BOWING to searing 鈥渇lames鈥� from Internet users, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania has launched an investigation into possible academic fraud in a controversial study on the amount of pornography on the Net.
The study by Martin Rimm, a student at the university, was published in June and concluded that 83.5 per cent of the digitised images on the Internet are pornographic. Members of Congress seized on the study as evidence that the Internet should be tightly regulated by the government.
But other researchers question Rimm鈥檚 conclusions, suggesting that he may have fabricated some of his data. They also suggest that he may have broken into students鈥� computer records to compile some of his data on transfers of files across the Internet. The university has been inundated with angry Internet messages (鈥渇lames鈥�) challenging Rimm鈥檚 study.
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鈥淪everal allegations warrant the conduct of a thorough investigation, 鈥渟aid Paul Christiano, the Provost of the university.