Childrens Access to Pornography through Internet FileSharing Programs

1
Childrens Access to Pornography through Internet
File-Sharing Programs

• Minority Staff
• Special Investigation Division
• Committee on Government Reform
• U.S. House of Representatives

2

• Report examines a new and growing problem for
  parents and society, which is the childrens easy
  access to the pornographic content on the
  Internet.
• Report was prepared by the Special Investigations
  Divisions of the minority staff of the Committee
  on Government Reform at the request of
  Representatives Henry Waxman and Steve Largent in
  2001.

3

• There is an amazing number and range of
  pornographic files available on peer-to-peer
  networks
• There is not much prevention to block childrens
  access to pornographic files through file-sharing
  programs
• Internet file sharing programs are free

4
Major Findings

• Children may reach to pornographic files
  unintentionally when they are searching for the
  music files.
• The researches show that, the searches with the
  name of the famous singers such as Britney Spears
  or Christina Aguilera produce pornographic files
  70 of the time

5
Possible Solutions

• Use of filters
• Filters used to block access to pornographic
  files by parents do not always work for file
  sharing programs because they are designed to
  block access to pornography from web sites
• Increase public awareness

6
The Number of Children Using file-sharing
programs is not known

• Because none of the surveys of usage of the
  programs identify users by age.
• It is believed to be high.