The 'Wikipedia for Porn' launches, should parents worry?

Carnalpedia aims to be the definitive online resource for all things related to sex, including the porn industry. They also claim that innocent eyes will not be able to visit thanks to their Restricted to Adults rating.

I suppose it was just a matter of time before a site like this was created. The sex and porn industry has had an enormous influence on the development of the Internet and remains one of its most popular albeit controversial topics.

Carnalpedia will remind visitors immediately of Wikipedia, the site that has become the web's favourite destination for finding facts on just about every imaginable topic. The layout is identical, as is navigation and organization of content within article pages. It also maintains the wiki convention of being free to access and open to anyone to create and/or edit submissions.

Although the site has only been online for a few weeks, it already contains more than 120,000 articles, including a growing list of adult movie titles, which currently sits at about 76,000.

When asked about why the web needs a Wikipedia for sex, Carnalpedia creator Jeremy Haddock said "The fact that Wikipedia has a certain type of audience leaves a lot of information about sex and the adult industry either blocked or censored."

Haddock notes that all of Carnalpedia's article pages will be labeled with the Restricted To Adults (RTA) tag which will prevent them from being accessed on computers equipped with services like NetNanny which only allow age-appropriate content to be viewed.

The site is trying to avoid being a resource for people who simply want to swap adult material: only "authorized individuals from approved sources" are allowed to upload images, in order to comply with copyright laws.

Hmmmm, Well my first reaction is... Do we REALLY need a site like Carnalpedia? and although I'm not a parent, what disturbed me, is the relative ease at which I am still able to view any and all sorts of content (some of it really "kinky" lets just say to put it lightly) without any filter, password, request for age confirmation, or anything of the sort on the website... Is this be something that parents should be (if not worried) at least a little concerned about? the site is relatively new, but already has over 120,000 articles as mentioned above.. all of which can be viewed by just about anyone visiting the site... To make any changes, or additions to the articles in the database, you'd need to sign up/in, at which time you'd have to prove your age.. but is that enough? what about those not wanting to make additions? those simply wanting to "check things out"? I am sure there are a lot more people wanting to view things, then there would be wanting to add things... I feel as though there should be at least some sort of safeguard on the site to ensure inappropriate content can not be viewed by minors, software, and parental vigilance can only go so far.. I think the site also has some responsibilities in ensuring that pornography can not be viewed by persons not old enough to do so.

Thoughts?

Porn airs during Super Bowl XLIII

Super Bowl fans in Tucson, Arizona, caught a different kind of show during Sunday's big game.

Just as Cardinals' superstar Larry Fitzgerald watched himself sprint into the end zone on the stadium's Jumbotron during Sunday's Super Bowl, 10 seconds of eye-popping pornographic imagery "flashed" across the screens of those watching at home.

"We are mortified by last evening's Super Bowl interruption, and deeply apologize to our customers for the inappropriate programming," Comcast Cable said in a written statement.

"Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act," the statement added.

Comcast, and several local television stations that carried the signal, say they are currently investigating what caused the interruption.

"It appears this material was only viewed by some Comcast customers," local Tucson television station KVOA-TV said in a written statement.

Television station KVOA added "when the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material," KVOA President and General Manager Gary Nielsen said in a separate statement.

Justices refuse to reconsider law restricting Internet porn

The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked further consideration of a federal law designed to keep sexual material from underage users of the Web.

The justices without comment Wednesday, rejected an appeal from the federal government to reinstate the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), passed by Congress in 1998. The high court and subsequent federal courts said the law -- which has never taken effect -- had serious free speech problems.

The Bush administration was a strong supporter of the law and the Justice Department led the fight in court to revive it.

The justices issued their ruling a day after all nine were on hand for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor also attended the ceremony.

The case tested the free speech rights of adults against the power of Congress to control Internet commerce. The Supreme Court twice ruled against COPA, arguing that it represented government censorship rather than lawful regulation of adult-themed pornography businesses. The law would have prevented private businesses from creating and distributing "harmful" content that minors could access on the Internet.

Free speech advocates said adults would be barred access to otherwise legal material and that parental-control devices and various filtering technology are less intrusive ways to protect children.

The high court in 2004 upheld a preliminary injunction against the law and sent the case back to lower courts for consideration of the arguments. In their opinion at the time, the 5-4 majority concluded COPA "likely violates the First Amendment."

"The government has not shown that the less restrictive alternatives proposed ... should be disregarded," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the 2004 decision. "Those alternatives, indeed, may be more effective" than the law passed by Congress. "Filters are less restrictive" he said, and thus pose less risk of muzzling free speech. "They impose selective restrictions on speech at the receiving end, not universal restrictions at the source."

He added, "There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech if the law takes effect."

In reconsidering the law, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, again ruled the law unconstitutional.