Senator Barbara Boxer reportedly said this: "Peer-to-peer file sharing is
affecting children's morality and well-being by giving them access to pornography and encouraging the everyday theft of
music." Some observers note that Boxer has received over $700,000 in contributions from the content industries, but
let's forget her possible fund-based motivations for making such a ridiculous statement, and concentrate on the
magnificent depths of absurdity she has attained. The pornography part. Any basement-dwelling dweeb can tell you that
Usenet offers a far richer field from which to harvest pronography than file-sharing apps, and it's generally easier to
access. Forget about downloading and installing a client; any 13-year-old can find porn right through Outlook Express
by browsing through binary newsgroups. It's easier, faster, more plentiful, and better organized. Don't ask me why I
know so much about this—I'm a cold-blooded Internet researcher.
Does Boxer think kids don't know all this? Does she know what a Usenet newsgroups is? I'm betting not, but never mind.
You cannot condemn any aspect of the Internet without condemning the whole damn thing. Content is liberated, and that's
the reality that today's teens have grown up with and take for granted. Boxer doesn't just reveal her campaign
loyalties when she talks like this. It's worse. She reveals herself to be a dinosaur.
Senator Claims File-Sharing Undermines Youth Morality
Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. Ahem. Very few people steal CDs online.
Many do however visit known online hangouts where strangers list their collections and are happy to help anyone make a copy of anything they fancy.
All that's happened is that we've gone from borrowing a friend's LP to make a cassette copy in 1970, to instantaneous copying online between strangers in 2005.
Some people confront this dilemma by saying that copying an LP was criminal theft in the first place.
Some simply realise that copyright's time has ended as a business model online, indeed that it was never viable to be applied online in the first place. So stop kidding yourself that millions of sharers are criminals, symptomatic of a morally decadent youth.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Crosbie Fitch
3. I'm 16 and a pretty advanced computer user as well. I know about newsgroup but don't use them. I don't use P2P programs either but I think they are easier to use than Usenet. I don't think anyone even uses Outlook Express, most kids use Hotmail. I also know that majority of teenagers do not know about newsgroups.
You can't say the senator's statement is wrong (“Peer-to-peer file sharing is affecting children’s morality and well-being by giving them access to pornography and encouraging the everyday theft of music.”) This is still true even though it is not limited to P2P.
I'd say this post is poorly researched/written and more of a personal attack on Barbara Boxer.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Sam
4. It is not the governments job to patrol morality, that should be left to parents.
The pressures of business affects the morality of many adults, enron for example. The information that people receive is not the evil, it is what they do with it. I feel I have decent morals, yet if I owned a gun I would not feel encouraged to shoot people.
Sorry for the rambling, very tired going to sleep now.....
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by adm
5. The interesting part to me is the initial 'affecting kids morality' part. I would like to know what research backs this up (other than one that considers P2P a crime and therefore an act by someone with lower moral values).
Kids' access to porn is so much easier these days, and I don't think we are really in a morale valley compared to any other time in our history. And in regards to P2P music, wasn't there a study recently that active file sharers actually purchase more music than non-file-sharers.
7. Maybe we can ban all search engines too, like google, altavista etc.
Stopping p2p will not stop kids from finding pornography on the internet.
If you want to find pornography you will find it, even without p2p-programs.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by John
8. I can see that perhaps younger users might be mostly unaware of the existence of usenet newsgroups, but if you know about them they are easier than P2P. Did someone say they're in college, but they find using newsgroups confusing? That's scary. Newsgroups are completely simple and straightforward to use.
Ignoring the fact that so far, despite extensive effort, harm from pornography has not been demonstrated, suppression has never worked. I grew up in a country where it was illegal, with severe penalties for possession and distribution, yet it was still available if you looked and asked around. That was 25 years ago.
You can't compare stealing a physical CD to downloading or making a copy. Downloading and making copies is not new. It used to be tapes, now it is optical discs and downloading. We share our music one way or another. I'm old enough to remember the Taping is Killing Music campaign. As we all know the music business came crashing down and no longer exists. Right? The industry makes a big deal about the quality of copies, but quality is secondary. We'd still be sharing even if the quality degraded with each copy. The video and audio on P2P networks is degraded already by being converted to MP3, DivX etc.
It is difficult to know how much, if any, money the industry loses due to sharing versus how much they gain from those who buy because they hear something via sharing versus those who just download because they can and wouldn't buy anyway.
I'm tired of government interference. I'm the parent.
The senator's statement is wrong. There is no evidence that filesharing or pornography are leading to moral decay, or even that they could. Besides they've been saying this about everything since the beginning of time. If they were right society wouldn't be here still.
And while we're on lessons learned by children, what does the music industry teach? That it is OK to steal from musicians. They steal their music, then profit massively from it. Our government teaches children that it is OK to be a thief as long as you're rich or a big corporation.
How many would buy if prices were lower? Lowering prices would require the industry to reduce their cut (the musicians get very little to start with).
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by AJ
10. I am a parent doing research so that I may better understand how to restrict my own network. The funny thing is that reading this has taught me how to use usenet newsgroups to get pornography. I can block access to that too. My son will be really angry at you now for teaching me.
If Barbara Boxer is so concerned about the youth of the nation, she should be backing products that allow parents to understand the use of, and limit files sharing, news groups, and Http access on their own LANs. But Sen. Boxer is backing her contributors, the MPAA and RIAA, who want to see files haring banned. Can anyone else see how obvious this is?
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Rex
11. From what I've seen, Barbara Boxer is a good senator. Her statement is off the mark a bit but probably is a sign of Democrats trying to enter the whole "morality" issue with the GOP.
Politics aside, I disagree with you Barb. P2P has a wealth of pornography and is vastly easier to use than usenets and newsgroups. I've tried both and found them very confusing, and most would consider me to be a pretty advanced computer user.
As for most people my age (17-20), they don't even know what Usenet and Newsgroups are. So for Sen. Boxer to say that P2P offers easy access to pornography is not that absurd.
Also, as a college student, I agree with her questioning the moral values that P2P instills (though many aspects of the Internet encourage theft, like cracking programs). Very few people my age would go into Best Buy and steal a CD but they do NOT think twice about doing so online.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Scott
12. Ahem. Very few people steal CDs online.
Many do however visit known online hangouts where strangers list their collections and are happy to help anyone make a copy of anything they fancy.
All that's happened is that we've gone from borrowing a friend's LP to make a cassette copy in 1970, to instantaneous copying online between strangers in 2005.
Some people confront this dilemma by saying that copying an LP was criminal theft in the first place.
Some simply realise that copyright's time has ended as a business model online, indeed that it was never viable to be applied online in the first place. So stop kidding yourself that millions of sharers are criminals, symptomatic of a morally decadent youth.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Crosbie Fitch
13. I'm 16 and a pretty advanced computer user as well. I know about newsgroup but don't use them. I don't use P2P programs either but I think they are easier to use than Usenet. I don't think anyone even uses Outlook Express, most kids use Hotmail. I also know that majority of teenagers do not know about newsgroups.
You can't say the senator's statement is wrong (“Peer-to-peer file sharing is affecting children’s morality and well-being by giving them access to pornography and encouraging the everyday theft of music.”) This is still true even though it is not limited to P2P.
I'd say this post is poorly researched/written and more of a personal attack on Barbara Boxer.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Sam
14. It is not the governments job to patrol morality, that should be left to parents.
The pressures of business affects the morality of many adults, enron for example. The information that people receive is not the evil, it is what they do with it. I feel I have decent morals, yet if I owned a gun I would not feel encouraged to shoot people.
Sorry for the rambling, very tired going to sleep now.....
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by adm
15. The interesting part to me is the initial 'affecting kids morality' part. I would like to know what research backs this up (other than one that considers P2P a crime and therefore an act by someone with lower moral values).
Kids' access to porn is so much easier these days, and I don't think we are really in a morale valley compared to any other time in our history. And in regards to P2P music, wasn't there a study recently that active file sharers actually purchase more music than non-file-sharers.
17. Maybe we can ban all search engines too, like google, altavista etc.
Stopping p2p will not stop kids from finding pornography on the internet.
If you want to find pornography you will find it, even without p2p-programs.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by John
18. I can see that perhaps younger users might be mostly unaware of the existence of usenet newsgroups, but if you know about them they are easier than P2P. Did someone say they're in college, but they find using newsgroups confusing? That's scary. Newsgroups are completely simple and straightforward to use.
Ignoring the fact that so far, despite extensive effort, harm from pornography has not been demonstrated, suppression has never worked. I grew up in a country where it was illegal, with severe penalties for possession and distribution, yet it was still available if you looked and asked around. That was 25 years ago.
You can't compare stealing a physical CD to downloading or making a copy. Downloading and making copies is not new. It used to be tapes, now it is optical discs and downloading. We share our music one way or another. I'm old enough to remember the Taping is Killing Music campaign. As we all know the music business came crashing down and no longer exists. Right? The industry makes a big deal about the quality of copies, but quality is secondary. We'd still be sharing even if the quality degraded with each copy. The video and audio on P2P networks is degraded already by being converted to MP3, DivX etc.
It is difficult to know how much, if any, money the industry loses due to sharing versus how much they gain from those who buy because they hear something via sharing versus those who just download because they can and wouldn't buy anyway.
I'm tired of government interference. I'm the parent.
The senator's statement is wrong. There is no evidence that filesharing or pornography are leading to moral decay, or even that they could. Besides they've been saying this about everything since the beginning of time. If they were right society wouldn't be here still.
And while we're on lessons learned by children, what does the music industry teach? That it is OK to steal from musicians. They steal their music, then profit massively from it. Our government teaches children that it is OK to be a thief as long as you're rich or a big corporation.
How many would buy if prices were lower? Lowering prices would require the industry to reduce their cut (the musicians get very little to start with).
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by AJ
20. I am a parent doing research so that I may better understand how to restrict my own network. The funny thing is that reading this has taught me how to use usenet newsgroups to get pornography. I can block access to that too. My son will be really angry at you now for teaching me.
If Barbara Boxer is so concerned about the youth of the nation, she should be backing products that allow parents to understand the use of, and limit files sharing, news groups, and Http access on their own LANs. But Sen. Boxer is backing her contributors, the MPAA and RIAA, who want to see files haring banned. Can anyone else see how obvious this is?
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Rex
1. From what I've seen, Barbara Boxer is a good senator. Her statement is off the mark a bit but probably is a sign of Democrats trying to enter the whole "morality" issue with the GOP.
Politics aside, I disagree with you Barb. P2P has a wealth of pornography and is vastly easier to use than usenets and newsgroups. I've tried both and found them very confusing, and most would consider me to be a pretty advanced computer user.
As for most people my age (17-20), they don't even know what Usenet and Newsgroups are. So for Sen. Boxer to say that P2P offers easy access to pornography is not that absurd.
Also, as a college student, I agree with her questioning the moral values that P2P instills (though many aspects of the Internet encourage theft, like cracking programs). Very few people my age would go into Best Buy and steal a CD but they do NOT think twice about doing so online.
Posted at 5:58AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Scott