Child Pornography on the Internet

Child pornography is one of the immoralities that have grown immensely in the last half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. Although this activity is unacceptable in every country in the world, the fact still remains that child pornography has penetrated society and eaten away the morals of many children as well as individuals well into their adulthood. A major contributor to the rapid spread of child pornography is the internet. This paper will discuss the role of the internet in the spread of child pornography. The paper will also discuss the method that can be used to combat child pornography. The main objective of this paper is to show that child pornography can be put to a stop if certain measures are put into action.

The internet has played a significant role in the spread of child pornography. Before the popularity of the internet in the 1980s, child pornography was rare and unheard of. Even though cases of this type of pornography were sometimes reported, the incidences were so few that they were countable. The morality standards were also high in those days and child pornography was a disgusting behavior that was out of the ordinary. The invention of the camera was the onset of child pornography. Currently, the internet has contributed to the growth of child pornography in the following ways.

First and foremost, the internet provides easy and normally unrestricted access to a large amount of child pornography from many countries around the world (Jenkins, 2005). For this reason, anyone with access to the internet can be exposed to pictures, videos, or audio records of sexually explicit material involving children. These include those who are pedophiles as well as those who stumble upon pornography or access it for recreation or out of curiosity. The writer of this upon a while looking for a . The internet is responsible for the increased cases of . This is because child pornography has a lascivious effect on the users (Coleman, 1993). They are therefore driven into the abuse by the lustful desire that is instilled in them by pornography.

The internet also provides an easy avenue for the sharing of child pornography by those involved in it. The main channel is through chat rooms. An example of this is Michael Williams, an American who used a chat room to share child pornography. Other channels for sharing child pornography over the internet are email, websites, web pages, webcams, e- groups, and . These methods are convenient to the users because they are usually free and can be accessed at any time.

Child pornography can be brought to a stop if the following measures are taken. The most significant step would be to involve the local police in the combat against the vice. Given that child pornography takes place predominantly over the internet and between users who are thousands of miles away from each other, one may think that the local police are not in a position to help to arrest the perpetrators of the pornography (Cohen, 1979). However, the local police can be of much help if they concentrate on their local areas. By doing this, they will be in a position to net child pornography producers and distributors. The police can also join chat rooms where child pornography is shared in disguise and make an effort of tracing the location of the offenders. This is exactly what led to the arrest and trial of Michael Williams, who was charged with pandering and possessing child pornography.