Internet: Status Report on Legislative Attempts to Protect Children from Unsuitable Material on the Web

Publication Date: July 2004

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Media, telecommunications, and information

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Abstract:

Preventing children from encountering unsuitable material, such as pornography, as they use the Internet is a major congressional concern. Several laws have been passed, including the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), the 1998 Child Online Protection Act (COPA), and the 2000 Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). Federal courts ruled, in turn, that certain sections of CDA, COPA and CIPA were unconstitutional. All the decisions were appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision on CDA in 1997. It has heard COPA twice, in 2002 and 2004, and each time remanded the case to a lower court; an injunction against the law's enforcement remains in place. The Supreme Court upheld CIPA on June 23, 2003. Congress also passed the "Dot Kids" Act (P.L. 107-317), which creates a kid friendly space on the Internet, and the "Amber Alert" Act (P.L. 108-21) which, inter alia, prohibits the use of misleading domain names to deceive a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors. Congress is currently considering legislation (H.R. 2883) related to pornography on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, and to expand the scope of the Amber Alert Act to include meta tags (H.R. 4305).