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Show The Daily Utah Chronicle TECHNOLOGY 8 - The Daily Utah Chronicle Christy Karras, Feature Editor: c.karraschronicle.utah.edu Wednesday, February 24, 1998 POM Universities must decide whether to limit students' access to pornography w by If you're like most college it's probably happened to You've been working on a paper about breast cancer or some other such scholarly topic, or trying to find a recent news story about, say, a man who accidentally locked himself in his basement. You type in a few key words and hit "enter." Suddenly your computer screen is ablaze with ads telling you that if you just "click here," you'll get to sec some "hot live nude". ..What the...? Or perhaps you're like thousands of Americans from all walks of life who like to look up pornographic images from time to time. And you might happen to be sitting at a university computer when you feel the urge. It's an undeniable fact that college where can download pictures that likely meet their communities' standards for obscenity. The web community knows no boundaries, and it seems to have no standards. Why do people access pornography? It's safe to say that most college students, like people everywhere, do it for an easy sexual thrill. As one male U student put it, "Of course I look at pornography. A man who doesn't look at pornography is not admitting his own sexuality. If you haven't actually looked it up, then you had to have seen it somehow. And you have to admit that you probably liked it." This student (who requested anonymity) said he believes no one has the right to take away his access to the Internet. He says he generally uses the Internet for productive work, but sometimes, when he wants a distraction, he views some pornography on the web. There may be other reasons for looking up "questionable" material on the Internet. For example, almost anything can become fodder for legitimate research in many areas. Placing filtering software on college students occasionally look up pornographic images on the Internet. With their advanced computer skills (not to mention raging hormones) it's likely they were some of the first to ever do so. The question now is how colleges feel about their resources being used for such a purpose. computers may hamper research and the free flow of ideas that are Pornography is nothing new. But the ease with which it can be obtained via the Internet is nothing short of astounding. In two clicks of a mouse, people just about any central to the college learning experience, filtering opponents say. A story in the Salt Lake Tribune of quoted Michael Sims, the Ccnsorware Project, a watchdog group that pushes for the free flow of information on the Internet: "By the time somebody is in college, they should be considered adult enough to know how to use the Internet and be able to roam free on it," he said. "That's the whole idea of college, isn't it? To be exposed to the whole world." Others are not so forgiving. In '997. The University of Oklahoma placed restrictive software on its computers after community groups put pressure on school administrators. OU limited the access to several hundred newsgroups online discussion areas under pressure from an group and state legislators. OU blocked the sex sites after Oklahomans for Children and Families downloaded pictures it deemed offensive from the university's computer system and said OU could be considered a distributor Christy Karras ters on at least one of their computers. Of course, such filters are never foolproof. They often either block innocuous material (like anything with the word "breast" in it, including breast cancer information) or let in smut disguised as something else. One commentator said that, for students, getting access to pornography on a computer is like riding the bus to an adult theater. Children can still access the theater, even if iul uj uiues we uuve siuuems Lummy up and saying, 'someone next to me is looking at this pornography and its bothering me. And we just tell them not to look at it if it bothers them. " Ariel Holley, a consultant at the Marriott Library's computer lab ai of obscenity. Some computers remained linked to all sites, but they were labeled "over 18 only." This approach is similar to that taken by many public libraries and libraries in primary and secondary schools. Last year, the Internet School Filtering Act was passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. It states that facilities with computers being used by minors must have blocks or fil the school bus doesn't go there. How much of the Internet is used to propagate pornography? If you've ever done a web search for anythingit may seem like the answer to that question is "a lot." Estimates vary. According to some studies, up to see CENSORSHippage io U NEEDS SPONSORS DUE TO LEGISLATURE'S BUDGET CUTS Brent Olson Chronicle Feature Writer to the percentage the budget that goes to higher I've formed a New And Cree ative Funding (NACFT) to come up with new and exciting ways to fund The Chron...I mean the University of Utah. The following suggestions met with near unanimous approval. !. Require ali transfer students to give the U one of their kidneys. The kidneys would be ever-decreasi- Due Task-forc- sold on the Asian black market at prices up to and exceeding $io,ooo each. 2. Start running ads in the Chronicle for alcohol and tobacco companies. With the increased revenues, the Chronicle could give back the $1.50 it receives from student fees. With that extra money, teaching assistants can be hired and we can get rid of the trained chimpanzees that some departments have been forced to use. 3. Force students to pay tuition online on a web page called www.netgrowth.com, then show all the Wall Street bigwigs the income figures for the site and convince them to invest billions of dollars in the company. Unfortunately, that last one's illegal accordd ing the Chronicle's lawyer Wally "The Wall" Walden. 4. Sell a date with Sports Stud Brandon "The Body" Winn on an internet auction site for millions of dollars. 5. Hold a bake sale. I know there must be high-price- hundreds of students who would want to buy Kyle Roche's brownie bars. 6. Sell off some of the ASUU office's collection of mint condition Beanie Babies. However, since none of the above promises to bring in enough money, we came up with the ultimate g sponsorship of everything. money-raisin- idea: corporate Instead of taking the 7:30 a.m. class "Introduction to Literature 2900" in OSH, you would take it during the "Mr. Coffee presents 7:30 classes" time slot, the class would be called "Delta Airlines Introduces you to Literature and Low Fares and it would be held in the Orson Spencer Halls Cough Drops. Combined with mandatory product placements by the professors ("Write an essay on how Renaissance art would have been affected by Budget Gourmet's line of microwave-abl- e products with their delicious, nutritious, see budget page 9 |
