While receiving and reporting more suspect child porn Websites in the past year than any other such hotline is a worthy accomplishment, for Adult Sites Against Child Pornography it's a sad accomplishment, if you consider that the group would probably love nothing more than to have no reason to exist.
"Well, in reality, we would," said executive director Joan Irvine to AVN.com, while otherwise presenting a review of the group's past year's doings, including receiving up to 4,000 suspect child porn Websites per month on average, and reporting over 100 such sites per month to the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"The only reason that ASACP exists is because of child pornography sites on the Internet," Irvine said. "I mean, that's one of our two major purposes. The other is to provide a vehicle for adult sites to self regulate. But if there wasn't child pornography, we would not need to be here."
ASACP is sending a newsletter to its sponsors and members outlining and discussing the group's achievements between August 2002 and 2003, including its establishment of direct contacts with the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the beginning of automating ASACP's reviewing and reporting procedures, establishing the beginning of a pipeline to European hotlines by way of Irvine's appearance at the INHOPE conference in Luxembourg last month, broadening its media presence in the mainstream as well as the adult-oriented press, consolidating its advisory council, and adding more significant sponsors from among the adult Internet.
The Advisory Council includes Python Video's Aly Drummond, Xbiz chief Alec Helmy, AVN Online editor-in-chief Tom Hymes, Sex.com mastermind Gary Kremen, and Free Speech Coalition president Bill Lyons. ASACP's financial sponsors now include founding sponsors AVN Online, Xbiz, Sex.com, and Epoch; title sponsors Adult Revenue Service, MaxCash, SilverCash, TopBucks, Videosecrets; and, corporate sponsors Adam & Eve, ATK, CapitalBucks, Cybersocket, Klixxx, Nichebucks, OrgasmCash, and PlatinumBucks. ASACP "Approved Members" are now up to 35, representing over 150 Websites listed in the ASACP membership directory, and almost five thousand sites displaying the ASACP logo and child porn reporting button.
As reported earlier in the year by AVN Online, ASACP produced and released both its code of ethics and its best practices guidelines, while keeping up its educational effort for Webmasters adult and mainstream as well as the general Internet public.
The latter effort included, especially, the writing and publishing of articles like of "ASACP Guidelines For Safely Surfing the Internet" and "Confusion Exists: What Is Child Pornography?" among others, not to mention keeping its Website's frequently-asked-questions page updated continuously and responding to all e-mail queries from those reporting sites with status reports on the suspect site and why the suspect site was or was not reported to authorities.
Irvine admits that some of those reporting suspect sites which turn out not to be child porn by legal definition don't accept that result.
"If we're not going to report, we let them know why not," she said. "Maybe it's a legal site, and has all the legal disclaimers, the 2257 compliance. And these people who report them are maybe just against pornography, period, and they don't recognize the difference between legal adult entertainment and child pornography. And, sometimes, people get really, really upset with us, but we just let them know it's legal adult entertainment. And if they don't agree with what we're telling them, they're probably going to go to somebody else. Now, we may not agree with some of what's out there, but for what's going to be reportable to the government and what's illegal, it's very clear."
As for ASACP's goals over the coming twelve months, other than continuing to increase the groups funding they plan to announce them after the Advisory Council's next meeting in November.
For more information and to join the fight against child pornography in cyberspace, visit ASACP on the Web or contact [email protected].
