Real children are voiceless and invisible even as they are ostensibly at the center of the raging national debate about ensuring their safety from media, technology, advertising, and pornography. Even though champions of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 characterize the Internet as a danger, and a "revolutionary means for displaying patently offensive, sexually explicit material to children in the privacy of their homes," no children are ever heard from in discussions about their safety.
Adults, politicians, and journalists feel free to define kids, delineate dangers facing them, curb other people's freedom in the name of protecting them - yet they are eerily absent from discussions about their welfare. And if you spend any time talking to them, it's clear why. They aren't afraid of new media, and aren't in danger from it.
In more than six weeks of touring to discuss children, morality, and old and new media on behalf of my book Virtuous Reality, I never saw or heard from a single young person on more than 150 radio and television appearances, almost every one of which talked about kid's cultural lives and the many "dangers" arising from TV, movies, and the Internet.
In the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Washington on Wednesday discussing the constitutionality of the CDA, US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer elicited a shocking admission from government lawyers - buried deep in most media reports - that the CDA would criminalize countless teenagers who speak about their sexual lives, real or imagined, over email or other Net forums.
Breyer asked Deputy Solicitor General Seth Waxman if the CDA "would suddenly make large numbers of high school students across the country guilty of federal crimes."
That might be the case, argued Waxman, who added that the prospect of turning hundreds of thousands of teens into federal criminals because they yak about sex was "a small price to pay" to protect children from unfettered access to Penthouse, Hustler, and other sexually explicit material.
That a high-ranking government official would consider "unfiltered" access to Penthouse or Hustler a far greater danger to society than turning healthy, otherwise law-abiding older kids into criminals for talking about sexuality is as powerful a commentary as anybody could make about how irrational the discussion in America has become about new media, technology, morality, and children.
Given the willingness of politicians and government officials to brand adolescent sexual discussion as criminal behavior, it seems all the more outrageous that media and politicians have completely excluded the young from this discussion. But then, kids won't tell them what they want to hear. Children are presumed by politicians and journalists to be too stupid, vulnerable, and powerless to join in discussions involving their cultural lives and welfare. This is a huge mistake for both politics and media. An entire generation of kids is growing up seeing politicians and reporters as both clueless and useless. Both of these institutions seem to have forgotten that these are future voters and future consumers. But these kids may have long memories, judging from the email I get.
If the Net is about anything, it's about giving voice and expression to people who haven't had much, especially in mainstream journalism and politics.
Writing about the rights of children in the digital age in a Wired magazine article, about music sanitization at Wal-Mart, kids and pornography and other issues, I've gotten a lot of email from people under 18. Some of these kids email me regularly. Some volunteered their opinions about the CDA this week, and I emailed others asking what they thought about it.
All the first names and cities are real. So are all the quotes. I cleaned up some misspellings and edited out some sentences for space. Otherwise, they are quoted directly from email posts. Not one of the children I corresponded with felt the Internet was dangerous or felt there was a need for federal policing of "decency" on the Internet. Almost all wondered why the government didn't move as aggressively to tackle the real problems many of them see every day.
Jim from Kansas City, 14, writes: "I don't feel I need protection from the Internet. Why hasn't anybody asked kids like me? I'd love to go in front of the Supreme Court and tell them how great the Internet is. My parents taught me not to give out my name, address, or send anything to somebody I don't know. They taught me that when I was 10. I've been approached once by somebody who asked me if I wanted to send him some pictures for money, and that was in a Usenet group. I said no. It's obvious that wouldn't be a good idea."
Patricia from San Jose, 16: "They say this law is supposed to protect me, when it would put me in jail for talking with my camp roommates about sex? Who are they kidding? They aren't trying to protect me. They're trying to control my life and keep power for themselves. I'm not stupid. I can take care of myself. Why don't they take care of people with real problems?"
Donna, 15, from Philadelphia: "I have rights. I have freedoms, too. Why are all these old white men telling me what is moral for me?"
Arrow from New York City, 9: "The Internet is a great place. I'm not scared of it all. Nobody has ever showed me a dirty picture, and I wouldn't give anybody my address or telephone number, and nobody has asked. I go into AOL chats, and I've seen dirty words, but I use them anyway, before I ever went onto a computer. The kids in my school use them. I don't think that hurts me. Mostly online I email my pen pals from other countries and go onto movie and TV Web sites and play games. My life is so cool since the Internet. I do my homework there, too."
Heather from Minneapolis, 14: "Kids in my school form gangs. They carry guns. Guns are easy to get, but they want to make it a crime to talk dirty on the Internet? Brother! These kids really hurt each other, because they don't have parents who will take care of them and watch out for them. My parents watch out for me. They got me a computer because my mom didn't want me to have trouble getting into a good school and getting a good job. She did it because she loves me. She had to work hard to buy me this computer. If these people in Washington want to help kids, why don't they train them to find jobs, and take guns off the streets, and make it a crime to have children when you can't take care of them. If they try to tell me what to say on a computer, they'll be surprised, because my friends and I will never let them do that. I can speak freely on the computer. I can't in school. They should be ashamed of themselves."
JimmyD from Arkansas, 12: "No wonder everybody hates Washington. They're incredibly stupid and clueless. Penthouse isn't dangerous for me. Getting killed by a gun is dangerous to me. Don't they have anything to do there but to worry about whether I use dirty words? My father yelled at me and asked me if I ever looked at Playboy online. I asked him if he ever looked at Playboy when he was my age, and he sent me to my room. There are a lot of hypocrites in the world. And most of them live in Washington. That's what the CDA teaches me."
Patricia from Brooklyn, 12: "There are a lot of scary people in the world, I think. My friend Arquette was shot in the street. But a computer [her grandmother bought her one] is the safest thing I do. I love it. I can get dirty pictures anywhere. But online, I have new friends from everywhere. I can handle some dirty words. Bullets and knives scare me."
Andreas from New Orleans, 11: "What's with these people, man? I do homework online. I use my computer to write. I have friends from all over the world, and I live in a tiny apartment! If I use a dirty word - OK, I've seen some naked women - is that a crime? Why can't I look at a picture of a naked woman? I get good grades. I don't hurt anybody. I don't need protection from the FBI when I go online. My dad told me never to give out my phone number or the place where I live. I don't. That ain't hard."
Sandy from Chicago, 13: "My biggest fear? No jobs when I grow up. My sister has been looking for work for five years. It's hard out there, she says. The Internet isn't scary. It's fun and interesting. There's sexual stuff out there, sure. But you don't have to go looking for it, and you can avoid. My mom told me if I ever see anything I don't like or understand, turn the computer off and go get her. That's pretty easy. Five kids got beat up at the school dance last week. One of them had a knife. That's scary. I'd take a computer anytime."
According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, fewer than 30 young people have been harmed as the result of online encounters in the history of the Internet, which encompasses billions of interactions involving children every week. Of these, most were adolescents and teenagers who were drawn into dangerous and unhealthy relationships. In l995, nearly 5,000 American children were killed by guns, which are available from Wal-Mart and other fine stores.
