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tobacco and booze on the net
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Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 15:41:09 -0500 (EST)
From: "David H. Rothman"
Nebraska Sen. Jim Exon, GOP Presidential front-runner Bob Dole and six other net.nannies leading the "anti-smut" jihad collected at least $273,699 in campaign money from alcohol and tobacco interests in a five-year period.
Colorful ads ballyhooing these lucrative health threats are showing up on the Net, meanwhile, including some areas seen by the young along with other Netfolks.
Smokin' Joes--a company in Knoxville, Tenn., that advertised last year on the popular searcher called the Internet Sleuth--even carries an essay titled "New to Pleasure of Cigars?"
"A good smoke," children can read, "is even burning, easy drawing experience filled with flavors one enjoys."
The young and others can also summon up a list of celebrity cigar-smokers such as Madonna, David Letterman and "India (Ms. Playboy)."
This isn't just a Web site promoting Smokin'. In a generic way it promotes smoking--lower case--and the sales of cigars locally, nationally and globally.
Within the Joes site, I did see a hyperlink marked, "Important--Please Read," and I figured, "Ah! This must be a 'No minors' warning."
But when I clicked on the highlighted words, they led me to legal information on such child-related issues as travel to Cuba.
Zima's Web page offers an "Adult humanz only" message ("if you are not 21, we'll wait for your business") while at the same time wooing Netfolks with flashy graphics and links to youth-oriented areas. They, in turn, link back.
"This is a kewl site," says one home page at PunkNet, "and hell I might win some money from having this link." Zima, in fact, awards $1,000 prizes to lucky Webmasters who play the sweepstakes. Oh, it's all so kewl. Hiply paternal, Zima talks of "The Zima family" of links. But of course! I'm sure Senators Exon and Dole will respect a brand name with such strong family values.
Elsewhere on the Web, Budweiser offers "Bud Online," and the corporate logo adorns a "College Page" at another site.
A quick search through the Yahoo index reveals at least 20 tobacco-related companies, and more than 100-alcohol-related ones.
Given the ad budgets of the booze and tobacco companies--and the willingness of Washington so far to commercialize the Net at most any social cost--this is just the start of an invasion of corporately approved vice.
Meanwhile students of hypocrisy and the First Amendment might want to ask the following politicians some uppity questions:
--Sen. Exon (D-Neb.)--the Comstock of the Plains who is known all over the world for his net.illiteracy, and perhaps now even on Jupiter. In the name of consistency, why aren't he and the other nannies about to criminalize the Web ads for tobacco and for alcoholic drinks?
And will his campaign give back at least $12,499 from the cancer-weed interests and $15,000 from liver-rotting industries, especially now that he's a lame duck?
The contributions show up in the Net-accessible database at Project Vote Smart, which, for the Senate, covers the period between January 1, 1989, and December 31, 1994.
--Sen. Majority Leader and GOP front-runner Dole (R-Kansas), who introduced censorship legislation even more Draconian than Exon's. Clearly an overachiever at raising campaign cash among the degenerate, he collected $33,500 from the cancer-weed interests and $42,000 from companies in Vote Smart's "Beer, Wine & Liquor" category. The figures are apparently just for his Senatorial campaign; one wonders what they would be with his Presidential efforts included.
--Sen. Daniel Coats (R-Ind.) of Indiana, who, like Slade Gorton below, had his name appear with Exon's name on anti-smut legislation. Coats received an unhealthy $51,000 from the tobacco interests and $15,000 from the "Beer, Wine & Liquor" category.
--Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.). Gorton got $8,000 in tobacco money and $29,300 in gifts from alcohol-related industries.
--Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who joined Dole's effort to censor the Net. Grassley collected $15,000 from the tumor lobby and $14,000 from the cirrhosis promoters.
--Rep. Thomas Bliley, Jr. (R-Va.), the pro-censorship chair of the House Commerce Committee. Bliley collected $22,900 from the tobacco interests and $6,500 from alcohol-related industries between January 1, 1993, and December 31, 1994, the period covered here for House members.
--Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Va), a stern advocate of the "indecency" standard, who received $5,500 from the tumor growers and $2,500 from the cirrhosis crowd.
--Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Illinois), the pro-censorship chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Vote Smart stats showed him to be a piker with nothing from the tobacco lobby and a mere $1,000 from alcohol-related industries. Still, Exon, Dole, and the other crusaders made up for Rep. Hyde's lack of enterprise here.
Moreover, this list is incomplete--it does not pack up all vice-related donations to the leading net.nannies, especially on the House side.
Still, the major point here comes through. Isn't it a little inconsistent for Washington to war so passionately against the First Amendment in the case of "smut" but not quite so much in the case of health-threatening products from the industries of campaign contributors?
Fair's fair. My wife has chronic asthma. And if I'd love to see anything banned from the Internet, it would be tobacco ads. Cigarettes and cigars have tormented Carly through second-hand smoke, and have killed millions of Americans, even those who started out with healthy lungs. Similarly liquor is a public health menace. But am I--a lifelong nondrinker and nonsmoker--actually in favor of censoring the booze and tobacco ads on the Net? Definitely not! And it isn't just because some of my friends love good wine and good smokes. In my own modest way I'm a publisher on the Net just like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, or, yes, the Lincoln (Nebraska) Journal Star. And I don't want Uncle Sam to turn into a virtual Uncle Nanny when existing laws suffice against electronic pornography and most other crimes.
Granted, porn is a legitimate issue even if sensationalists like Marty Rimm have overblown its importance on the Net. I understand the frustration of parents. Long before the jihad I was calling for a child-friendly national digital library and a system to help parents protect kids from objectionable material. Teenagers haven't any business dialing up alt.sex.bestiality, and one feels uncomfortable at the prospect of even adults doing so.
But promiscuous Comstockery--a censorship mania that could actually backfire against Christians in some parts of the world--is no answer. A better, more effective solution would be a content-neutral system that would let families choose their own rating services, including, of course, one from the Christian Coalition. An excellent possibility would be the Platform for Internet Content Selection being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium.
Nothing's foolproof, especially the electoral process in Nebraska. But PIC would be just dandy for screening out cigarette and tobacco ads--not just the vices deemed offensive to the nannies on the Hill. If implemented well, such an empowering technology could win widespread support on the Internet. Millions of Net users are parents, too, and simply want more balance and less hypocrisy from Washington.
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David H. Rothman | NetWorld!: What People are Really Doing on the Internet--and What It Means to You (pulped wood from Prima Publishing | "A one-writer, cost-effective book written on less than 1/100th the advance of The Road Ahead" | http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/road.htm | 703-370-6540(o)(h)
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Relevant Web pages listed below.
Links to information about Exon and the other morality crusaders: Project Vote Smart: http://www.vote-smart.org/congress/index.html
Smokin' Joes main page: http://www.charm.net/~ibc/smokin/.
Joes' "New to Pleasure of Cigars?" page: http://www.charm.net/~ibc/smokin/newbie.html
Joe's "Who Smokes or Smoked What: Celebrities and their smokes": http://www.charm.net/~ibc/smokin/whosmoke.html
The Internet Sleuth: http://www.intbc.com/sleuth/. A great service for the Net. I hope that its owners will think twice before giving space again to a tobacco ad (a private decision!). Livened up with a cartoon detective, the Sleuth is just the kind of offering that could appeal to children.
Zima: http://www.zima.com/index.html
Bud On-line: http://budweiser.com/
College Page: http://oak.math.jmu.edu/~kmeyers/college.html (Bud may or may not be paying for its mention here. If it isn't paying and if people are picking up the logo on their own, that just shows how foolish it is to use government regulations to censor the Net.]
World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/
Platform for Internet Content Selection: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/
Yahoo: http:www.yahoo.com--deservedly one of the most popular searchers. I don't want the net.nannies telling Yahoo what to index and what not to.
Possible source for stories on campaign gifts: Center for Responsive Politics (202-857-0044).
Federal Election Commission: 800-424-9530 (source of information on donations later than the material here)
*The term "net.nannyism" is used generically and does not refer to any commercial product designed to protect children from smut. Software nannies chosen by consumers are good. Washington nannies are bad.
[Reproduction on the Net encouraged--spread this around.] ```
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