As a stepmother, grandmother of three and the leader of Enough Is Enough, I’ve been up close and personal in confronting online pornography, child pornography, child stalking and sexual predation since 1994.
Enough Is Enough is an organization fighting to make the Internet safer for children and families. This quest has taken me everywhere: from corporate boardrooms to churches and schools to Capitol Hill and the Department of Justice.
I’ve been gratified to witness culture-changing successes over the past two decades, ranging from groundbreaking Internet safety legislation to actions taken by leading corporations. Most recently, Starbucks and McDonald’s now ensure their public WiFi is filtered and children are protected within the walls of those businesses.Unfortunately, there are also cases in which — despite dogged and determined efforts — we still come up short in protecting kids online
Unfortunately, there are also cases in which — despite dogged and determined efforts — we still come up short in protecting kids. Our inability to get a particular Disney themed hard-core porn site shut down is a frustrating example.
The site — a clear violation of Disney’s copyrighted brand and its signature cartoon characters — portrays beloved Disney characters performing graphic sexual acts with one another.
Sorry, parents: they are all there. Ariel, Betty Boop, Snow White, Cinderella, and more. Why? Because the multi-billion dollar Internet porn industry has successfully used deceptive marketing tactics to trick online users into visiting their porn sites.
For almost 15 years, I avoided making this issue more public out of concern that traffic to this site would explode, exposing millions of curious seekers to disturbing images and videos that will be difficult to erase from their minds.
Instead of going to the media about this, I brought the issue to Disney’s attention in 1999. I later brought it to the attention of Disney’s policy leaders in Washington, D.C. I also told concerned parents and the public at large in 2008 when, as the executive producer and host of the award-winning “Internet Safety 101” series, I used the Disney themed porn site as an example of the misuse of cartoon characters by pornographers.
A few years later, I showed the website to top Disney executives in a Burbank, Calif., meeting. I asked them to take action against the misuses of their beloved Disney characters and the abuse of dozens of copyright and trademark infringements. Hopefully, that would result in the site’s elimination.
I hoped that Disney would have taken aggressive action to enforce their copyrights. But today, sadly, this website has not been taken down and has only grown to incorporate the newest Disney characters.
The problem has gotten much worse. My recent Google search for Disney porn yielded more than 12.6 million returns. There are many other porn sites now exploiting Disney characters.
Why? Because they can. Only Disney has the muscle and legal authority to take action.
Imagine my astonishment when discovering a few weeks ago that, of all companies, Disney is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit designed to shut down VidAngel, a small, faith-based startup venture empowering parents to filter out sex, inappropriate language, blasphemy, and other harmful elements from movies and TV shows available on the Internet.
Disney’s legal assault on VidAngel, they say, is based on one overwhelming issue: the company’s concern about copyright issues. But the 2005 Family Movie Act explicitly allows companies like VidAngel to provide such a service. Ironically, Disney has its own product called Disney Circle, one of the many excellent corporately-
Disney Porn Land is a serious issue. Don’t believe for a minute that online pornographers are not after your kids. Pornographers understand that the sexually-exploitative pornography they distribute is highly addictive. If they can get children hooked at a young age, while their hormones are raging and their brains and bodies are underdeveloped, they will likely have a consumer for life unless the addiction cycle is broken.
Zach, a 15-year-old who I interviewed in the “Internet Safety 101” series, said, “I think about every person in this generation, and probably the one before us, have all looked up pornography once in their life. Even if you’re not looking for it, you could be innocent on the computer … and it’ll find you.”
I plead with Disney again, in the most public way possible, to aggressively pursue the shutdown of Disney Porn Land and many other obscene porn sites using Disney’s brand, for the sake of children and families in America and all over the world.
While they’re at it, they should find a reasonable, out-of-court solution with VidAngel. As the debacle with proliferation ofDisney themed porn shows, VidAngel is providing a valuable service to further protect children in the digital age.
Donna Rice Hughes is President and CEO of Enough Is Enough. She is an internationally known Internet safety expert, author, speaker and Emmy-winning film producer. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
