Forget all analogies between internet today and TV of the 1950s and ’60s. The battle led by gedolim in those decades when no one could fully have seen how far the tame family fare of that era would degenerate can only be described as prescient. But it does not provide a ready model for a communal response to Internet today.
TV provided entertainment and its absence from the home did no more than confirm that Torah Jews exist outside of the cultural mainstream. Internet by contrast will increasingly become an essential tool for the performance of many of the most basic functions of modern life. Even were it theoretically possible to live without it most Torah Jews will not cut themselves off completely.
That is not to suggest for a moment that Internet or more broadly interconnectivity does not pose an immense threat to the spiritual health of Torah Jews as individuals and as a community. To date most attention has been directed at the dangers that might be classified as “do not stray after your eyes.” Talk to any communal rav and he will tell you of the havoc wreaked in homes by Internet and of the lives and marriages destroyed. Internet does not just facilitate the fulfillment of illicit desires; it creates new desires previously unimagined. Online (ironically) recovery groups like GuardYourEyes have come into existence to help those — sometimes respected communal figures — recover from having strayed after their eyes on the Internet.
Less attention has been given to the dangers in the category of “do not stray after your hearts.” The Internet puts an unfathomable amount of information and disinformation within easy access. And in some ways the danger of minus (heresy) is even greater than the visual temptations because it will prove impossible to create filters to weed out minuswith the same type of algorithms used to screen the former.
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