But not long after the suspect was taken into custody, a co-conspirator suddenly emerged: the Internet. The computer connection arose from a circumstance well buried in the gloomy chain of events that led to the murder, but nonetheless, it drew headlines, hand-wringing and howls for action. All underlying an uncomfortable fact: four months after the issue of free speech on the Net was decided by the Supreme Court’s rejection of the censorious Communications Decency Act, we’re still at a loss for how to protect our kids without trashing the First Amendment.
How did modems and bits become implicated in this crime? The link is indirect. Eddie Werner himself had not lured fate by going online; his mistake was knocking on a stranger’s door not far from his own Jackson Township, N.J., home, in a zeal to sell wrapping paper for school fund raising. (He’d hoped to win the walkie-talkie set given to the school’s top salesman.) The stranger, as the police explained, was a 15-year-old, himself a victim of sexual abuse. And that is where cyberspace figured in.
Last year, while using America Online, the 15-year-old, whom investigators have identified as Sam Manzie, visited a private chat room, where he apparently met Stephen Simmons, a 43-year-old T-shirt maker and a convicted pedophile. They arranged to meet and, police say, began an affair conducted mainly in motel rooms. When Manzie told a therapist of the arrangement, she blew the whistle, and the cops enlisted the boy in a sting that led to the older man’s arrest. But Manzie was disturbed at his role in the setup, so much so that his parents requested that the boy be committed. Instead a judge remitted him to his parents’ custody. Three days later, on Sept. 27, Manzie was alone at home–and little Eddie Werner was ringing doorbells. Police say that Manzie sexually assaulted the younger boy, strangled him and stuffed the body in a suitcase to dispose of the next day.
If blame was the game, there were plenty of places to point fingers. Yet by the end of the week the New York Post screamed CYBER PSYCHO on its front page, and the anti-porn group Enough Is Enough was describing the Internet as ““a playground for pedophiles.’’ Net advocates were appalled at the attacks. After all, they noted, solicitations from abusers like Simmons are illegal, whether online or off. In this case, the actual murder was a clear step removed from the Internet; still, people were making an issue of the fact that the 15-year-old suspect had a Web site. (Manzie’s home page was mostly a shrine to the Smashing Pumpkins rock group.) ““It’s really sad that the anti-Net community would take a horrible crime like this and try to turn it into a free-speech issue,’’ says Ann Beeson, a staff attorney for the ACLU.
But even though the Internet connection to this crime is shaky, the problem still exists: the online world provides an easier path for evildoers–stock scammers, cads and, yes, pedophiles–to get in touch with victims. While the Supreme Court has rightfully ruled that censorship is not the answer–to do so would unconstitutionally muzzle the rightful speech of adults–the current solution of software tools to block objectionable content from kids’ eyes is no panacea. For one thing, in order for these tools to work, parents have to use them. Some parents are intimidated. Others aren’t motivated.
You’d figure that America Online, 9 million subscribers strong and a self-proclaimed family service, would be moving heaven and earth to find a better way. Indeed, AOL does attempt to get parents to use the easy-to-program tools it provides to block out the bad stuff and keep kids out of private chat rooms. But the effort is falling short. On a given night, there may be as many as 19,000 AOL chat rooms going at once–too many to monitor carefully. In ““private’’ chat rooms, where the heavy sexual activity probably occurs, AOL’s proctors don’t even attempt to keep an eye on the action; the Panglossian reasoning is that parents should be savvy enough to turn on the filters to keep the kids out of those areas. Consider what happened to Sam Manzie, and it’s clear that this isn’t enough: the youngster checked out a chat room named ““boyz’’ and found a 43-year-old lover.
If AOL wants to truly earn its image as a family-oriented service, it might consider more aggressive means of getting parents to use the controls. (Currently it estimates that less than a third of its households use them.) Maybe it could ship discs with the controls built in, lifting them only with the approval of the credit-card holder when the account is activated. If AOL is successful, perhaps providers who offer Internet service to families could follow suit.
There’s plenty of room for improvement, in both technology and parental strategy. But we have to face a disturbing reality: the Internet will always pose a problem for parents, simply because of its open nature and its accessibility to good folks and creeps alike. The telephone and the automobile make life easier for crooks and stalkers, too, but that’s a trade-off we all accept. When we get over our fear of the new and unfamiliar the benefits of computer communications will be seen in the same light. Cyberspace may not be totally benign, but in some respects it has it all over the often overrated real world. After all, one could argue, if young Eddie Werner had been selling his candy and gift-wrapping paper on the Internet, and not door to door, tragedy might not have struck.
