INTERNET STUDY: CHILD PROTECTION ONLINE...

AAP General News (Australia)
07-30-1999
INTERNET STUDY: CHILD PROTECTION ONLINE...

INTERNET STUDY: CHILD PROTECTION ONLINE:

A HIGH PRIORITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

PARENTS WANT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY INTO THEIR OWN HANDS

LAW ENFORCEMENT NOT SEEN AS VERY EFFECTIVE

BERTELSMANN FOUNDATION PUBLISHES RESULTS OF A SURVEY CONDUCTED IN GERMANY,

THE UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIA

Guetersloh, Germany, 30 July/News Aktuell-AsiaNet/-- A representative
international survey commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany,
found that a large majority of the population in Germany, the United States
and Australia rejects racist messages and pornographic material on the
Internet for themselves and, particularly, for their children. As far as is
technically possible, this content should be blocked from families computer
screens. 79 percent of Germans, 63 percent of Americans and 60 percent of
Australians polled vehemently oppose racist content. With respect to
pornography, there also is broad international consensus.

Other sensitivities, however, differ from culture to culture. Whereas the
majority of the population in the United States does not wish to be
confronted with depictions of naked bodies, nudity is hardly considered
offensive in Germany. Only 13 percent of those polled in Germany want to
block nudity on their own computer screen as opposed to 43 percent of
Americans.

Given the historic background of the Nazi era, Germans are particularly
sensitive to radical political messages. 58 percent want to avoid contact with
such content on the Internet, as opposed to only 26 percent of Americans with
their strong free speech tradition. The depiction of violence is also
considered much more problematic in Germany than in the two other countries.

61 percent of Germans as opposed to only 39 percent of Americans and 41
percent of Australians consider violence a problem to the extent that
responsible users should be given the means to filter out such content.

These different attitudes show that in contrast to broadcasting the
borderless Internet requires flexible youth protection mechanisms which
parents can use according to their personal needs and cultural preferences.

The demand for filtering software that parents can tailor to their own values
is high in all three countries: about eight out of ten citizens would welcome
such a possibility and would want to take the protection of their children
into their own hands. "Mechanisms of this kind are already integrated in
current Internet browsers, comments Jens Waltermann, responsible for the
Internet project at the Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany, "they are currently
being radically improved by an international initiative of the Internet
industry, the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA). The new tool will be
available in the summer of 2000.

Whereas filtering systems and self-regulation are an appropriate means for
improving child protection in the case of harmful yet legal Internet content,
clearly illegal content such as child pornography can only be combated with
the help of law enforcement authorities: 79 percent of Americans and 86
percent of Germans polled are calling for increased policing of Internet
content. Users however realize that law enforcement can not do the job alone:
72 percent of Germans, 71 percent of Australians and 63 percent of Americans
have doubts about whether an approach primarily based on law enforcement can
effectively curb illegal content.

The Allensbach survey is part of the project "Self-Regulation of Internet
Content that was initiated by the Bertelsmann Foundation in February of this
year. The goal of the initiative is to promote a coordinated international
system that will help improve child protection on the Net. The international
project is supported by 30 experts in 11 countries and is based on
self-regulation. The most important recommendations by the experts will be
integrated into a memorandum on self-regulation on the Internet, which will be
presented to the public at the Internet Content Summit in Munich on September
10-11, 1999.

Source: Bertelsmann

Contact:
Dr. Marcel Machill, Director Media Policy, T. +49 5241/81-7350
Jens Waltermann, Deputy Head, Media Division, T. +49 5241/81-7289

For additional information on the project and the Internet Content Summit, go
to http://www.stiftung.bertelsmann.de/internetcontent

KEYWORD: HIGH TECHNOLOGY ANFR1021

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.