LDS Media Talk

Friday morning, a subcommittee of the Utah State Legislature unanimously passed a Resolution (H.C.R. 3) Urging Congress to Stop Interent Pornography to Children and Employees. This resolution would put the US Government on notice that the people of the State of Utah want something done about Internet pornography.

The resolution will go to the floor for a vote some time in the next two weeks. If you want to help stop Internet pornography, please call your state representatives and let them know you want them to approve H.C.R. 3: Resolution Urging Congress to Stop Interent Pornography to Children and Employees.

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Yesterday, I blogged about the revived proposal to create a .xxx domain for pornography. This article lists several LDS resources that may be of interest to you:

• LDS Church (Mormon Church) has published pamphlets and posted online helps on combating pornography. More information coming in the future.
• Utah Coalition Against Pornography is a multi-faith community effort. Their Web site has information about education, statistics, and links to helpful sites. They also provide an annual conference and helpful materials.
• Citizens Against Pornography is an organization of LDS people who focus on [1] raising awareness about the harms of pornography, [2] protecting standards of decency in our communities and [3] fortifying homes and families against the destructive and pervasive influence of pornography. They promote legislation to require Web site ratings, recommend filtering technologies to assist parents, and have developing a DVD and printed material to assist parents and others. Their Web site provides help for individuals, parents, and spouses.
• Communities for Decency is a grass-roots statewide women’s organization. Their Web site contains online articles and references to other resources. They also engage in political action.
• CP-80 Internet Channel Initiative. The Internet Community Ports Act (ICPA) promotes the use of Internet channels (ports) to categorize and organize content on the Internet. The act would create Community Port channels for general-public content and Open Port channels for mature content, such as pornography.
• Cyber Secrets: The Problem of Pornography is a series of presentations given at a special conference sponsored by Women’s Services and Resources, a department of Student Life at Brigham Young University. The Web site offers the presentations in streaming audio or in print.
• Lighted Candle Society is a nondenominational, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of moral values. Their Web site contains information about the evils and extent of pornography. They also offer a DVD and other materials.
• Mental Health Resource Foundation is a volunteer organization committed to carrying a message of hope to those who may be suffering from mental illness and social/emotional concerns and those who love them. Their Web site has information on pornography and links to other resources and organizations.
• National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending biblical truth about sexuality. Their Web site has information about avoiding pornography and protecting children from it, as well as links to other organizations.
• Strengthen the Family is a non-profit organization that seeks to strengthen families and protect communities by helping them establish child-appropriate public display standards. The Web site has articles on the dangers of pornography and Internet safety, including practical advice for parents. Listen to a talk given at BYU education week in 2001 (search for speaker “JoAnn Hamilton”).
• Evergreen International is a non profit organization dedicated to helping LDS individuals overcome same-sex attraction and assosiated issues, such as pornography. They provide help to individuals, families, professional counselors, and Church leaders. Their large Web site has a few dozen pages on avoiding and overcoming pornography.

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For several years, there has been an effort to establish a new .xxx domain for online pornography. It has been shot down several times, but it is back in the news again. The Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet’s nonprofit body with authority for development, has issued a revised proposed agreement for establishing a .xxx domain and has invited public comment until February 5, 2007.

The Florida company pushing for the .xxx domain thinks it’s a great idea to create a virtual red-light district on the Internet. And even those who oppose pornography might at first glance think it would be helpful to  put all the porn in one .xxx area so it would be easy to block for those who want to block it.  However, the creation of a .xxx domain would not require pornographers who are on the .com domain to move to the .xxx domain. Any efforts to coral pornography into a corner of the Internet has been fought voraciously by the ACLU under First Amendment rights.
The Family Research Council warned on its Web site that “pornographers will be given even more opportunities to flood our homes, libraries and society with pornography through the .xxx domain.”

Even the Bush administration intervened in the process in August 2005 by sending a letter to ICANN saying: “The Department of Commerce has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children.”

There is no easy answer to the pornography issue on the Internet. Tomorrow, I’ll blog about community efforts to clean up pornography or at least attempt to corral it on the Internet.

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You may be interested in an article by eMarketer on the size and direction of today’s sex entertainment business.

Is it shrinking, or merely changing technologies?

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55% of the U.S. teens surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project use social networking sites, and 85% of them use MySpace most often. About half visit a social network site at least once a day.

Reasons to visit a social network site:

• To stay in touch with friends you see a lot: 91%
• To stay in touch with friends you rarely see in person: 82%
• To make plans with your friends: 72%
• To make new friends: 49%
• To flirt with someone: 17%

For more on social networking, read eMarketer’s Social Network Marketing: Carving Out Some MySpace report.

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Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and may others are beginning to go mobile. According to the “Mobile Social Communities” report from ABI Research, many social communities are now based on the mobile phone and other portable wireless devices in addition to computers. In a world that must constantly be in touch, you’re no longer tied to your computer; you can network over the phone 24×7.

Worldwide, there are almost 50 million members of “mobile social communities,” and projections say there will be 174 million in 5 years.

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A report from Juniper Research, “Mobile Adult Content: Text, Images & Video, 2006-2011,” forecasts that the mobile adult content market will grow from $1.4 billion in 2006 to more than $3.3 billion by 2011. The most lucrative regional markets will be the already well-developed and high-priced European market, with the Asia-Pacific market running a close second.

Juniper estimates that mobile porn services will generate $14.5 billion in revenues from 2006-2011, with Europe contributing 39% and Asia-Pacific 33%.

“Adult content business models have succeeded in other major delivery media: print, cinema, DVD, PPV TV, etc. There is no reason why the mobile channel should not be equally profitable for adult content industry players,” said Bruce Gibson of Juniper. “The mobile channel will reach new audiences.”

While the early mobile content market was focused on text-based services, the introduction of third generation mobile networks and phones with enhanced video and graphics has opened up new opportunities, and the growth of mobile content aimed at adults is merely one example.

As Mr. Gibson concluded, “Mobile is about fun and instant gratification. I think the biggest opportunity is at the casual and ’softer’ end of the adult market — lads in pubs sharing a video clip after a few pints and people looking for a bit of fun when they have spare time to kill — not the hard core stuff.”

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About 1 percent of Web sites indexed by Google and Microsoft’s MSN are sexually explicit, according to a government-commissioned study. The US Department of Justice commissioned the study by Philip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took the US government to court over the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

From a random sample of search engine queries, Stark estimated that 1.7 percent of search results at AOL, MSN, and Yahoo Inc. are sexually explicit and 1.1 percent of Web sites indexed by Google and MSN fall in that category.

About 6% of searches yield at least one explicit Web site, he said, and the most popular queries return a sexually explicit site nearly 40 percent of the time.

Filters typically block 85-90% of the pornographic sites, based on the quality of the filter and the user settings. Less restrictive user settings may only block 40%.

Learn more by reading copyrighted stories by the Associated Press at ABCnews online and MSNBC.

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According to the online security firm IronPort Systems, 62 billion spam messages a day clogged US e-mail systems in October–twice the volume of the previous October.

They report that unwanted e-mail is currently 91% of all e-mail.

The problem isn’t limited to the US, either. The European Commission reports that 50-80% of all e-mails sent in the EU are spam.

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In 2004, 57 million U.S. adults received phishing e-mails. In 2006, that’s up to 109 million. I get several a day among the dozens of spam e-mails I receive.

Why? Because phishing works! Financial losses from phishing attacks rose to more than $2.8 billion in 2006. Even though people are getting wiser to phishing scams, and fewer people say they lost money to phishers, when they did lose, they lost more. From 2004 to 2006, the average loss per victim has grown from $257 to $1,244. In 2005, victims recovered 80% of their losses, but in 2006, they only recovered 54%. To learn more, visit eMarketer.

Even if you receive an e-mail from a company you do business with, DON’T CLICK ON THE LINKS. Go to the Web site yourself and log in to do your transactions. To learn how to avoid becoming a victim of such scams, see www.antiphishing.org.

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The new Gospel Topics section of the Gospel Library on LDS.org has an entry on “Internet” that has links to some valuable resources.

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Good information about Internet Safety can be found on LDS.org on the Internet Safety page. It has references to Church magazine articles and good Web sites where you can learn more.

Also see the LDS.org page on pornography.

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