ne of the most thorough reports ever produced on protecting children from Internet pornography has concluded that neither tougher laws nor new technology alone can solve the problem.
"Though some might wish otherwise, no single approach — technical, legal, economic or educational — will be sufficient," wrote the authors of the report, "Youth, Pornography and the Internet," issued yesterday by the National Research Council. "Rather, an effective framework for protecting our children from inappropriate materials and experiences on the Internet will require a balanced composite of all of these elements."
What might seem a rather bland conclusion is actually a surprising stand, said Alan B. Davidson, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a technology-policy organization in Washington.
"The report dares to be unsexy," he said. "It does not call for legislation to solve this problem," despite a strong push in Congress to pass laws requiring technology tools like pornography filters in schools and libraries. One such law, the Children's Internet Protection Act, is being challenged in federal court by a coalition of librarians and civil liberties groups; a decision in that case is expected this month.
Richard L. Thornburgh, the former attorney general who led the project, predicted in a preface to the report that its conclusions "will disappoint those who expect a technological `quick fix' to the challenge of pornography on the Internet."
The language of the report is meticulously balanced but wryly conclusive. Filters intended to block pornographic sites, the report explained, "can be highly effective in reducing the exposure of minors to inappropriate content if the inability to access large amounts of appropriate material is acceptable."
The report compared the problem of protecting children from online risks to dealing with a more mundane hazard of daily life. "Swimming pools can be dangerous for children," the authors wrote. "To protect them, one can install locks, put up fences and deploy pool alarms. All of these measures are helpful, but by far the most important thing that one can do for one's children is to teach them to swim."
Bruce A. Taylor, the president of the National Law Center for Children and Families, said the report would be the basic document for judges and lawmakers approaching these issues for the foreseeable future, but added that he was disappointed that the group did not make strong recommendations on "techno-gizmos of their own" that he said might be developed, like age identifiers that would follow minors through cyberspace. Such ideas have been criticized as impractical by Internet engineers, but Mr. Taylor said a strong push from the committee might have helped move things forward. "Parents can't create those protocols and protections," he said, "but how hard would it be for industry to do it?"
Herbert Lin, the director of the study, said the process shook the preconceptions that each participant brought to the table. Many of them, he said, believed at the beginning "if only people would just do this — whatever `this' is — the problem would be all over."
"Nobody," he said, "realized how complicated the process was."
