I recently sat down with Nicholeen Peck, Natalie Cline, and Maurice Harker to discuss the pervasive problem of pornography available in school and library databases. You can hear our conversation in this podcast.
Nicholeen, who serves as CEO of Teaching Self-Government and President of the Worldwide Organization for Women, outlines “two easy things” you can do to stop this “porn pandemic” in her guest blog below, but I’ll give you a sneak peak. First, you can show your concern by simply signing this petition. Second, you can share your story in this survey.
We will not stand idly by! Together in the fight,
Karen Broadhead
“I will do something to stop this!” I thought, as a friend of mine from Colorado told me that in the school databases in her state and my state, she found XXX elicit pornography. In fact, there are two easy things we can all do to stop this “porn pandemic” in the schools and libraries. I will discuss how you can help below.
I contacted friends and leaders of organizations in my state. I arranged meetings and approached every angle to get the pornographic words, images, and videos out of the school and library databases that are used by children ages five and up to do their school projects and research.
After a call to a state senator, I went on the news, and the Utah Education and Telehealth Network temporarily shut the databases down. Sadly, after three weeks, the databases were declared “clean” and put back up for all to use. Within fifteen minutes of that declaration, I found live links to Penthouse magazine, horrible images, and a story about a sixth grader having sex with his drama teacher in the Utah Online Library database called EBSCO.
Databases are not the same as the internet. They can’t be filtered by internet filters. They are promoted to states and school districts as the safe way for children to search because all the content in them has to be put there deliberately.
So, how does the content get there, you might ask? Well, the database companies like EBSCO and Gale solicit any kind of magazine that will pay to put their content in the database. The database companies promise these contributors that they will “find their target audience,” and “increase their subscriptions.”
What?!?! Our children are the target audience? Yes.
Then, the database companies solicit states and school districts to pay them millions of dollars annually to access these perfectly groomed databases. The database companies are taking money on both ends of the deal. They’re essentially selling our children to the magazine companies and paid contributors. This is called child exploitation.
Bad News and Good News
After two years of working to stop this problem, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that we’ve been able to locate the database-porn problem in schools and libraries all over the world. The good news is that some states are passing laws to stop this harmful content from reaching the children, and we are conducting studies right now to help every state and nation who wants to take steps to protect children to stop this problem.
How You Can Help!
If you receive emails from Life Changing Services, really soon you’ll get an email with a link to a petition and a link to a survey. The petition will allow you to show your concern and support for stopping the database companies from being able to exploit our children at safe places like the school and library. And the survey will ask if anyone you know has ever accessed pornographic content at school or in a library.
Please watch for that important email. Share it with your friends and consider bravely sharing your stories with us. Links to the petition and survey are also found below.
When mothers and fathers know how porn is finding children, they can do something about it. Now more people know. This is a fight we can win. Please help us!
If you’d like to find out more information about this situation and how to help, you can listen to our recent podcast.
And, if you want even more information, these links will give greater insight
The database problem is exposed to the world at the World Congress of Families in Verona, Italy.
Idaho passes bill to protect kids.
Some write ups on EBSCO, one of the largest databases in the world.
The American Library Association (ALA) does not want to protect children from porn.
