Posted on 11/13/2006 8:02:08 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A confidential analysis of Internet search queries and a random sample of Web pages taken from Google and Microsoft's giant Internet indices showed that only about 1 percent of all Web pages contain sexually explicit material.
The analysis was presented during a federal court hearing last week in Philadelphia in a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and obtained on Monday by the Mercury News.
The ACLU said the analysis, by Philip B. Stark, a professor of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, did not appear to substantially help the Department of Justice in its effort to prove that criminal penalties are necessary to protect minors from exposure to sexually explicit information on the Internet.
The Justice Department had commissioned the study as part of an effort to resurrect the Children's Online Protection Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 1998, but immediately challenged by the ACLU.
A federal district court in Philadelphia and a federal appeals court found the law to be unconstitutional. In June 2005, the Supreme Court upheld the ban on enforcement of the law but sent the case back to district court for more fact finding regarding Internet filters.
--snip--
Stark's study found that only 6 percent of all queries returned a sexually explicit Web site, despite the consistant popularity of queries related to sex. It also found that the filters which did the best job blocking sexually explicit content also inadvertently blocked lots of content that was not explicit.
Government witnesses argued that while the percent of sexually explicit Web pages was small, it still amounted to a huge number. ``A lot of sexually explicit material is not blocked by filters,'' Stark wrote in the conclusion to his study.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
So 99% have no sexually explicit material?
Check the code. It's always hidden in the code. :O)
That low? Culture decadence is slipping.
The other 99% was online-gambling and home videos.
So, according to the ACLU, if only 1% of the government money went to religious purposes, that would be fine?
And don't forget Hoodia advertisements.
My personal investigation has shown that it is much higher. ;)
I'd say that's about right. I've been active on the web (as a webmaster and site-surfer) for over a decade, and while the absolute amount of pr0n has constantly increased, the percentage is about the same as when it was UseNet and there were dirty pictures on the FTP sites.
However the amount of stupid, inane, pointless dreck on the web has similarly skyrocketed, which is what is holding down the pr0n to 1% or so.
In other words, there's a ton of sexually explicit stuff out there, but it's drowning in the meaningless noise, along with nearly everything else.
FreeRepublic is a breath of fresh air, every day.
I agree ,, There is definitely a lot of chaff and clutter out there,, nuggets and oasises are few and far between on the 'net... agreed on FR as well, Unique. to say the least..
I think this requires further study. If someone would only give me a grant, I'd be happy to search for sexually explicit material on the web.
4% is dedicated to emails from lawyers in Africa telling me that my relatives died there in car accidents and that I need to settle their estates.
And 90% of email traffic is spam. Most of it from the same guys as the ads are all identical.
Must be a good reason for Big Brother to control it all, unless of course Big Brother is the spammer.
Duh...
Paging Millee!! You're falling down on your posting duties!!
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