The Internet, first designed for the military and the scientific community, has grown larger and faster than anyone could have ever expected. Now being a potpourri of information, from business to entertainment, the Internet is quickly gaining respect as a useful and important tool in thousands of applications, both globally and domestically. But, the growth that the Internet has seen in the last few years has come with some growing pains. Reports of harmful information reaching children are always painful to hear; who wouldn't feel for a mother who lost a child to a pipe bomb that was built from instructions on the Internet? But the greatest pain thus far has been the issue of accessibility of pornography on the Internet, and it has many parents concerned. But is it as big of a threat as the media would like us to think, or has it been a bit exaggerated?

On July 3, 1995, Time Magazine published a story called "On a screen near you: Cyberporn." This article discussed the types of pornography that could be found on the Internet such as, Pedophilia, S and M, urination, defecation, bestiality, and everything else in between. In Julia Wilkins' Humanist articl

Another hole in the PICS labeling system is the cost and the man hours required to do such a task. It probably wouldn't hurt empires like CNN or Microsoft to spend the man hours to label their entire web presence, but the ACLU states non-profit organizations would be impacted greatly by burdens that rating large sites would require (Beeson 6). We all know what would happen if organizations decided not to label themselves. So what choice would they have? They would have no choice and that is wrong. It's wrong because the cost and burden of such a task "would effectively shut most noncommercial speakers out of the Internet marketplace" (Beeson 6). Along the same lines the, the U.S. Supreme Court In the landmark case, Reno v. ACLU, in regards to use age verification for internet forums, the Justices stated that it would be "prohibitively expensive" (qtd. in Beeson 6). And according to the ACLU this ruling would also apply to self-rating for some organizations (Beeson 6). Even if pro-rates get past the shortcomings of government intervention and justify the costs to the self-rating proposals what they sometimes forget is that the Internet is global and knows no boundaries.

"The Platform for Internet Content Selection"(PICS) is the newest labeling scheme that is being embraced by Internet industry leaders. This is not a filter, but a labeling standard for creating filtering or blocking tools. In theory, it's designed to be a labeling mechanism for web sites that then can be used by end user software (Webber 1). However, because the PICS system has many technological holes, it is getting opposition from many advocacy groups including the ACLU, ALA and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

The bottom line, according to Julia Wilkins, is that children are very much the minority on the web and for every child on the Web there is an adult paying for it. And for those who have children and want to keep them safe, there is plenty of education and software out there to protect the children without sacrifice to the rights of the majority (4). Likewise in Tim Haight's article, "Do We Need Internet Content Rating", he agrees users have the right to protect themselves and their children, but it needs to be done without any burden or effect on the rights of others (2). The ACLU also agrees, and has always agreed, with providing education to parents and fully endorses the parent's rights to choose (Beeson 12).

In conclusion, based on key short falls of the recently endorsed PICS content labeling system, we can see that parental level blocking systems are the only solution, at the present time, that can protect our children as well as are freedoms. We see that a voluntary rating system will only lead to government censorship, and commercialized homogenized content. Potentially leaving the U.S. in a "Fortress American" Internet presence, instead of the important global one. While free speech advocacy groups, such as the ACLU, support parents and educators rights to choose, what is and isn't appropriate for children. They continue warding caution that freedom of speech is one of our greatest freedoms, and not examining the long-term ramifications in a system such as PICS may someday cost us that freedom, and others.

Lets face it, the rest of the world gets a lot closer on the Internet. For the first time in the history of man, there is a nearly global system of communication. Ever wondered what a Russians' day is like? Just ask and you'll probably get more answers than you originally wanted. Or look out the window onto a street in Cairo and see what's happening there at that moment. These are some impractical examples of what global communication can do. The practical ones for both business and entertainment are obvious. But, rating this vast virtuosity presents an eq

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