Yet in a press release ahead of a recent House of Representatives hearing aimed at curbing the industry, Texas Republican Joe Barton said, "Child pornography is apparently a multibillion … my staff analysis says $20 billion-a-year business. Twenty billion dollars." Some press reports said the figure applied only to the industry's online segment. The New York Times reported, "the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is a $20 billion industry that continues to expand in the United States and abroad," citing witnesses at the hearing.
$20 billion sure sounds like a scary number. Unfortunately, that number seems to come from the ether because no one takes responsibility for it. Then the numbers guy comes upon the stat I tried to investigate here.
This isn't the first number from the NCMEC that struck me as questionable. The group provided the estimate that one in five children is sexually solicited online, which appeared in public-service ads distributed by the Ad Council. The stat has received a fresh round of publicity thanks to donated air time from MySpace, a site popular with teens. As I wrote last year, the "one in five" estimate was based on research that was five years old which only covered children who spent time online. The survey also used a broad definition of sexual solicitation. Yet the stat persists. The NCMEC told me last July it hoped to have new research by the end of last year. Now, spokeswoman Tina Schwartz says the group expects new research to be released in the next couple of months.
These things infuriate me. They cause people to place a greater significance on online stalkers than they need to and cause people to worry about child porn a lot more than they need to. But it sure sounds scary to say a MySpace page will lead to your child being sexually assaulted.
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