org.
Update: 02/22 9:30 PM EST by J : I'm getting a lot of submissions that underscore the importance of properly spelling queries. Since I said I'd allow variants, I'll allow these and pick the most reasonable-sounding to give the $100 to. Some of the better ones so far: "chocchipcooky," "chocolateecipe," and the amusing "chocolatecoochie." If you can't beat those, don't bother emailing me.
But what I'm really looking for is a search engine result that looks innocent - that a 16-year-old girl might click on without suspecting pornography at the other end. See the CNN story:
"She typed in 'Chocolate Chip Cookies,' hit the search button and immediately there appeared before her eyes a picture of a nude woman."
The issue is whether pornography appears unexpectedly, from clicking on an innocent-looking link. If no one finds one of those, the other Slashdot authors and I will just decide on the most reasonable-sounding of the other submissions (first entries win ties).
I work in a private JK-12 school and we use surfwatch. The real reason to utilize this software (for us anyway) is *not* to protect the children, it's to protect us. We acknowledge that there is no sufficient way to filter out "bad" content on the web. It is not currently possible. However, if little Johnny finds photos of someone schtupping a goat we can wave out hands at Surfwatch and say "It's their fault". Sad but true.
Instead of replying a couple of times, I am just replying once. In an earlier post, someone mentioned that he worked for a private JK-12 school that used censoring software but admitted (internally at least) that it was impossible, but the software still allowed them to point the finger away from the school. Presumably removing their reliability. I am currently consulting with a private Christian k-12 school that is interested in filtering software. I instead suggested writing the policy to stat that every attempt is made to monitor, but nor restrict, students access to the inernet. With the help of monitoring software, parents (can/will) be informed of their pupils internet activities.
This could go so far as to automatically generate entire lists of what students have viewed under their login. This of course assumes that accounts are forcibly kept in order and that penalties (IE no access for a (week/month/semester) for passowrd/account trading, sharing, or stealing. While many like my ideas, most seem to look towards what requires less work. Meaning, lets throw in a filtering proxy and be done with it. Any suggestions on furthuring this gaol? Anyone want to write an account system/proxy that monitors and generates reports on induviduals access by login (not IP), that does not cost a screaming fortune, and is easy to implement on a mid-scale basis?
Final accountability should of course rest on the parent. Unfortunately, the parents just want to blame the schools/teachers and take no responsibility. Hence, the schools have to find other places to point fingers: hate internet sites, violent TV ang games, lack of attention form school staff. I just have to know, where the fsck are these parents when their children are snorting coke and making pipe bombs? Where were they when their uncle charlie molested them at age 6? Probably out working to much as some do, or partying to much as others. I will be the first to admit, I run a tight schedule, still go out and have fun occaisionally, but I sitll find time to talk to my kids, play with them, get them on the bus in the morning. It's hard, but it is definately worth it. Not that I want to get on a rant or anything (Dennis Miller Aura).
On to topic too... I can't find any naked chocolate chip cookie women. Unless of course I type and search for either "Chocolate Tit Cookie" or "Chocolate Chip Nookie", but both are unusual typos.
Feel free to flame/freeze/laud/complment/screw/blackmail me anyway you wish.
These views are my own and do not represent my employers brain cell in any way shape or form.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Warning: If you are of anything even remotely resembling a "fundamentalist" mindset, you will probably find this post flame-ish at best. You will probably also want to scroll down, because there is probably very little I could do to show you just HOW you are being led about (even to the point of showing you examples of how your own leaders have outright lied to you). I can only say, in this case, that I feel very sorry for you and that I hope that whatever god or gods may exist may take pity on you--especially since the actions of those who lead you are probably against everything the founders of your religions stood for.
I will also forewarn that I am in a generally pissy mood to begin with tonight, and many of my statements may come out more harshly than I meant them to. My apologies. I've had a bad day, and a bad temper to go along with it (I had to deal with Hellsouth about a problem which has been going on for well-nigh over three years). If things sting too bad, I suggest you take heed of Yshua's example and turn the other cheek and forgive me my tresspasses.
Now that THAT disclaimer has been taken care of...
Some anonymous coward dun said:
Assuming that you aren't an outright shill that is astroturfing Slashdot in support of fundy viewpoints--something which I cannot discount, unfortunately, because it is a fairly well-known tactic that is used by Religious Right groups on occasion--allow me to correct some misguidings and rip a few new holes in your argument.
First off:
Well, for starters, I hate to tell you, but the major pusher of censorware in the debates nationally are not "concerned families" but rather multi-million-dollar funded PACs and pressure groups that have as an explicit goal the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States.
Let me repeat that for you: The vast majority of groups that are pushing censorware in libraries and whatnot are multi-million-dollar PACs and pressure groups that have, as an explicit goal, the establishment of a fundamentalist Christian theocracy in the United States .
Yes, you heard that right. They want to set up a fundamentalist Christian version of Taliban Afghanistan, up to and including bringing back Old Testament punishments for such things as homosexuality, sex outside of church-sanctioned marriages, and even "being fresh" to one's parents.
If you want to learn for yourself just how well funded these groups are and just how MANY of them are interlinked, go here and read up all about the Coalition for National Policy (basically the "think-tank" of the Religious Right in the United States; it is invitation-only, and contains many "fortune 500" individuals and state and national legislators). Then go here for some hard info on many of the Religious Right groups and their real agenda...or here or here (or here for a special page for those who've seen how destructive and utterly un-Christian the Religious Right is--I'll get to that in a sec).
For your info, by the way, the major folks pushing it in Holland are a little group called the Family Research Council. They were set up specifically as the "lobbying" wing of a group called Focus on the Family after the IRS threatened to yank FoF's tax-exempt status (it was set up under the same exemption as a church, and thus they aren't supposed to be doing political lobbying). One of the names you might recognise from them is Gary Bauer, their head; he recently did a failed run for the presidency. One of their favourite tactics, by the way, is stuff with stealth candidates who don't reveal links to the Religious Right till they're elected; they are also far, far from being merely a "concerned parent's group" (they are extremely homophobic, push very, very heavily for the entire Religious Right agenda, and incidentially the head of FoF is a "Christian reconstructionist" who thinks the US should be a theocracy complete with religious tests for government office). You can find out more info here or find a big ol' archive of their writing to their membership here.
If you want to know more about the Religious Right's agenda in general, I've put a much longer post here that even goes on about some groups that folks don't traditionally associate with the Religious Right (like, oh, Home Shopping Network's links with the Religious Right, or NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon's links, or the many links the PMRC has with the Religious Right).
Oh, and while we're on the subject of "protecting their families from harmful things"...you'd think if they were really interested in that, they'd be pushing for the Convention on the Rights of the Child to be ratified...but no...they're one of many fundy groups across the US that have lobbied specifically to KEEP it from being ratified, because they think it'll take away their right to force their ways on their kids, forcibly "exorcise" their kids, beat them, etc. (By the way, the US is one of two nations that still hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The other nation, Somalia, has a reasonable excuse for not ratifying it as it has no working government right now.)
For THAT matter, you'd think they'd work extra hard to protect their families from such destructive things as Bible-based cults (which do everything to isolate their members from birth, use outright deception to recruit members and keep them, and which are every bit as destructive as Scientology is--I've actually put up a post here comparing practices between the two if you odn't believe me, so you can look at the hard evidence for yourself). But no, they don't do that--they actively promote many of the Bible-based cults, because half the Religious Right groups could well be considered coercive in and of themselves and most of their hard-core membership is gotten from people in Bible-based cults (often people who have been members for generations and literally isolated and indoctrinated since birth--there's a college that has been set up for "Christian" homeschooled youths to train them to be politicians for the Religious Right), and their entire mindset shows just HOW cultic the whole mess is.
And before you tell me I don't know what the hell I'm talking about...I do. All too well. I just happen to be a walkaway from a Bible-based cult my family has been involved in for several generations; I was raised up into the whole spiel, and found out quite accidentially at age 12 that I had pretty much been fed lies...I found out later (partly from info regarding Scientology that included "is your group coercive?" checklists) that the group I was formerly involved in WOULD count as a Bible-based cult. The group I walked away from also happens to be one of the largest fundamentalist churches in Kentucky, and is the de facto center of the Religious Right in that state...trust me when I know all too well what I'm talking about here, and I still suffer after-effects from it. I would move heaven and earth if it meant some kid didn't have to go through the absolute hell I went through as a kid, being abused in the name of God. I'd love them not to wince whenever discussions of Christianity were brought up because it makes you flashback to just how fragging twisted some of the things that were done to you were. I'd love for them not to be scared shitless that the very groups you walked away from were working hard to put the entire nation under the same hell you walked away from--complete with force of arms, if they were to get power.
And yes, I can say that as a direct result of that I've been hurt by the Religious Right and it's just a wee bit personal to me. Then again, I think any kid who's been abused by another has the right to be pissed, and more to the point, to work to make sure that abuser can't ever hurt another kid ever again.
There has been only two studies that have ever shown a negative effect regarding pornography in general--the Meese report, which Edwin Meese III literally bullied through and had to have rewritten after the scientists he hired reached exactly the opposite conclusion, and the Surgeon-General's report on pornography in 1987 (by Dr. C.E. Koop--a Surgeon-General who was also appointed by Reagan, who pandered to the Religious Right on many issues). (As a minor aside--Edwin Meese III is a raving fundy, and is heavily involved with the Religious Right [see here for more info]. In fact, he's SO much in with the Religious Right that he's a member of the very secretive Coalition for National Policy [here's his info from the membership list here], and is involved in a Religious Right group known as the Heritage Foundation [more info on the Heritage Foundation here and here [the last article also contains info on another Religious Right group Meese is involved in]; as a minor aside, "Heritage" is a very common "code word" for fundamentalist/Religious Right interests, along with "family" and "Christian Life Center"]. In fact, he was put in specifically by Ronald Reagan, who was largely elected due to the Religious Right and who started the not-so-great Republican tradition of pandering to the Religious Right...needless to say, Edwin Meese isn't impartial, wasn't impartial, and was looking specifically for evidence he wanted to have "scientific proof" for a very specific agenda of the Religious Right in the US. Even worse, there is a fair amount of evidence from his own public speeches to indicate Edwin Meese may be a "Christian Reconstructionist" [Christian Reconstructionism is the canard that the Founding Fathers intended the United States to be a fundamentalist Christian theocracy and that it is the duty of Reconstructionists to "re-establish" this theocracy]; info here. In other words, he flatly had an agenda and bent the evidence towards it.)
Most scientists who have studied human sexuality, and specifically stuff relating to porn and to sex crimes, see so many holes in the Meese Report that it's not funny. There are no less than five studies which indicate that pornography isn't harmful (at least to normal people); more to the point, many of the statistics which have been argued to show that porn is harmful could also be argued to indicate that people into certain categories of porn are likely to be pathological in and of themselves.
A rather informal example is with the Japanese, and in particular, hentai comics (which feature sex and adult situations). Hentai is pretty popular and readily available in Japan, even to under-18's; some of it goes farther than most US porn does (Playboy just shows naked women, for example). The Japanese percentage of sex crimes is actually somewhat below that of the US, even considering that the Japanese are generally a somewhat more repressed society than the US is.
As a minor aside--rape and child abuse (except for very, very exceptional circumstances in the latter, and even often there) aren't so much crimes of sex as of power--in other words, the main component of these crimes and the motivation for them isn't so much sex as, well, power and domination over another by degrading them in the lowest way possible. Rapists are often found to be hostile against women period, and so rape them as a dominance thing; same thing with the vast majority of child abuse (the major exception may be child abuse in which there has been found actual pedophilia--a sexual paraphilia in which the person is actually sexually attracted to children--but even then, there is a definite dominance streak to this). Also, it's been found that treatments to try to stop rapists and child-molesters from having sex by attempting to curb the sex-drive don't work very well (again, the major exception to this is child molestation in which it's been found actual pedophilia exists)--they simply will rape their victims with objects or will find other ways to "get it up". This is because they're using their gonads as weapons--it's like trying to castrate someone to cure them of beating hell out of someone else.
There is a known correlation between rape (and to an extent, child molestation as well--most notably incest) and other violent behaviours--such as torture of animals when young, assault, etc. Most of these folks seek out violent porn and violent entertainment in general because they're generally prone to violence to begin with; there is some evidence that in extreme cases there may be an actual defect in brain chemistry to account for this. Needless to say, castrating a rapist or child molester isn't going to fix them, and neither is depriving them of pornography.
Another interesting statistic--there are some reports to suggest that there is actually a higher rate of child abuse (including incest) in households in which most of the family are members of coercive groups such as Bible-based cults or Scientology. This, again, probably has a lot to do with the whole dominance thing; coercive groups, which rely VERY much on a "master/servant" relationship to begin with, can't help things much. (In Bible-based cults especially, the whole "spare the rod and spoil the child" bit can't help either.) Based on my own experience (which fortunately did not include sexual abuse, but did include physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse) I'm inclined to agree with this, if only because of all the other kinds of abuse which are the norm in such families.
First, a primer about "addiction". Addiction, in the purest sense (and the medical sense) of the word, is where the body chemistry changes to require the use of a drug to maintain normal body function; this tends to occur with narcotics, cocaine, nicotine, most of your "downer" drugs (including alcohol, benzodiazepines [Valium, etc.] and phenobarbital and friends), amphetamines, and (to a lesser degree) caffeine. (The "nicotine cravings" you get if you don't get your smoke, or the "coffee migraines" longtime coffee drinkers get if they don't get their caffeine, are actually withdrawal symptoms resulting from the fact your body has become dependent on that substance to maintain normal function.)
"Psychic addiction" as commonly described (where no actual physical addiction occurs) is a misnomer, and denotes a state where people feel they "need" something to "function". There is no real biological need for it, merely a "craving"; hence the proper term is "psychic dependence" since the effect is more of a "crutch".
Now, in some cases, this does occur; however, "addiction" has been used to describe "psychic dependence" for so many things (from overeating to sex to the Internet) that it's patently ridiculous. Better to say "obsession" because this is closer to what is happening.
I'm certain there have been a few cases where someone has become obsessed with porn to the exclusion of family. This has also happened, by the way, with TV...with the Internet...with religion (no, I'm not making this up--people in coercive religious groups WILL participate to the exclusion of all else including their family)...with food...with jogging...with dieting...and with literally anything else that makes humans "feel good". Does this mean we ban everything that humans find pleasurable? No.
As a minor aside--there is some evidence that people who do develop "obsessions" like this do have a genetic tendency to do so; it's basically a minor brain-chemical defect, much like a milder version of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Turns out that in a lot of cases, they can be treated with the same drugs used for OCD too (this has been especially useful in overeaters and in folks with anorexia and bulimia). It also turns out that most folks who do develop "obsessions" that could be termed "psychic dependence" can, again, develop "psychic dependence" on literally anything that makes them feel good (to an extent, this is why people tend to gain weight when quitting cigarettes; there is a measure of psychic dependence in cigarette smoking (along with the physical dependence), largely related to the rituals of lighting up, etc. when smoking, and many people tend to overeat to compensate with "crutches")...this is related to very, very primal instincts and emotional triggers in humans relating to comfort. One could literally say that small kids can develop psychic dependence on their "woobies" or other comfort-toys ;)
Well, people don't need the Internet or Slashdot, either, and obsessive use of the Internet can certainly be non-healthful and harmful (ask any student who has ever flunked out of a semester in college because of excessive IRCing/MUDding/Everquest/MP3-scarfing/etc.). Doesn't mean we need to ban Slashdot or the Internet, though.
In fact, sometimes porn can actually be helpful to a relationship--such as when a couple gets ideas from a bit of pornography to try in their own bedrooms. Such things have actually saved marriages in past, and an increasing number of marriage counselors will actually suggest to couples who have lost lustre in their love-lives to *gasp!* rent porn movies or read articles in Penthouse (or alt.sex.*) to get ideas.
No, we aren't suggesting Junior be made to watch porn. For starters, he's probably not going to be terribly interested and will go "ooh, ickie"--exactly the same way even most adults will go "ooh, ickie" when they see porn that doesn't match their own particular sexual preference (most straight girls gross out at lesbian porn; same with guys and man-on-man pics; I think most of us not into boinking goats go "ooh, ickie" at http://www.goatse.cx, or those of us not into fisting go "ooh, ickie" at sites featuring fisting...I could go on). It doesn't scar us for life--neither kids nor adults.
I honestly expect most kids who even accidentially hit a porn site (which is unlikely if Mommy or Daddy is actually bothering to parent the little monster instead of using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they used tapes of Barney the Insipid Purple Demon From Hell when the little monster was a tyke of 3 or the same way they use Teletubbies tapes with his sister of 2...and even more unlikely unless the little monster is precocious enough to be searching out warez or cracks, in which case you've got a wee bit more to worry about than little Junior maybe being exposed to nekkid women ;) are going to either be grossed out or very, very confused...in which case (assuming Mommy and Daddy are doing their job, and not using the Internet as an electronic babysitter the same way they use Barney tapes and Teletubbies and the entire collected works of Disney [both pre-Eisner and in the Dark Ages]) Mommy and Daddy explain that this is something not meant for Junior to see, and they distract him and steer him to something a bit more appropriate like YaHooligans or the like.
Just like what Mommy and Daddy do (if they're being good parents) if Junior accidentially picks up Madonna's "Sex" in the library. Or if Junior is riding in the car with Mommy in downtown and passes the Show-world Dance Emporium which features "Topless And Bottomless Men And Women". Or if Junior (Cthulhu forbid) sees two doggies Doing The Nasty in front of Goddess and everyone.
If you're doing your job as a parent, it's not going to permanently warp Junior's mind. If he grows up at age 16 and starts raping cattle despite your best job, you can safely assume he was probably bent to begin with (and if you do your job as a parent and actually parent the kids instead of using electronic babysitters or keeping your face buried in stuff while the kids are being babysat by the entire cast of Donkey Kong and each and every one of the characters in each and every game Squaresoft has ever released, you will probably notice the initial signs that the child is Seriously Bent and you will hopefully get help for that kid before he hurts someone).
Unfortunately, a lot of people are too bloody lazy to parent their kids, and are all too content to let folks with horrible, destructive agendas (like the FRC) parent their kids because they get fed the line "It's for the good of the children" (and these people are too busy with the grownup equivalent of electronic babysitters they don't even bother to research that these people are very, very, very good at lying or covering up their bad parts when they have to). No offense, but those kids would honestly be better off being raised by wolves IMNSHO--at least the kids would learn how to get along in a structured society, and have loving parents that gave a damn for them. (Yeah, they'd have a hell of a time getting along if/when they returned to human society...but half the kids now have a hell of a time, period.) And don't even get me started on those parents who look at their kids not so much as humans but as pawns or tools or (worse yet) all-so-much-more cannon-fodder for the Army of Gawd...if anything, those are as bad if not worse than those who just use TV and the net as a babysitter, because those kids get warped into more Borg just like their folks if they aren't lucky enough to have just enough of a factor that leads them to walk away from it all...
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)