I think you might be getting caught up on the term 'badness-level'. Ratings don't necessarilly tell if you if something is 'bad'. In the case of the MPAA rating system, it tells you what approximate maturity level you'd probably want to be in order to deal with the possible objectionableness of the content. In addition, if you are using something like the TV ratings system, you'll get cues for what type of objectionable content you'll be witnessing, based on categories like Graphic Violence, Sexual Content, Vulgarity, etc. It is a gross simplification of the rating system to claim all rating systems are rating things based on 'badness'. If you like Mature content, then for you the rating system would be inverted to rate goodness.
Of course people disagree as to what they find objectionable. That's why a duality system of ban vs. allow is bad. If you allow all content but then rate the content to give people cues as to what is contained, then they can avoid content that could be potentially objectionable to them.
Your point about various ratings in movies/games is extremely moot. I say this for two reasons. First it is still black and white, you fall into this category or you don't. You either have nudity or you don't. Facebook basically takes the stand that they are going to be a PG-13 or PG limit. Even more simply; let's pretend there is a ratings system... fbook just chose to set their threshhold beneath the level thata you enjoy. It's black and white by relativity only; they either include or exlude the content you care about. Furthermore I couldn't think of a more flawed and otherwise useless system than the ratings for movies.
I will admit rating systems are not perfect. I only brought up the movie rating system as an example of a better form of censorship than outright banning, because it is less Black and White. I discuss that in very simple terms in this comment. In addition, I didn't propose using the MPAA's system on Facebook. Though I didn't specify any specific system for rating, what I imagine is a system where the users could rate objectionable material themselves, as this commenter suggested. Regardless of the rating system, though, I did say that the user would control the threshold for what material gets displayed to them. Therefore, even if Facebook did the ratings, the user could still completely circumvent them.
Instead I think it's not my or your place to question their policy. They are a private company, they do what they like.
You are right in the latter part; they are a private company, and they can take my suggestion or not as they see fit. As a consumer of their services though, it is my place and right to voice my opinion. And it is in their business interest to listen to their users. Facebook makes money by selling companies the privilege to advertise to people on its site. If Facebook can better foster the community of Nursing Mothers and Mothers in general, then they will sell more ads to those companies targeting that group. More effective censorship policies will allow this group to share pictures more easily and make them more likely to use Facebook. In this sense, by voicing this complaint instead of just running to another company, these women are doing Facebook a favor.
My question to you then, is what is your stance of FCC censorship. Why can't I say fuck shit cunt etc if I said it in appropriate context? It would seem to me that if a public government based agency can set black and white rules you have no business telling a PRIVATE company how they should censor themselves...
You can actually. That statement is false, it isn't Black and White. Further, The FCC is becoming increasingly irrelevant as more broadcasts and viewers move to Cable television and the Internet, which they can't regulate (yet).
Rating systems like what the Movie Industry uses are more gray than this Facebook policy. Facebook either allows a photo (white) or doesn't (black).
The MPAA and ERSB have ranges. The MPAA, for instance, has G (white), PG (light gray), PG13 (gray), R(dark gray), etc.
In fact, they work with your last point: these are gradients of offensiveness and do at least a better job of informing people that they can choose not to "view next movie". In that way, the powers that be give individuals the freedom to censor themselves. That being said, I am perfectly aware that Rating Systems can often be abused in the name of censorship. But they're better than the alternative of outright banning.
I didn't say they didn't have the right to ban things. I said that a problem with that policy is it doesn't take into account gray areas, such non-offensive nudity, which for a lot of people includes breast exposed during nursing. What happens if I want my Facebook photo to be Venus De Milo?
A member for almost four years, [Heather] Farley has nearly 400 friends on Facebook, a network she'd be hard-pressed to replicate if she moved to a smaller site with more lenient photo policies.
The problem is simple - Facebook has a black and white policy for censorship, when censorship is a gray area. That's why you have various ratings for movies and video games. The article hints at changing culture to accept the pictures. There is a technological/social solution besides forcing acceptance - a rating system for objectionableness and the ability for an individual user to set what level of objectionableness they are willing to tolerate. The article offers another solution at the end:
Palfrey suggests a middle ground might emerge, in which networking sites like Facebook can better satisfy diverse constituencies without creating strife. That will require honing the technology to make it more certain that only people within specific networks and groups could see, say, a breast-feeding photo, while keeping children from seeing nudity.
I judge all my browsers on Acid; my scorecard is a a blur of dinosaurs dancing, blue e's laughing, and JZW laughing at me. And I'm eating a lot of delicious delicacies.
My last sentence was phrased poorly, and I really shouldn't have tried humoring the analogy because it's not really applicable here at all (though my analogy is more applicable). This is not the same as an instantaneous crime.
I agree. I am not voicing a "you can't defend yourself or stop a crime in progress, that's the police's job" mentality.
But the point here is that the Federal Authorities, who can't be everywhere at once, should have noticed when a bunch of industry professionals were pointing "look over here". You could argue the industry professionals (in this case the citizens on the sidelines) could have intervened, but if they don't that does not exempt the government from doing its job. I'd like to see the SCOTUS case (feel free to message me), but I doubt it says anything about the cops not being obligated to stop a crime that is in progress, or that government agencies in charge of monitoring cyber crime shouldn't do their jobs.
I agree with your sentiment, but the point is citizens (security researchers) were already informing the authorities by speaking publicly about this problem. This would be more akin to you seeing a man getting beat by another man, informing a cop around the block, the cop doing nothing, and then you and your fellow citizens stopping the abuse. Why is it your responsibility to do what the cop should be authorized to do?
I'd agree, but I don't think this is a matter of "keeping things in check". This is a matter of information about crimes being publicly available and the authorities responsible for those crimes failing to act to stop them. There may be reasons they didn't stop them, but given the scope of the crimes committed and the length of time security researcher's claim to have been talking about these issues, it would appear those reasons won't stand up under scrutiny.
I certainly hope The Washingto Post doesn't have to do the job of the Federal Authorities in the future.
I think this quote down on the third page was probably the best, from a Trend Micro researcher (emphasis mine):
"There is damning evidence that this activity has been going on there for way too long, and plenty of people in the security community have gone out of their way to raise awareness about this network, but nobody seems to care," [Paul] Ferguson said. "It's a statement on the inefficiencies of trying to pursue legal prosecution of these guys that it takes so long for anything to be done about it. Law enforcement is saying they're doing what they can, but that's not enough. And if law enforcement can't address stuff like this in a timely fashion, then the whole concept of law enforcement in the cyber world needs to be readdressed, because it's hardly making a dent at the moment."
Apple's Mac OS X 10.5.5 "Leopard" had strong performance leads over Canonical's Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" in the OpenGL performance with the integrated Intel graphics, disk benchmarking, and SQLite database in particular. Ubuntu on the other hand was leading in the compilation and BYTE Unix Benchmark. In the audio/video encoding and PHP XML tests the margins were smaller and no definitive leader had emerged. With the Java environment, Sunflow and Bork were faster in Mac OS X, but the Intrepid Ibex in SciMark 2 attacked the Leopard. These results though were all from an Apple Mac Mini.
Also worth mentioning are the collection of posts from the last thread that convincingly argued various problems with the Phoronix Benchmarks.
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3
Speed tests are good, let's make sure we're doing them right
If they exist, and they protest the more vocal members of their group who create the basis for these stereotypes, then it would be in their interest to speak out about their disapproval of those members in equally vocal terms instead of being this 'quite faithful' you have termed them to be. Yes, maybe I should be looking for them, but they should help me find them.
If you are looking at it as a way of directing blame then you are correct.
However, in your statement lies another argument: Those who voted for Nader were effectively making a choice to put someone into power even farther out of agreement with their values than the Democratic candidate.
Thank you for admitting your curiosity. I was concerned you were embarrassed about your interest, but I can see now you are comfortable sharing your desire to learn. Kudos to you, I hope your shining example will encourage others to step forward.
Slashdot Mirror
I still don't understand apparently.
I think you might be getting caught up on the term 'badness-level'. Ratings don't necessarilly tell if you if something is 'bad'. In the case of the MPAA rating system, it tells you what approximate maturity level you'd probably want to be in order to deal with the possible objectionableness of the content. In addition, if you are using something like the TV ratings system, you'll get cues for what type of objectionable content you'll be witnessing, based on categories like Graphic Violence, Sexual Content, Vulgarity, etc. It is a gross simplification of the rating system to claim all rating systems are rating things based on 'badness'. If you like Mature content, then for you the rating system would be inverted to rate goodness.
Of course people disagree as to what they find objectionable. That's why a duality system of ban vs. allow is bad. If you allow all content but then rate the content to give people cues as to what is contained, then they can avoid content that could be potentially objectionable to them.
I will admit rating systems are not perfect. I only brought up the movie rating system as an example of a better form of censorship than outright banning, because it is less Black and White. I discuss that in very simple terms in this comment. In addition, I didn't propose using the MPAA's system on Facebook. Though I didn't specify any specific system for rating, what I imagine is a system where the users could rate objectionable material themselves, as this commenter suggested. Regardless of the rating system, though, I did say that the user would control the threshold for what material gets displayed to them. Therefore, even if Facebook did the ratings, the user could still completely circumvent them.
You are right in the latter part; they are a private company, and they can take my suggestion or not as they see fit. As a consumer of their services though, it is my place and right to voice my opinion. And it is in their business interest to listen to their users. Facebook makes money by selling companies the privilege to advertise to people on its site. If Facebook can better foster the community of Nursing Mothers and Mothers in general, then they will sell more ads to those companies targeting that group. More effective censorship policies will allow this group to share pictures more easily and make them more likely to use Facebook. In this sense, by voicing this complaint instead of just running to another company, these women are doing Facebook a favor.
You can actually. That statement is false, it isn't Black and White. Further, The FCC is becoming increasingly irrelevant as more broadcasts and viewers move to Cable television and the Internet, which they can't regulate (yet).
What I would ask is how do you feel about the US TV Rating system?
Rating systems like what the Movie Industry uses are more gray than this Facebook policy. Facebook either allows a photo (white) or doesn't (black).
The MPAA and ERSB have ranges. The MPAA, for instance, has G (white), PG (light gray), PG13 (gray), R(dark gray), etc.
In fact, they work with your last point: these are gradients of offensiveness and do at least a better job of informing people that they can choose not to "view next movie". In that way, the powers that be give individuals the freedom to censor themselves. That being said, I am perfectly aware that Rating Systems can often be abused in the name of censorship. But they're better than the alternative of outright banning.
Along with the sibling post by AC, some people might disagree.
I didn't say they didn't have the right to ban things. I said that a problem with that policy is it doesn't take into account gray areas, such non-offensive nudity, which for a lot of people includes breast exposed during nursing. What happens if I want my Facebook photo to be Venus De Milo?
The problem is simple - Facebook has a black and white policy for censorship, when censorship is a gray area. That's why you have various ratings for movies and video games. The article hints at changing culture to accept the pictures. There is a technological/social solution besides forcing acceptance - a rating system for objectionableness and the ability for an individual user to set what level of objectionableness they are willing to tolerate. The article offers another solution at the end:
I judge all my browsers on Acid; my scorecard is a a blur of dinosaurs dancing, blue e's laughing, and JZW laughing at me. And I'm eating a lot of delicious delicacies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milliard is what it is. Not a noob question. And if you hadn't asked, I wouldn't have found this sweet item to give to my grandpa: http://www.amazon.com/Millard-Fillmore-Mouse-Pad/dp/B0013E3QB2
http://www.amazon.com/Millard-Fillmore-Mouse-Pad/dp/B0013E3QB2
I defer to the Killers on this:
My last sentence was phrased poorly, and I really shouldn't have tried humoring the analogy because it's not really applicable here at all (though my analogy is more applicable). This is not the same as an instantaneous crime.
I agree. I am not voicing a "you can't defend yourself or stop a crime in progress, that's the police's job" mentality.
But the point here is that the Federal Authorities, who can't be everywhere at once, should have noticed when a bunch of industry professionals were pointing "look over here". You could argue the industry professionals (in this case the citizens on the sidelines) could have intervened, but if they don't that does not exempt the government from doing its job. I'd like to see the SCOTUS case (feel free to message me), but I doubt it says anything about the cops not being obligated to stop a crime that is in progress, or that government agencies in charge of monitoring cyber crime shouldn't do their jobs.
I agree with your sentiment, but the point is citizens (security researchers) were already informing the authorities by speaking publicly about this problem. This would be more akin to you seeing a man getting beat by another man, informing a cop around the block, the cop doing nothing, and then you and your fellow citizens stopping the abuse. Why is it your responsibility to do what the cop should be authorized to do?
I'd agree, but I don't think this is a matter of "keeping things in check". This is a matter of information about crimes being publicly available and the authorities responsible for those crimes failing to act to stop them. There may be reasons they didn't stop them, but given the scope of the crimes committed and the length of time security researcher's claim to have been talking about these issues, it would appear those reasons won't stand up under scrutiny.
I certainly hope The Washingto Post doesn't have to do the job of the Federal Authorities in the future.
I think this quote down on the third page was probably the best, from a Trend Micro researcher (emphasis mine):
Also worth mentioning are the collection of posts from the last thread that convincingly argued various problems with the Phoronix Benchmarks.
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Speed tests are good, let's make sure we're doing them right
If they exist, and they protest the more vocal members of their group who create the basis for these stereotypes, then it would be in their interest to speak out about their disapproval of those members in equally vocal terms instead of being this 'quite faithful' you have termed them to be. Yes, maybe I should be looking for them, but they should help me find them.
It's worth noting that's where the character currently is in the comic.
http://dir.salon.com/topics/berkeley_breathed/
Maybe they should work out the typos fist.
Not the fact that Gstreamer doesn't support DVD Menus?
(Which, in all fairness, is fixed, hopefully for the next Ubuntu release: http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2008/08/04/gstreamer-dvd-support/)
You mean this icon?
How can I say you must be new here when your uid is lower than mine by more than half a million?
If you are looking at it as a way of directing blame then you are correct.
However, in your statement lies another argument: Those who voted for Nader were effectively making a choice to put someone into power even farther out of agreement with their values than the Democratic candidate.
I admit I was curious to see.
Thank you for admitting your curiosity. I was concerned you were embarrassed about your interest, but I can see now you are comfortable sharing your desire to learn. Kudos to you, I hope your shining example will encourage others to step forward.