A committee created by the National Research Council has issued a call for input about issues surrounding the ongoing national debate over shielding minors from Internet material deemed harmful to them. The call came December 16, the day after the conclusion of a three-day workshop examining nontechnological approaches to the dilemma, at which invited panelists included librarians, psychologists, and communications experts.
“Pornography on the Internet is and has been a major focus of national debate for quite some time,” Herb Lin, senior scientist of the NRC’s Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Material on the Internet, noted in an e-mail posted to the Politechbot listserv. Lin went on to invite “white papers from interested parties on topics relevant to this issue.”
Created as part of the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act of 1998, the committee is slated to hold another round of hearings in March and June 2001, and is expected to issue a report to Congress later next year.
Posted December 25, 2000.