Online Smut Peddlers Using Dirty Tricks to Lure Kids, Pastor Warns
by Ed Thomas
May 25, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A black pastor affiliated with a ministry that trains churches and low-income or underprivileged citizens in computer literacy is sounding the alarm about how Internet pornography websites often use deceptive tactics to target certain demographic groups.Pastor Bill Mooney-McCoy is director of TechMission's Safe Families program, which provides filtering software and educational materials at its website -- resources designed to help children and families stay safe online. He is also a member of the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston, a group that recently sponsored an online safety workshop.
During this information session, Mooney-McCoy took the opportunity to warn listeners about some of the sneakier practices of porn peddlers, including using disingenuous web addresses or false website descriptions in efforts to target particular ethnic communities or age groups.
"Basically, pornographers don't care how you get there," the pastor points out. "They just care that you get there, and so they will use many, many deceptive tactics. One of them is the actual use of misleading URLs or misleading descriptions."
For instance, Mooney-McCoy points out, some Internet pornography sites lure web surfers with universal resource locators (URLs) named after well-known black leaders or historical figures. "MartinLutherKing.com and JesseJackson.com are classic examples of that," he says. Unsuspecting web surfers, possibly even students looking for material for a school report, may go to these sites expecting to find information about the individuals named but instead find themselves linking to obscene material.
And sometimes, the minister adds, Internet pornographers are even bolder in their efforts to entice and entrap kids. "There was another case of, I think, almost thousands of names of children's cartoons that were used for the same kind of thing," he notes.
These practices, as well as spamming and many other unethical tricks, are designed and used by Internet porn profiteers specifically to pursue the youth market, Mooney-McCoy warns. Online purveyors of filth have all kinds of "dirty tricks," the pastor notes, and he urges parents to utilize all the Safe Families tools to educate and protect their families.
Ed Thomas, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
