Untrue! While I will concede that there is some unsavory material available on the Internet, it is nowhere near as prevalent as the rumors would lead you to believe.
First, the percentage of material that would normally be considered objectionable is quite the minimum. While it's impossible to estimate the exact amount, my guess would be 1/2%, at most. In other words, no worse than your local bookstore that might have a copy of "The Joy Of Sex" and Playboy for sale. While even that much is too much for some people, most people would agree that it really isn't a problem.
In 1995, though, Time Magazine cited a study by a university freshman for their cover story on Internet pornography. This article grabbed headlines everywhere with its statistics showing huge amounts of child pornography, bestiality, and other sickness traveling across the Internet. What the article didn't tell you was that the statistics weren't based on any credible study, but were estimates that this one freshman, who went on to write a book about how to "pick up women online," had pulled off the top of his head. The study that the article was based on has been 100% discredited, and Time even published a large correction and apology soon afterward. Unfortunately, the rumor was in place by that time, and the retraction didn't get as many headlines as the original article did.
Second, a good percentage of people can't even access areas of the Internet that contain objectionable material. This is because those areas are blocked out by many Internet service providers. These providers either have a moral objection to making those areas available, or they don't want to leave themselves open for any legal issues. Thus, the people who have their Internet connections via these providers don't have to worry about encountering material they dislike.
Finally, if you have a child in the house who's allowed to access the Internet, parental responsibility comes into play. Just as you would make sure that your child isn't at the bookstore mentioned earlier, reading materials you would find objectionable, you should make sure that they aren't able to access raw areas of the Internet. How can you accomplish this?
- Use a service provider that does not allow access to these areas.
- Only allow your child to use an online service such as America Online, which has parameters you can set in order to screen out areas you don't like.
- Use a software program such as SurfWatch, which blocks out areas of the World Wide Web and other parts of the Internet that contain objectionable materials. SurfWatch has a subscription updating system that makes sure your child is always blocked from those areas.
Unfortunately, if you don't like sexually-oriented material, there's not much you can do to prevent it from being posted on the Internet. The Internet is a true bastion of free speech, and with that, comes that possibility that something you might not like will occasionally appear. If you attempt to censor the areas you don't like so that others can't see them, others will censor areas they don't like, so that you can't see them. These might be politically-oriented areas, or other socially acceptable areas that promote opinions others don't like. If it were even physically possible to censor the Internet (and it isn't, whatever politicians try to tell you), there would be such an outcry that it would never happen. Suffice it to say, though, that the sexually-oriented materials online are a severe minimum of what's available, and little, if any, truly perverted material ever makes it online.