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By: The Baron
One of the constant battles of the Internet age has been between adult content and filtering software.
One idea that has been tossed around for years--and revisited this year by ICANN as part of a general domain name expansion--is the creation of an .xxx domain, specifically for sites with pornographic material. The theory is that having a 'porn domain' would make it much easier to (a) find, for those who are interested, or (b) filter out, for those who are not.
The primary opposition--perhaps ironically--has come from religious conservatives, the same people who often use filtering software in the first place. (LDS Meridian Magazine posted an article opposing the new domain during one of the previous debates back in 2005) Many of the objections, however, seem to fall in the unique category of 'right conclusion, wrong argument'. (Not unlike arguments against gay marriage) Meridian's argument--shared in part by other objectors to the proposal--in fact, seems to show a surprising ignorance about how the Internet actually works.
Stop the porn industry from expanding on the Internet. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is considering opening a XXX domain especially for pornography...But it will NOT require pornographers who are on the .com domain to relocate to the .XXX domain.
Instead, they will keep their current .com porn sites and EXPAND their empires to the .XXX domain....We should support...renewed effort to prosecute them rather than reward them with even more space on the Internet.
Um...no. "Expand" and "space" in Internet terms don't mean what they seem to think they mean. Here's a quick primer on how the Internet works.
Web sites are identified by IP Addresses of the web servers that host them, which act similar to 'phone numbers'. Just like a phone number, calling the ip address of another computer allows your computer to make a connection for sharing data. ("Waters of Mormon" is at IP Address 216.10.244.141, for example)
For convenience, Web site admins (like me) can register URLs ("watersofmormon.org") to map to our IP address, which provides more 'user-friendly' names to type into web browsers. If you glance at the address bar of the web browser you are currently using, you'll probably see "watersofmormon.org". Normally--although not on this site due to the software we use--you can just type in the IP address into the web browser and you'll get to the same web site that you normally would typing in the regular URL.
Just for fun, though, try typing "watersofmormon.com" into a web browser, instead. If you do, you'll find you end up...right here, in the same place. That's because I registered both "watersofmormon.org" and "watersofmormon.com" when creating this web site.
Okay, but which IP address is "watersofmormon.com" mapped to? Well, the same one: 216.10.244.141 That's why you see exactly the same web site whether you use one URL or the other.
Note that just having two domain names doesn't magically create two different web sites, or duplicate the available content on the original site. There aren't two separate and distinct "Waters of Mormon" web sites with distinct posts and authors that appear with two domain names. It's *possible* that I might have a whole collection of posts that are unpublished, that are waiting for a new web site to open, but why wouldn't I just post it on the original site instead?
Even if I went ahead and also registered "watersofmormon.xxx", for example, what would I do with it? Unless I have extra content that, for some reason, I didn't want to display on the current site, having another domain name doesn't change anything, since I don't have any other IP address to send it to.
Meridian is correct that under the previous (and current) proposals for an .xxx doman, web sites would not be required to give up their .com addresses at the same time as they register for an .xxx address. But they seem to be implying that having duplicate domain names magically doubles the amount of porn on the Internet, whereas they would simply be mapping the new .xxx domain name to their existing site, and the amount of porn on the Internet remains constant. (One assumes they don't have extra porn content on a hard drive somewhere that has heretofore remained unseen. If so, why wouldn't they have just posted it on their current site? Web hosting space is cheap.)
The proper analogy is like a family getting a second phone line for their house. Having a second phone number doesn't magically double the number of people in the family callers can talk to. Neither does it double the number of callers who try to contact the family, either. All it means is that there are two patterns of numbers someone can type into a telephone to reach the same family, instead of one. The assumption that having two addresses somehow increases either the quantity of or consumers for porn on the Internet is silly...
Now, that doesn't mean there aren't real reasons to oppose an .xxx domain. While the structure of the Internet contradicts the idea that domain names helps 'expand' porn presence on the Internet, it also provides a more significant reason to question the .xxx doman: it wouldn't actually be effective or workable in terms of filtering, which sort of defeats the purpose.
If I've registered "mypornsite.com" and "mypornsite.xxx", and both of them are pointing to IP address 3.4.5.6, it's easy to create an Internet filter to block the latter...but what about the former? Using the .com address or just typing in the IP address directly into the browser still leads you to the same site. An effective filtering system has to work at the IP address level, knowing which IP addresses contain adult material and which do not. If a kid at home can simply look up the IP address for a web site (this is easy to do) and bypass the filtering, what's the point?
So, basically, the problem of effective filtering with an .xxx domain would be just as difficult as it is now. We've gained nothing by having the .xxx domain, because domain names are just aliases--filtering would have to take place at the IP level, which is unchanged. If the end result is an .xxx domain that *does* make porn easier to find for those who are interetsed, but *doesn't* make it harder to avoid, then I think we can understand why conservatives might feel wary about supporting it.
The fundamental problem is that effective filtering depends on subjective value judgments in the first place. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said, in a case regarding pornographic material, that what exactly constitutes pornography is hard to define but "I know it when I see it". What exactly is 'pornography'? You may know it when you see it, but, of course, the trick is how do you know it *before* you see it? And how would filtering software be able to know, unless you tell it after the fact, "Yes, that *was* pornography..." (I'm thinking that kind of filtering software would not sell very well.)
There are concerns about how effective an .xxx domain would be in achieving its aims. If pornography is subjective, how would you enforce pornography only having .xxx domain names in the first place? Who decides what counts and what doesn't? Does creating a separate domain "legitimatize" pornography on the Internet in some way? (Or has that train already left the station?) In any case, understanding how the Internet really works is important in not only coming to a more correct conclusion, but having the right reasons for that conclusion to begin with.
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