There is something mildly unsettling about the cyberpolice's fixation with child pornography. At the Internet Content Summit, held last week in Munich and hosted by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, kiddie porn was repeatedly denounced by participants. To judge from the general tone of the comments, it embodied the ultimate evolution of evil.
I don't mean to dismiss the problem. Child porn is grim stuff, pedophilia even worse and there is evidence that the Internet has provided new opportunities for pedophiles and purveyors of kiddie smut. Rachel O'Connor, a psychologist at the University of Cork, has said that "one of the most significant factors influencing the growth of child pornography on the Internet is the ease of dissemination and collection. Anonymity and convenience have revealed an extraordinary level of sexual interest in children. Presumably, this interest was either dormant or latent in the past."
Still, let's not lose perspective. A UNESCO report cites a U.S. nongovernmental organization that found at least 21,000 pedophilia sites on the Net. Parry Aftab, a leading authority on the subject, found 30,000 sites relating to child abuse or pedophilia -- out of 4.3 million sites. O'Connor's research shows that child pornography accounts for only 0.07 percent of 40,000 newsgroups worldwide.