He went out on the speaking circuit and popped up at places like HotWired and Howard Rheingold's Electric Minds. Two years after we first talked, I got back in touch with Justin on the eve of his graduation from Swarthmore College, to throw some of his 1996 opinions back at him and to find out how he envisions his own future in the Web-connected world. When we talked in February 1996, the Communications Decency Act looked as if it might be ratified. The CDA failed, of course, but here in 1998 the Web has become a hotbed of pornography, and AOL subscribers can count on 10 to 20 obscene come-ons in their mailboxes every day. I am no more dismayed by what I see on the Web than I am by the conduct of our president, or by so many people who fundamentally fear their own human race.
Sex permeates conversation and interaction.
It's natural that it permeate sales and marketing and the Internet. As the Internet comes to permeate our lives, so does sex online, especially if the media doesn't want to work harder to find any deeper stories. Hold people accountable for their mailings, and give the children a sense of their own ability to critique and refuse online relationships. By the time a child is exposed to and is able to participate in an online chat room, hopefully he will have developed the skills necessary to keep from being invaded by malicious persons. Hopefully, the child will learn them in conjunction with an open-minded and present parent.