New Internet Regulation Proposed

bumgutts writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has suggested a mandatory website self-rating system. The system, very similar to one suggested under Clinton's administration, would require by law all commercial websites to place 'marks and notices' on each page containing 'sexually explicit' content, with penalty up to 5 years imprisonment." From the article: "A second new crime would threaten with imprisonment Web site operators who mislead visitors about sex with deceptive 'words or digital images' in their source code--for instance, a site that might pop up in searches for Barbie dolls or Teletubbies but actually features sexually explicit photographs. A third new crime appears to require that commercial Web sites not post sexually explicit material on their home page if it can be seen 'absent any further actions by the viewer.'"

Comments

What happened to that freedom thing?

[CaptCommy]

While it sounds like a decent idea, I'm really all for the whole uncensored and unregulated internet. It's more interesting to me to see what people do with the total freedom granted to them. The more stuff like this that's get passed, the closer we move to real censorship. Okay, so I know I probably sound like I just put a fresh bit of tinfoil on this morning, but I really like my internet the way it is.

Four rules for political appointees to live by.

[sane?]

US politicos, repeat after me:

1) The US is not the world, so your laws can go hang.

2) Your views of what is sexually explicit are screwed up, so your rating system would be as well.

3) The real problem are the spammer and scammers stealing millions from the public. When I don't receive 100s of spams a day - then you can start getting worked up over boobies.

4) We don't trust you, we certainly don't trust you enough to let you do something this. Earn that trust back first.

Re:Four rules for political appointees to live by.

[MyNameIsFred]

1) The US is not the world, so your laws can go hang.

Just one question... Do you feel the same way about France when it considers censoring US sites? Or German censorship of US sites? Or Australia censorship? Etc. Etc.

Cue Paranoia

[Java Ape]

I'm getting very worried about the religeous right dictating legislation. As it happens, I am personally opposed to pornography, but strongly believe in the individuals right to choose. This legislation seems to be trying to strike the right balance by making sexually-explicit content self-label. However, as the maintainer of several websites, I have some concerns:

• The "Please protect the children" plea is overused, and raises a red flag for me. Once censorship is approved for one set of materials, it becomes very easy to gradually expand that list to include all materials deemed dangerous/undesirable by the ruling class. I see the camel's nose coming into the public tent.
  
• All sex-related legislation suffers from the difficulty of defining the material affected by the legislation. My wife reads romance novels that I would probably classify as pornographic. Naturally, she disagrees. I have seen nude photography that, in my opinion, is clearly art, but others would denounce as blatantly sexual. Humans are complex creatures, and highly sexual in nature -- nearly any object or body-part can be considered sexually-charged in some context. So, who makes the rules? As soon as breasts/genetalia are outlawed, some moral watchdog will point out that tight clothing, short skirts or exposed ankles are also inherently "sexy" and should be regulated. Burka's all around!
  
• Apparently it will be a crime for a sexually-explicit theme to be linked to innocent search terms in a search engine. Interesting. I don't control the search engines, or how they associate text and sites -- in fact those algorithms are carefully protected. So, if Yahoo, for reasons known only to it, indexes my site under "Cartoons" or "Fun" or whatever, I can be held criminally accuntable even I have labeled any explicit material as mature, and provide an opportunity for the underaged to exit? There's a serious flaw in this reasoning.

Re:Misguided legislation

[masterhibb]

The idea is that erotic imagery is every bit as powerful as savage imagery. While the depicted content varies greatly, the noticeable effect it has on the viewer, on both physiological and psychological levels, is just as strong (if not stronger, since the constant bombardment of a type of simulus has a de-sensitizing effect, and as you point out, violence is not as strictly regulated as pornography). If you think you're a totally disinterested party when you view anything, you're not being honest with yourself.

The key difference is that while violence is not socially acceptible under any normal circumstances, sex IS. This removes a very important barrier for emulating the behavior from impressionable minds (again, that's ALL of us, to some extent) who view the material. What you see in pornography is generally about as true to actual life experience as spectacularly exploding a car on the freeway using only a handgun, and then getting into a 10-minute fistfight with the driver who pulled himself from the wreckage.

I can see why parents wouldn't want their children learning by either of these examples, because it takes experience to separate fantasy from reality. The only difference is how likely their children are to actually go out and try to gain that experience using the examples they've seen. And again, not only is the general push of society going to wean you off of violence, but most people have an ingrained distaste for violence, whereas their bodies are actively promoting sex.

That said, the "violence is worse, so why are we talking about sex" argument is incredibly disingenuous, as shutting down the discussion of one problem doesn't fix the other. If the problem is too much crap, of one type or the other, inundating our entertainment, and finding its way to those we'd rather it didn't, harping on any progress is hampering it all.

I'm not saying these laws are a great idea, but let's try and stick to why they ACTUALLY suck.

Metatags and Homepages are now censorship?

[HighOrbit]

Censorship is limitation on content. This proposal does not limit content, nor does it pose an unreasonable burden on the viewer or the website.

Requiring a MetaTag does not rise to censorship, because it does not limit content. It's truth in advertising. It's also is trivial to implement. Requiring a home page with a enter button (that would set a cookie or session to signify acceptance for the rest of the site) also does not limit content. It too is trivial to implement. It would also probably withstand challange in court since it is no more restrictive than the brown paper cover over a magazine, which is already required in many places.

If this proposal limited content or imposed an onerous burden, then I too would call it censorship. But it does neither.