Date: Wednesday, July 16, 1997 16:15:00
From: The White House
To: Public-Distribution@pub.pub.whitehouse.gov
Subject: 1997-07-16 President Remarks on E-Chip for the Internet
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release July 16, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT EVENT ON THE E-CHIP FOR THE INTERNET
The East Room
12:45 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Lois Jean, and thank you, Steve Case. Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for all the
work you've done on this issue. And to Secretary Daley, Commissioner Varney, Deputy Attorney General Waxman, and the members of Congress
who had to go for a vote. I thank all of you for your interest. And
thank you, all of you, who come here from the various companies who were part of the Vice President's meeting this morning and from other
interested groups.
I think it's fair to say that history will evaluate the
Internet as having sparked a revolution in information perhaps every
bit as profound as the printing press. For today, at the click of a
mouse, children can tap into the resources of the Library of
Congress, to a great museum, communicate with classrooms around the
world.
I am particularly proud to point out that the Internet
allows us now to join beyond the Earth. Just since July 4, NASA's
Mars Pathfinder Web site has received more than 27 million visits.
And we are very proud of that, and proud of NASA.
But we all know and we've heard the horror stories about
the inappropriate material for children that can be found on the
Internet. We know children can be victimized over the Internet.
After the Supreme Court struck down the portion of the Communications
Decency Act last month affecting this as an abridgement of free
speech, we brought together industry leaders and groups representing
teachers, parents, librarians to discuss where to go next.
This morning there was a discussion that I believe can
fairly be said to have reached a consensus about how to pave the way
to a family-friendly Internet without paving over the constitutional
guarantees of free speech and free expression. The plan has three
components -- new technologies, enforcement of existing laws, more
active participation of parents.
As you have heard already with regard to technology, the
computer industry is developing a whole toolbox full of technologies
that can do for the Internet what the V-chip will do for television.
Some of the tools are already widely in use, as Steve said. They
give parents the power to unlock -- or and to lock the digital doors
to objectionable content.
Now we have to make these tools more readily available
to all parents and all teachers in America, and as new tools come on
line, we have to distribute them quickly and we have to make sure
that parents are trained to use them.
In an extremely adroit use of language in our meeting
earlier, one of the leaders said, well, Mr. President, you've talked
about how technologically inept you are; perhaps you would be our
guinea pig as each new thing comes along -- (laughter) -- and then we could certainly certify that, if you can figure out how to use it,
anybody can. (Laughter.) And so I sort of volunteered. Having been
damned with faint praise, I enjoyed that. (Laughter.)
But I think it is important, it is important to know not
only that things exist but that they are being used and that they can
be used. So we had a little laugh about what is a very serious
element of this whole endeavor.
Today several industry leaders are taking major steps in
this direction. I'm pleased to announce first that Netscape
Communications has committed to add family-friendly controls to the
next release of its popular Internet browser. Parents who use the
Netscape browser to explore the Internet will be able to tell the
browser precisely what types of materials they do not wish their
children to see. Microsoft, which also offers a popular Internet
browser, has already incorporated this technology.
Therefore, with Netscape's pledge today, we now have
assurance that 90 percent of all software used to explore the
Internet will have family-friendly controls built right in. It's
also important to note that all of the major companies that offer
Internet service now provide some form of family-friendly controls.
And I commend all of them for that.
For these controls to work to their full potential, we
also need to encourage every Internet site, whether or not it has
material harmful for young people, to label its own content as the
Vice President described just a few moments ago. To help to speed
the labeling process along, several Internet search engines -- the
Yellow Pages of cyberspace, if you will -- will begin to ask that all
Web sites label content when applying for a spot in their
directories.
I want to thank Yahoo, Excite and Lycos for this
important commitment. You're helping greatly to assure that
self-labeling will become the standard practice. And that must be
our objective.
Beyond technology, we must have strict enforcement of
existing laws -- the anti-stalking, child pornography and obscenity
laws as they apply to cyberspace. In the past three months alone,
the FBI has expanded by 50 percent the staff committed to
investigating computer-related exploitation of minors, and
established a task force to target computer child pornography and
solicitation. In the past six months, the Department of Justice has
increased the number of lawyers working in its Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section by 50 percent. We simply must not allow
pornographers and pedophiles to exploit a wonderful medium to abuse
our children.
And, finally, we must recognize that in the end, the
responsibility for our children's safety will rest largely with their
parents. Cutting-edge technology and criminal prosecutions cannot
substitute for responsible mothers and fathers. Parents must make
the commitment to sit down with their children and learn together
about the benefits and challenges of the Internet. And parents, now
that the tools are available, will have to take upon themselves the
responsibility of figuring out how to use them.
I think it's fair to say that all parents will likely
lag behind their children in facility on the Internet, but at least
if we understand the tools that are available, it will be possible to
do the responsible and correct thing.
Thanks to the talents, to the creativity, to the
commitments of so many of you assembled today, we have now,
therefore, a road map toward constructive steps for a family-friendly
Internet. There is still a lot to do. Parent groups and educators
must work to help hone our labeling systems so that they will
actually screen out materials we don't want our children to see and,
as others have said today, with equal energy help to highlight the
materials that serve our children best. That is very, very
important.
The Internet community must work to make these labels as
common as food safety labels are today, to continue to expand access
to family-friendly tools, including software to protect children's
privacy from unscrupulous vendors.
With a combination of technology, law enforcement and
parental responsibilities, we have the best chance to ensure that the
Internet will be both safe for our children and the greatest
educational resource we have ever known. And that is our common
commitment, and for that, I thank you all very much. (Applause.)
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