Since 1996, the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP), founded by former XBiz President Alec Helmy, has been a nonprofit organization which monitors and reports on commercial child pornography (CCP) online. As the group’s mission statement explains, they are committed to eliminating CCP from the Internet utterly and completely.

“ASACP battles child pornography through its [CCP] reporting hotline and by organizing the efforts of the online adult industry to combat the heinous crime of child sexual abuse. ASACP also works to help parents prevent children from viewing age-inappropriate material online.”

ASACP provides an online hotline service for both Web browsers and webmasters to report suspected child pornography materials they should stumble upon on the Internet. Member websites provide links to this hotline, much like the one featured on the left of SexHerald’s main page. From there, users submit their reports for ASACP to follow up on. After reviewing the reports, ASACP determines the hosting, billing, IP address, ownership, and linkage of suspected CCP sites then forwards “red flag” reports to the appropriate government agencies, including the FBI, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), as well as associations in Europe when necessary.

In December 2008, ASACP received a total of 6,978 reports of potential child pornography online, an average of 225 per day. Of those, 55 were red flagged and forwarded to the appropriate authorities. Since 2003, over 7,000 red-flag reports have been forwarded by ASACP.

When originally created, ASACP stood for Adult Sites Against Child Pornography. The fact that ASACP has felt compelled to change its name shows just how much their mission has taken off. No longer is it just adult entertainment websites that are ASACP members. In addition to websites displaying explicit material, organizations like The Free Speech Coalition are joining the fight against child pornography as well.   

Making a clear distinction between genuine adult entertainment and child exploitation had always been a main goal of ASACP. As Executive Director Joan Irvine told SexHerald, “We are providing the best practices for the industry. Companies want to be presenting and doing things legitimately; they really want to comply with our code of ethics.” All websites seeking membership need to be found in compliance with ASACP’s code of ethics. This means that the site “does not contain, condone or use terms that denote child pornography.”

Child pornography, as defined by NCMEC, is any “visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture or painting, photograph, film, video, or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where it [1] depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and is obscene, or [2] depicts an image that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in graphic bestiality, sadistic or masochistic abuse, or sexual intercourse…whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, and such depiction lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

Reiterating Irvine’s point that effective self-regulatory measures against CCP would prove beneficial for the adult film industry, attorney Gregory A. Piccionelli, in ASACP’s Winter 2009 Newsletter, writes: “I sincerely believe that recent political and social events clearly indicate that for the first time in the history of the adult entertainment business, there is a real and substantial opportunity to effect a meaningful and permanent change in the way the industry is perceived and regulated.”

Piccionelli is hopeful that with the changes likely to come during the Obama administration, government regulatory bodies will steer clear of harassing proponents of adult entertainment and instead focus on peddlers of CCP.

“Many adult entertainment industry advocates, including myself,” Piccionelli writes, “have long argued that the only reasonable and legitimate purpose for governmental regulation of erotic content is when it directly provides meaningful protection of children without trampling cherished constitutional freedoms.”

At the same time, Piccionelli is fearful that if stern efforts are not made during this administration to protect free speech, the opportunity to do so might not arise again for many years. Action, therefore, must be swift.

Irvine, in an interview with sin20.com, claims that the benefits for members of the adult industry in joining the fight against child porn are many. “What this really does for the industry is it provides [webmasters] with that safe place that they can go to and know that we’re not keeping IP addresses and know that we’re really looking for [CCP].”

Irvine had explained that, in the past, managers and owners of porn websites were reluctant to report information concerning child pornography to government authorities for fear that those same authorities would soon target them as well. By reporting on CCP through ASACP’s website, adult webmasters can now help fight child pornography without fear of their own business being affected. 

Irvine went on to say that making the adult film industry active in this fight benefits them be making a clear distinction between them and organized criminal groups who peddle CCP. “[People in the adult industry] want the mainstream and the government to know that the adult entertainment industry is not involved in child porn. From our data for the last six years, [it] shows that 90 percent of the commercial child pornography comes from organized crime in the eastern European block countries, 5 percent from organized crime in Japan. So it’s important for the industry to recognize that besides protecting children, they are protecting themselves because it’s the first time the industry has had this kind of verifiable data.”

ASACP also participates in the semi-annual meeting of the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, a group of some of the world’s most prominent financial institutions, Internet industry leaders, and child protection agencies working in conjunction to end commercial child pornography. In December 2008 ASACP Director of Technology and Forensic Research, Tim Henning, attended the latest meeting in Washington D.C.

There was some excellent news to report. ASACP was able to confirm data received from NCMEC and related law enforcement that there has been an estimated two-thirds decline in the amount of commercial child pornography compared to figures from 2007.

“This decline is credited to the combined efforts of the members of the Coalition to inhibit the ability of child pornographers to process payments,” ASACP’s website claims. “This decline in CCP is also due to recent large law enforcements takedowns of child pornography rings over the past 14 months.” This, ASACP says, coincides with the recent arrest of over 60 people in the United States involved in CCP trade, an effort led by international law enforcement.

More recently in January 2009, ASACP responded to a study by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) which concluded that “the risks minors face online are complex and multifaceted and are in most cases not significantly different than those they face offline.”

Irvine said that ASACP essentially agreed with the study, explaining that there is indeed no “silver bullet” to child protection, and that appropriate measures could be taken for all facets of it.

“ASACP has always believed it takes an entire community to protect children,” Irvine said. “A reliance on mandatory age verification could actually leave our children less protected online. Instead, a multi-layered approach encompassing education, empowerment and enforcement would be a more effective method of keeping kids safe.”

According to Irvine, the adult film industry has done its due diligence, helping to implement the Restricted to Adult label (RTA), launched in 2006 and including over 5 million page link-ins.

A series of PSAs advocating RTA-compliant policies, which can be found on ASACP’s website, feature adult film stars Stormy Daniels and Tera Patrick. Although, the RTA label can certainly help, Irvine acknowledges that what is really important in keeping children away from potentially harmful material is to get parents involved.

“[ASACP has] always known that no matter what the industry and mainstream did, no matter how many programs were available, no matter how many laws were passed, no matter how much education, that it always comes down to the parents taking responsibility.”

Irvine continued that while supplying parents with tools to protect their children is essential, “no amount of age verification and parental filtering will ever be able to make up for good parenting.” Irvine said this was especially important to note considering the ways in which Internet safety has been used as a fear-mongering gimmick for conservative politicos in the past. Piccionelli is confident that those days can be put to rest through the crucial work of this organization.

No adult industry organization is better positioned than ASACP to credibly advance the idea that government actions regarding sexual content should focus exclusively on effective protection of children. ASACP has the history of accomplishments to prove that it alone has ‘walked the walk’ of child protection with the support and assistance of the adult entertainment business.”