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Internet Firms Launch New Web Rating System
Jeremi writes: "Salon has a brief article about a new content self-rating system being proposed to Congress in lieu of government-imposed restrictions. I wonder if this is a good thing or bad, and whether or not it will succeed where previous attempts failed?"
Oh, this is pretty clear, but not necessarily good.
Optional ratings. But the free filters will likely default to automatically blocking unrated sites. After all, the goal is clearly stated that they want to convince parents to install the software, ergo, they need the ratings to have value in order to convince them, ergo unrated sites have to be put down.
So site owners have to rate. But, aha, rating incorrectly will have to be made a crime, else those illegal pornographers will rate themselves as 'kid-friendly', dontchaknowit.
After all, if there isn't a _law_ forcing honest ratings, who can trust the ratings? They'll fail otherwise.
Then, with this law, hmm... we'll need a way to handle complaints and dispute ratings. Hey, they do a good job with those domain disputes and such, use a closed board like that. Heck, use the same WIFO!
Small sites then get "Your site was reported as illegally abusing the rating scheme with inaccurate ratings. Please reply to each complaint in this 20-page form within 10 days or your domain will be revoked."
Suddenly, small sites are either a) bogged down in paperwork or b) unrated and thus blocked by most browsers.
*sigh* And don't even get me started if they decide they don't need a top ratings board, that ratings can be enforced through 'local standard', i.e. any state can file in their state court to contest your site's ratings. Suddenly, small sites get suits in any state that disagrees with the site owner's interpretation of the ratings.
Then there's the world level...
A.
This is yet more of the same. They seem to believe that if there are little labels on everything, then those things that they do not like can be blocked.
h atever, and anything else that twigs them at a given moment.)
Previous attempts at this have failed. This one will too. They will try again with yet another plan. Loop until universe ends.
TV ratings and the V-Chip were a way to "save our children", Now the groups that pushed for them are upset that noone but them are using them to block what kids see.
What these people really want is for all content *they* find objectionable to be driven off the net. (Be it porn, descriptions of anti-social behaviour, criticism of their religious beliefs, people who are not good liberals/conservitives/communists/Americans(tm)/w
They use children as an excuse. It is not the children they wish to protect, but their own fragile sensibilities.
What they do not believe in is the right to freedom of speech, freedom of thought or freedom of action for anyone other than themselves.
Childhood is supposed to be a time to train children to be adults. What happens to these kids when they get out into the unfiltered world on their own? The answers seem to be overindulgence in the things that they were forbidden to do by their parents. This leads to a bunch of self-destructive adults.
Seems to me that filters are a panecia for parents who are afraid or unable to teach their children about the real world.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
Unfortunately, the movie rating system doesn't work well. Theatres rarely carry NC-17 or unrated films, under the assumption that they're pornography, which would get them in hot water.
As a result, dramas and other films which have nothing to do with pornography (ie, materials designed to stimulate) will never get proper exposure unless they are trimmed down to R rated levels. You could have the best movie ever made, oscar material up the wazoo, but definitely intended for a mature audience who can approach the concepts it explores in an adult fashion... but it better be R, or it's bad bad pr0n.
Websites will likely work the same way; if your site is rated too high, regardless of the INTENT of the site (sexual education materials, evidence of war atrocities in other counteries, etc) it'll be blacklisted.
Now, the real problem with this is that it does open the door for government regulation. If site owners accept a voluntary rating system, and everything goes well, pretty soon there will be a mandated system, and not too long after that, the sites that are somewhat controversial, but speak about important issues are then censored.
Volentary at the point of a gun.
Most, if not all, of the rating systems mentioned have been imposed out of fear that "if we do not do it, congress will do something worse". (What part of "Congress shall make no law" do they not understand? All of it, judging by their actions.) The implied threat of congresional action has been the driving force for every one of these censorship systems.
The MPAA's ratings were due to congresional hearings. So was the Comics Code. So was the record labels. So was the V-Chip.
Each was an attempt to supress material that some congresscritter did not like. (In violation of the constitution of the US and their oath of office.)
Taking complex material and rendering it into narror catergories of acceptability is what gave us Network television. Hopefully the web will not turn into something that bland and sanitized. Ratings will only accelerate that process.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."