Is the Internet a safe place for children? Whose responsibility is it to ensure their safety? Should the government, parents, or Internet service providers take charge of controlling the net? Sad as it is, the freedom that sparks creativity, and the exchange of ideas on the net, also opens door to danger. Among the dangers, are exploitation of children that potentially makes them victims of both sex and violence. The government is now enforcing agencies, child advocacy groups, and Internet groups to team up and help grapple with the task of creating a global system to track and prosecute the people that prey on the children online. Approximately seventeen million children and teenagers are now online, and the numbers are exp0ected to increase 100% in the next three years. Children who go online spend about 10 hours a week online, only 1 or 2 of which are in academic persuit. "Imagine the world's air traffic system without regulations, highways, without speed limits. Roads without stop signs. That's the Web: an enormous, unstructured, wild and woolly place that knows no geographic boundaries"(Cantor 1). Some people think that parents should be the one's in charge, since they are the ones that are home with the kids. However, the parents argue that they do not always have enough time to spend with their kids on the Internet. .
Before the computer age, the only way a person could look at pornographic material was too look in magazines; therefore, you had to be a certain age. In today's world, anybody at any age is able to access this obscene content. In the past, bills such as the Communications Decency Act of 1996 prohibited pornographic images from appearing on the Internet. On the other hand, the Supreme Court said that the law violated the first amendment because the definition of "obscene material" was too vague. Since January 1, 1998, federal law enforcement has arrested nearly 500 adults for Internet-related child sexual exploitation offenses.