The prediction, in brief:

Pornography is a big enough issue. Someday, somewhere, as election time approaches, someone is going to say, “This is an issue that will get votes,” and go after it.

Predictor: Bechtold, Alan

Prediction, in context:

In a 1994 article for The Raleigh News & Observer, Grant Parsons interviews Alan Bechtold operator of a computer news service and the publisher of Sysop News. Bechtold is responding to the Memphis case in which a California couple “who ran a membership-only dial-in online service were found guilty of transmitting sexually explicit hard-core images over phone lines. By sending the pictures – which may or may not have been obscene in California – the couple, prosecutors argued successfully, violated the community standards for obscenity in Memphis.” Parsons writes, quoting Bechtold:”Pornography’s greatest threat to the infobahn may not come from within, says Bechtold. The worst-case scenario, he says, is not that hard to imagine. ‘Pornography is a big enough issue,’ he says. ‘Someday, somewhere, as election time approaches, someone is going to say, “This is an issue that will get votes,” and go after it.’ An organized, high-visibility campaign would be bound to attract attention and publicity, he figures. Others may jump on the bandwagon. He figures the Internet could be vulnerable to such an attack, since many Internet sites, like universities and key relay points, are funded at least in part with government money. ‘Being tax-supported, anything can happen to them politically,’ he says. ‘Look at what they’re doing now to the National Endowment for the Arts.'”

Date of prediction: July 1, 1994

Topic of prediction: Controversial Issues

Subtopic: Pornography

Name of publication: Raleigh News & Observer

Title, headline, chapter name: Infestation on the Internet? Information Flows Freely in Cyberspace, But So Does Indecency: The Question of Digital Porn.

Quote Type: Direct quote

Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/InfoWeb?p_action=doc&p_docid=0F4ACEA8A2E8B59E&p_docnum=1&p_nbid=D54L55VOMTA1NDgyMzc3Ni4zMzE4ODY6MTo2OjE1Mi4zMw

This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Garrison, Betty