Adult content is widely available on the web and with the advent of Adobe flash player and the latest version of HTML called HTML 5, graphic adult material is widely disseminated free of charge and age restrictions on the web. Explicit movies, pictures and written material are just a click away and kids under legal age are lamentably exposed to this undesirable material around the globe unless governments take strict action against such web content.
United States, which is founded on individual liberty and free speech, has a much harder challenge in controlling adult content compared to a country like China, where laws are enacted and enforced by the party-state elite.
In response to the flood of pornography on the Internet, steps have been taken to enact a separate domain called .XXX for explicit adult websites. It has been argued that adults, especially parents, internet service providers as well as web browser vendors will then be able to offer better control over internet content and protect children from harmful exposure to adult or pornographic material.
There has been a debate whether enacting such a domain is a good idea at all and even if it is enacted, should it be a voluntary choice or made mandatory for all adult websites to migrate to the new .xxx domain.
A call to make such a move to .xxx domain mandatory has been harshly criticized by adult content providers who are worried that their lucrative sex trade will be curtailed, so on the grounds of free speech they are making an argument that people should decide what is adult and what is not.
This brings the debate full circle since the whole idea was to clearly distinguish adult content based on .xxx domain for all adult websites, but if there is no consensus on what is adult and what is not, then how can state or federal government make the migration mandatory.