Reports submitted to ObscenityCrimes.org cross the 20,000 mark

Visitors to Morality in Media’s ObscenityCrimes.org Web site have filed more than 20,000 reports of pornographic Web sites since the site went live in June 2002.

That milestone was crossed early in April 2003 as the Web site began its eleventh month of operation. During each of the six proceeding months (October 2002 through March 2003), more than 2,500 reports were filed.

Every week, a file containing the data from the past week’s reports is emailed to the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the U.S. Justice Department in Washington. Every month, a printout of the data received from each Federal judicial district is mailed to the United States Attorney (Federal prosecutor) for that district.

In addition, Morality in Media consultants examine selected Web sites from the data sent by visitors to ObscenityCrimes.org. The consultants write memoranda describing the Web sites, giving exact—often, excruciatingly exact—detail about what they found on the “free” pages of these sites. These memoranda are distributed to CEOS in Washington. They are also sent to the U.S. Attorneys in each district where a report(s) originated—e.g., a report from a person in Pittsburgh is sent to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh (Western District of Pennsylvania).

The report form also asks how visitors heard about ObscenityCrimes.org. Leading sources include Web links, Web searches, and radio ads. Paid radio advertising ObscenityCrimes.org has run in the northern Virginia (Washington, D.C.) and Baltimore market and in Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio (thanks to support from Citizens for Community Values of Cincinnati).

More than 1100 reports from the Washington, D.C. area from November to March have been attributed to “radio ads” In addition, the report form was recently updated to ask visitors: a) if they received “porn spam” about the site they’re reporting; b) if their child was (or easily could have been) exposed to the “porn spam”; c) if they accidentally viewed the porn site; d) if their child accidentally viewed the porn site.

During the first month (12 March –11 April) using the updated form, 2,743 reports were received, and 2,514 noted that they had received “porn spam.” Of those 2,514 reports, 974, or 38.7%, said that their child was (or easily could have been) exposed to the porn spam.