Belonging to a modern orthodox community largely made up of regular internet users, I often hear people scoffing at the haredi outcry against personal internet usage and smart phones. Nowadays, it is difficult for even the most ultra orthodox folks to get away with shunning the online world completely. At the very least, email and texting are fairly common, along with highly filtered internet browsers used for work or educational purposes.
In 2012, a 40,000 man Internet Asifa rally against the internet at Citi Field got a lot of press. While some critics decried the rally as a chillul Hashem, asking why the same level of outrage and participation wasn’t directed toward more pressing issues like child abuse (I wholeheartedly agree with this opinion), others took a more moderate approach to their critique.
Those moderate voices said that the internet Asifa wasn’t against necessary usage of the internet, but against the easy access to pornography that the internet provides. The Asifah hoped to bring public awareness to the dangers of the internet, and educate the public about how to protect itself against spiritually harmful content.
While every individual might have a different standard for what type of internet content is spiritually harmful, religious people tend to have a narrower outlook on what is acceptable viewing material. Consequently, a recent Case Western Reserve University study showed that the more religious a person is, the more they will think of themselves as a porn addict even after viewing internet pornography only once.
The conclusion drawn by this study could also explain the popularity and growth of an online website, Guard Your Eyes, created specifically to help orthodox Jews overcome their internet, pornography, and sex addictions. In light of the Case Western Reserve study, one has to wonder how many members of Guard Your Eyes actually have legitimate addictions, and how many simply suffer from religious guilt over occasional behavior that would be considered normal by secular standards.
On the other hand, there are certainly those frum folks who are drawn into the dark side of the internet beyond the occasional slip-up. Recent news has highlighted the case of a respected rabbi accused of downloading and distributed child porn via file sharing websites. [Do not click on any of the links for the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to see possible pornographic pop-up ads, pictures,or descriptions associated with some of the articles] If my blog hit search terms are any indication, there are quite a few individuals who seek out fetish pornography specifically featuring orthodox players, and even go so far as to secretly attempt to videotape people, such as this mikvah lady who claimed to secretly film clients during her work shift. There are also websites that have been created (and deleted) solely for the purpose of frum hookups and frum people openly advertising for one night stands on Craigslist.
Ok, so enough of a taste of the internet’s dark side that can claim the souls of frum men and women. I’ve referenced enough to prove that the chosen people have wandered the desert of the World Wide Web, and planted their unique flag of heimishe schmutz in various online outposts. The internet can, indeed, be soul killing. Men and women can waste a mind boggling amount of time online engaged in nefarious activities. Caught in an endless compulsion to click on a never ending supply of images and videos, orthodox Jews are drained of both their self respect and other bodily fluids of the forbidden sort.
That being said, the internet is like air or food in the 21st century. It is impossible to function in our daily lives without access to online technology. Personal and business communications, education, work technology, entertainment, everything is online. We can’t avoid it, we can only be smart about what we look at. In many ways, I believe that our children will have it easier than those of us “oldies” who were exposed to the internet later in life. The internet was such a novelty, as was the ready availability of adult material. Subsequently, many of us got caught up in the virtual beckoning of the online red light district.
Our children are being introduced to an internet that has more sites exclusively for kids than ever before. Contrary to being a novelty, the internet is simply a part of their natural landscape. It’s true that the internet is always growing, changing, and presenting new challenges. However, it’s not quite the untamed Wild West that it was in the late 1990s and early 2000’s. It’s not so much about the creation of new filters that block unsavory websites, because it’s my belief that even the most basic user can find ways around filters if they are determined. It’s more about experience making us into more educated users who can pass along our knowledge, most of us having navigated the web for a good 10-20 years.
We need to be open with our children about the dangers of the web. We also need to have a large selection of safe websites for our children and ourselves to visit. It’s important to have a map (bookmarks) to navigate our online journeys. Having a roadmap of safe websites to visit prevents us from getting lost in a maze of unsafe destinations. Our computers, even at home, should be set up in close proximity to each other – both so that we can monitor our kid’s usage, and so we can monitor ourselves. Most of us wouldn’t feel comfortable viewing X-rated material in front of our spouses or children. Using the internet in public areas of our home keeps us honest.
There are many more suggestions and opinions that I could offer about internet safety and the real dangers of the online world. Due to my former work in competitive intelligence, I was an early adopter and tester of many of the social media technologies used today. I have seen their evolution and both the benefit and toll they can take on users. I don’t agree that internet pornography is one of the main threats to orthodox Judaism, and if the growing online participation of many haredi groups is any indication, those supporters of the 2012 Asifa are starting to change their stance on the topic too. So many haredi groups formerly against any type of internet usage are now establishing an online presence. However, if we are honest, those of us who are long time internet users must admit that the internet can be a dangerous place if not used with caution. To dismiss the potential threats of the internet is naive at best, and disingenuous at its worst.
