Internet Firms Launch New Web Rating System 225
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?"
not too bad (Score:1)
Bunch of CRAP (Score:2)
Re:Bunch of CRAP (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bunch of CRAP (Score:1)
How many people even use these ratings?
Porn sites? No way! (Score:2)
Re:Porn sites? No way! (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, the worse rating they have, the better they can say their content is. Look we have a XXX rating, the nastiest stuff on the net!
Re:Porn sites? No way! (Score:2)
Actually, bandwidth is usually much cheaper for us, since we buy it in bulk, and we're a lot more competitive than the non-adult ISP's.
And, there actually IS a benefit from having non-credit card holding people come in. There is plenty of money to be made on a per-impression and per-click basis. And, higher traffic often boosts a site's listing at another page, garnering it even more traffic. So really, no. Any traffic is good traffic. Porn webmasters are not going to purposely turn away ANY traffic, thus, this ratings system will fall just as flat as other previous ones. The only thing that DOES work are those NetNanny-type programs.
I can see it now... (Score:1)
Nah, actually it'll have to be implemented through
hehe (Score:2, Insightful)
The other thing is: it's a voluntary rating system. What's to say babylonX or whatever else you're visiting just says screw-it and posts the porn without rating it? You can't block every website that doesn't have a rating, since that'd block waay too much of the web out.
And even if they can get around those hurdles, there'll be web-based proxy services set up to strip the pages of their ratings, or mask the ratings.
Nope. Not gonna happen. Never work. Nice thought, though.
So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:3, Funny)
Guess it depends on what threshold you have:
-1 = XXX
0 = X
1 = R
2+ = PG-13
From a teaching point of view...... (Score:3, Interesting)
The point here?
I don't think you can rely solely on the industry to do it themselves. Especially where money is involved. Like a classroom there are mostly the good students who take it seriously, but I can tell you from experience that it only takes a few bad ones and an opportunity to corrupt the rest.
Ok.. Self regulating.. so that means.. (Score:1)
Doesn't sound too useful (Score:1)
Great idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Self-imposed rating systems have generally worked fairly well, with the bonus that they keep Congress off of the entertanment industry's backs.
Think about the Motion Picture Ratings Board. They're completely self-created. They rate the movies according to their standards. The movie theaters voluntarily choose whether they want to carry an NC-17 or Unrated film, and all goes well. As far as I know, the under 17 w/o parent at an 'R'-rated movie isn't a law, it's just something the theaters choose to follow.
Ditto for the ESRB (the guys that handle videogames). Completely voluntary, but it helps parents make a decision. I'd rather have 'M' slapped on the front of some Zombie game than Congress telling me there will be no zombie game.
I could see this working very well for Website rating. A simple HTML extension ([rating="13"]) could be picked up by the browser, and displayed/not displayed accordingly. Simple enough. And the pr0n sites can go on to advertise "Super XXX pr0n... there isn't a rating on the books bad enough for this stuff!!"
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
I, for one, have seen plenty of Unrated films at theaters. It's just not at AMC-type super mega-plexes (think Yahoo, Go.com, etc.). It's always been at the local "arthouse" cinema (think the small-time website that earns maybe 1,000 to 5,000 hits in a month). Sure, those small-time film makers rarely earn Lucas or Michael Bay make, but their stuff DOES get shown.
And really, haven't all the major websites pretty much dumped "adult" material altogether (with the exception of maybe pulling them up in a search)?
Re:Well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great idea (Score:1)
Re:Great idea (Score:1)
Self-imposed rating systems have generally worked fairly well, with the bonus that they keep Congress off of the entertanment industry's backs.
Think about the Motion Picture Ratings Board. They're completely self-created. They rate the movies according to their standards. The movie theaters voluntarily choose whether they want to carry an NC-17 or Unrated film, and all goes well. As far as I know, the under 17 w/o parent at an 'R'-rated movie isn't a law, it's just something the theaters choose to follow.
I cannot believe that you are putting forward the Motion Pictures Ratings Board as a desirable rating system. If a movie is not rated R or higher, it will never have a chance of being a commercial success because very very few theaters will carry unrated films or those rated NC-17 or lower., and therefore is unlikely to ever be produced in the first place. I find the results of forcing the vast majority of films to censor themselves, at least enough to get a coveted R rating to be very bland, indeed. Don't you?
People should scrap the one-size-fits-all rating systems, whether regulated by law or by a commercial oligarchy, and rely on reviews by trusted critics instead. Movie theaters can set their own age policies for the movies they show.
Re:Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Great idea (Score:2)
Re:Great idea (Score:2)
I think the fact that we got the uncut version is actually because we are more restrictive than you in some ways. Because hardcore porn isn't anything like as available as in the US (or at least some bits of it, I know community standards vary), an 18-rated film here is expected to be mainstream, not porn, so there's no need to avoid it for a movie with an adult target audience. Some of them are cut to be R rated in the US, some of them are R rated in the US but 18 here for the same version.
So your 17-years olds can see things ours aren't allowed to, and your adults can see things ours aren't allowed to, although your adults have to put up with other things being toned down because your 17-years olds are also allowed to see them.
British Board of Film Classification http://www.bbfc.co.uk.
Re:Great idea (Score:2)
Self-rating on the web will have the same effect. Serious content and art will become unavailable to the unwashed masses. The power of the web is that anyone can be his own publisher, and works as a media outlet that is not available elsewhere.
The self-rating will not eliminate this outlet, but reduces the audience. AOL, MSN is the Walmart in this system.
I doubt there is anything one can do with this trend, though. Everybody hates Walmart, but it's still growing like a cancer. AOL, MSN will work the same way.
It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:2)
I produce content for a couple of dozen low volume pages that, in aggregate, form an on-line magazine for historical handicrafts. Each new article is a new URL.
I've tried to use these rating systems in the past, but each one comes "tied" to a specific URL, and the process needed to create the magic HTML that the filter uses is slow and cumbersome.
I've spent a lot of effort streamlining my content production process... and I'm not happy with the prospect of having to jump through hoops every time I create a new URL with new content just so that my content doesn't get filtered out by paranoid parents.
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:3, Informative)
So it would be very easy for me to add a uniform ratings tag to each and every page. You might want to consider such a system, it's easy to implement on most machines and really saves time when you need to do changes-- or even redesign the site.
You do raise a very good point, though-- what if each article you publish may have a different rating than 'the default'.
Does 1 article about sex mean the entire site is R-rated, or does per-article blocking take effect? I can see front pages that are (of course) 'G' rates even when the content is 'X'-- naturally a visitor to that site will obey the filtering of the lower pages.
So a child seeing the 'G' cover for "House of Goatsex" will no doubt say "oops, no need to alter the filter, I didn't want to go deeper" [err, bad choice of words there, but you get my meaning]
So will it be per-site or per-page? If per-page, you get the 'lure' factor above. If per-site, how do you rate geocities.com?
Ah, rating is always sticky.
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:2)
How about
This website has been rated:
| C | Craptacular - Not suitable for anyone.
Porn sites won't list themselves as kid friendly.. (Score:1)
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:1)
you:
But, aha, rating incorrectly will have to be made a crime, else those illegal pornographers will rate themselves as 'kid-friendly', dontchaknowit.
the article:
operators would rate their Web sites by filling out an online form listing types of objectionable material, such as drug promotion, gambling or particular forms of nudity.
you:
After all, if there isn't a _law_ forcing honest ratings, who can trust the ratings? They'll fail otherwise.
yup, no one pays any attention to sending their kids to R rated movies. okay, bad example... but it is not because they don't trust the ratings, but because they simply do not care. similar case here, rate the sites all you want, parents just don't care that much.
how about instead of making it a law (is there a law about movie ratings? i don't think so... it is a 'panel') why not have this form be submitted, and reviewed by such a 'panel', like with movies?
problem: there are only what, billions of web sites, most of them porn.
talk about a weird job.
"What do you do?"
"I review the level of depravation of porn sites. I spend 8 hours a day checking lists with items like 'beastiality?', 'homosexuality?', 'goats'. They pay me for this."
image thousands of such employees. imagine them all living in your neighborhood.
<sarcasm>
you are right. maybe they should make a law against kids under 18 looking at porn.
</sarcasm>
anyway...
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:2)
As far as illegal porn sites go (which pretty much means kiddie porn), I doubt they'll undergo ANY rating process unless it is completely involuntary and out of their hands. The last thing they want to do is draw scrutiny from the wrong people.
In any case, I think it's grossly unlikely that the Big Three (MSN, AOL, Yahoo) will use a voluntary rating system to the exclusion of other methods, when voluntary rating systems have been demonstrated to work so badly. There is probably going to be some other kind of technology involved. Web sites ain't motion pictures; anyone can throw one up in an hour. Checking them to make sure that they're all rated properly is very labor intensive and requires a hell of a lot of pairs of human eyes. It's also boring work, and it does very bad things to your mind. So it's probable that AOL will have to use more of those AIs of theirs.
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:2)
How can you paint such a broad stroke across all porn sites. Sure the commericial porn sites want to be found by adults who are likely to have a credit card, but what about a porn site that is set up by a teenager? When I was 16, I had set up a program that would pull porn off of usenet and gave all my friends access. There was one BBS I remember run by another 16 year old that had a healthy porn trading section available to the trusted. If I had a 24/7 connection and http was in public release with an Amiga server (this was 1993), then I probably would have put up a porn site. Hell, if I had my own phone line I would have had a BBS.
There are many free porn sites out there by people who just like and wnat to share porn. One file sharing site I go to often has porn posted to it (although the majority is other files). It's not a commercial site at all. How do you get it to comply to the rating system? If they rate themselves as porn, the teens can't go there, and if they don't rate themselves, maybe they will be blocked. What is the motivation to opt in to a true rating?
Re:It'll kill small sites through litigation (Score:2)
Right now the web is unrated, so if nothing gets through a ratings-based filter, then a censorware author would be shooting himself in the foot to write such a filter because it would block everything and no one would use it. Conversely, if no one used ratings-based filters (or more likely, they were used only in markets that most websites don't care about) then websites would have no reason to rate themselves.
Re:Why Pornsites Won't List Themselves As Kidfrien (Score:2)
It is fairly easy to design a script to change your rating based on who is looking. joe user (who might be a kid) gets a general content rating, but everyone from a search engine, .gov, or other investigating domain gets a pron rating.
I think most /. readers can figgure out how to do this. Of course like most filtering systems it won't work perfectly, you will always give someone the wrong rating, but it will be done, you can count on it.
Government restrictions? (Score:2)
Kind of like quality MPAA movie ratings. My friend's Mormon church uses the MPAA rating system as the deciding factor about whether they should see movies or not (don't see R rated movies or worse). The MPAA quality obviously is fair and legit because small-budget movies such as Run Lola Run get an R rating for NO nudity and little violence, while big budget movies are rated PG-13 for tons of violence and/or sexual innuendos.
Allowing companies to maintain their own opt-out privacy standards (in lieu of government regulation) is obviously a good choice. We all opt for opt-out rather than opt-in (I don't remember opting for that decision at all). And when their databases of customer information get hacked it is better for the consumer.
Let's not forget the RIAAs music ratings system. It's so effective in liue of goverment regulation that I often get CDs with no sticker on them that contain tons of swearing (for less known bands) and I see little stickers on albums such as Liz Phair who only swear in 1 or 2 songs. This is better for me because I can peel off the stickers and stick them on my l337 computer speakers.
By the way, this post if very sarcastic and it makes damn little sense.
Re:Government restrictions? (Score:1)
On the other hand, I will watch The Matrix and other good R-rated movies that just simply aren't meant to be watched by a younger audience.
Re:Government restrictions? (Score:2)
What your friend's Mormon church is doing wrong is that they are believing the opinion of someone else, who doesn't share their values, instead of finding a rater/reviewer who matches their particular tastes. If they start relying on the government instead of the MPAA, they are still going to have exactly the same problem.
The problem isn't the MPAA, the RIAA, or the government. It's people's sheeplike and lazy behavior and unwillingness to take responsibility for things that are important to them. Government regulation cannot fix this. But lack of government regulation at least has the potential to scare people into fixing it themselves.
Even a megacorp's corruption-distorted rating system, is better than once that is backed up by government force. Neither one will ever make any sense, so I would rather if the government were satisfied with the one that people are allowed to ignore. If these guys can distract the government from regulating the web, I'm for it.
Re: what Mormon church is doing is wrong... (Score:2)
I'm not criticizing the church's recommendation to its people that they avoid movies that contain these "poisonous" elements. I called the chuch wrong because of their faith in MPAA: that R-rated movies really must have the "poisons" that you mentioned and that the G-rated movies do not. The Mormons are being far too trusting. (And IMHO, blatantly misplaced trust is a form of irresponsibility.) Instead of making recommendations to their people based on MPAA ratings, they should be making them based on LDS ratings, where someone who understands LDS values actually watches the movies and makes a judgement call. This isn't the same thing, unless the MPAA ratings board happens to be filled with Mormons.
For example.. well, I don't know if LDA is anti-biology or just anti-degradation, but for the sake of the argument, I'll hypothesize they're just anti-degradation. Let's say a movie happens to show a booby, but there's no hint degradation involved. Heck, let's hypothesize a movie that has completely naked people with full frontal nudity, but in a plot that is otherwise completely free of anything degrading, desensitizing, or hateful. (A movie that tells a story from "The Book of Genesis" might very conceivably be like that, do you agree?) The movie would probably get an R. Likewise, Disney could easily, if they wish, inject some hidden racist hatred (or, according to certain urban legends, phallus symbols, etc) that isn't immediately apparent to MPAA ratings board (or that the board would choose to ignore in exchange for some sort of compensation), and get a G.
That's why the LDS church is wrong. I can't make good arguments against their faith in God, but anyone can trivially blow away their faith in Man.
And their mistake is the same mistake everyone's making: that it's even possible to have a centralized rating authority that makes sense for everyone. It only works if the population is homogenious. And yet, any government regulation will necessarily result in centralization of some kind. It always does.
Needs integration to succeed (Score:3, Interesting)
As long as you need to download a list, too many people will be too lazy to do it, or just not computer literate enough to realize that they *can* download a list.
Then again, I wonder what percentage of users 1) know that their browser has security settings and 2) how to set them.
hmm (Score:1)
drug promotion... (Score:1)
So would the handy-information-laden, 'independant' websites of pharmaceutical companies have to be black listed as well?
NIH? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only mention that could possibly be of PICS is the following:
Which is so vague as to be useless. And the exclusion of any mention of the existing voluntary granular filtering system makes me wonder why they're scared of comparing themselves to it. Also I'd like to find out how this new "standard" is more specific.
Self-Imposed Standards come and go (Score:3, Interesting)
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, if you can't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat it.
More Detailed Ratings! (Score:2)
I mean, I don't want to start looking at a site rated NC-17 just to find out it's because of language and not porn.
Now, compiling the low down on a site including number of nipples, instances of the word 'shit', rape scenes, suicides, etc will really help me sort out the more entertaining sites from the average plain janes of the web with a glance. I can imagine a feature in my web browser to warn me if a site doesn't have enough profanity, violence or sex... my goodness that would help me avoid all the boring content out there.
Oh wait, they probably want this for child filters or something of that nature.
Still, my definition of "profane" is probably different from everyone elses, so I can imagine allowing a child to view all the violence they want without any of the sex (or vice-versa for those across the pond).
Other Countries... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why? Because other country's people get a say in how it will be rating websites. I've found that the USA's rating system is MUCH more prudent than those of other countries. Case in point: 14A ratings in Canada vs R in the USA for the same movie.
Yes and no (Score:2)
Australia's rating system, for example, is less prudent than that of the US (e.g. South Park is MA rather than R). The drawback is that other countried tend to have non-voluntary ratings with government-mandated restrictions.
In Australia, for example, R material must not be sold to minors no matter who accompanies them. This is the law, not the policy of theatres. In addition, sale of material which is unrated or "refused classification" is illegal in all states. Not in territories like the ACT (our equivalent of DC), though, so you can still get it via mail order thanks to the interstate commerce clause.
Re:Yes and no (Score:2)
MA means nobody under 15 can buy or watch unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. Below MA there is no legal restriction. The full details are available [oflc.gov.au] if you're curious.
IMO the best feature about the Australian ratings system is "consumer advice". Anything rated over G for video and over PG for film or television must be accompanied by the reasons why it got that rating. So the South Park film is actually rated "MA; high level coarse language, sexual references". Particularly useful is the consumer advice "adult themes". That covers themes like marital breakup, suicidal feelings, racial prejudice and so on. These are themes which younger children may not be able to understand or which may require parental assistance in understanding. As I've said before, I don't mind my daughter (eventually; she's not even 2 yet) seeing nudity, but I'd be careful about letting her see depictions of racial hate groups before she's ready to understand it.
Yup, the ACT is a piece of federal land about half-way between Sydney and Melbourne, entirely surrounded by NSW. (Slight fudge: I think that the Jervis Bay naval base might technically be ACT land, but don't hold me to that.)
Yet Another Censorship Plan... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Yet Another Censorship Plan... (Score:3, Interesting)
No one is telling sites that might not be meeting 'high ethical standards' to go away, nor is the group pushing that filtering MUST be made available in the browser or that everyone had to install a filter.
Instead, they want a way to rate sites (as rated by the site owner, not a third party) such that those that would *LIKE* to install filters have a more informed choice as to what the filters will block, instead of relying on closed filter lists made up by another company. And as I have read it, there will be both exclusionary filters (don't visit sites that have certain ratings), as well as inclusionary filters (visit sites that ONLY have certain ratings), and that these filters can be piggy-backed onto each other to give those that would want to use filters a selection to choose from.
But since *you* don't feel like using filters, then you'll still be able to go to any site you want, and they will still be able to deliver the content they have to you.
So where is the censorship???
Will libraries (already very opposed to closed-list filters) accept this? Maybe; but certainly making sure that their cliental understand filters are not perfect and that because it is self-rated, some sites might slip through. But this will give libraries better options to have filtered computers in the kids section, and unfiltered ones for adults to use.
In addition, the ratings are more detailed that than of TV (which in turn are more detailed than that of movies). Is a reference on a page to sexual reproduction in the context of health, or in the context of erotica? That will be covered by the ratings, so that those pages that felt they were unfairly on filters blacklists before know that they can specify their content more exactly.
There is no censorship here. Given that nearly every part of this plan is volentary with no force of law behind it, I cannot see any connection.
Re:This is a rehash of PICS (Score:2)
The problem with PICS is that it was politically naive. Jim Miller, the guy driving the scheme at W3C just did not understnd what he was up to. Several others at W3C did and did not like it.
The idiotic part of PICS was the idea of inserting W3C into the pitched battle between the pro and anti CDA forces. Its a bit like trying to mediate a compromise for the abortion debate. The pro-CDA people did not give a hoot about protecting children. They wanted from start to finish to control what adults could read.
The idea of the 'anyone can be a censor' scheme was to be a wrecking ammendment, I know, I invented it. The religious right lost all interest in promoting PICS the minute they realised it could not give them what they wanted - the ability to ram their morality down the throat of the rest of society.
PICS could have gained wide support in the 'adult entertainment' industry. In Germany there is a body (GUPTA?) that rates hard core porn so that punters buying it know they are getting the real hard core explicit stuff they want.
Whst killed PICS was the coertion by Congress. As soon as they passed the CDA the debate was polarized and passed to the courts where the congress was bound to lose. Adult sites were not going to rate their sites because to do so would be seen as supporting the enemy.
Absent the threat that X-Rated sites would be cut off completely most providers would rate since the ratings would give the search engines the ability to drive customers to their sites.
In the recent W3C architecture slides 'PICS' appears as an 'obsolete' technology that W3C is moving away from. The intention appears to be to move to RDF.
The article just does not give enough info to guess what the technical base would be. It would be stupid to try and roll out a labelling scheme that required the deployment of a whole new generation of browsers. I can't see the need.
What is likely however that this attempt is based on the idea of building a partition of the Web that is designed for and targetted at children rather than trying to reduce the entire Web to a child's level.
Is this different then www.rasc.org? (Score:1)
The US goverment should stay out but this self rating stuff is a joke.
This is GREAT! (Score:2, Funny)
"Lack of censorship" is a public good (Score:2)
I hate to say it, but government regulation is the best way to go. At the very least, porn sites in the U.S. should be compelled by law to disclose that they have potentially objectionable content on them. Perhaps some DMCA-like law should be used: force the upstream ISP or web hosting service to take the page or site offline if it is in violation of the labelling law.
Ratings systems don't hurt freedom of speech - they just help classify the speech for the end-user. Imagine if every spam message were required to have a special identifying header - wouldn't that be great? That's how Ralph Reed and friends feel about porn sites right now. Well, since every telemarketing caller needs to identify itself as such (for example), this change in the law wouldn't be a big leap but it would stop the censors dead in their tracks.
-CT
Re:"Lack of censorship" is a public good (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:"Lack of censorship" is a public good (Score:1)
If they could make it harder for minors to visit their site, they would save lots of money in bandwidth. That's why adult site operators are supporters of filters.
Isn't this just "PICS" reincarnate? (Score:2)
--Robert
Ratings system = Censorship? (Score:1)
WHO fills out the forms (Score:1)
Just my $0.02 worth
RSAC (Score:3, Insightful)
The article says it's just a re-hashed version of something that's been around for a while, and by that I assume they are referring to RSAC [rsac.org].
I don't see anything wrong with this. It's NOT censorship. TV programs have to label their content. Sure it's cryptic (quick, what's TV MPVD got in it?), but it doesn't stop people who don't care from watching the program. If something like RSAC became the standard for rating, it wouldn't stop people from viewing porn either. It would be the internet equivalent of labeling.
We already expect labeling for TV programs and food, why not on-line content? The only real problem I have with it is that it's a hassle for small web-sites, which is why I expect these systems haven't caught on too well. I mean, as a general rule I don't have "trash" on my site, but if I feel the need to post frontal nudity to make a point about something, or say "fuck" somwhere, I don't want to have to worry about losing my content rating.
So for me, the choice is "be on gaurd all the time" or "not care about content rating". So far, the former has been the more appealing choice and I expect it's like that for most people.
What they need is a category for sites where the content is "not for children" but on the other hand is "not catering strictly to the prurient interest". In other words, simple categories like G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X, XX, XXX and XP (the P stands for Puke). RSAC is just too complicated; it tries to do "fine grained" content filtering.
Of course another big problem with all this is that there is simply too much content on the net. It's one thing for volunteers to rate movies and TV; there are only so many hours of it per year. Rating the net would just take way too long. So, we are left either with people rating their own stuff, or companies trying to rate it. Everybody has their own opinion about where the cut-off for a particular rating is, so there is no way to trust the rating. Even if there were, you can't put any legal teeth to it because content providers would have to open themselves up for a law suit. So, the content provider is still going to choose "not rated" as their rating.
The bottom line? Teach your children well; and let them live in fear of the librarian seeing something over their shoulder, just like we lived in fear of the teacher finding our stash.
Re:RSAC (Score:2)
How would you rate a mailing list or newsgroup archive? Or slashdot?
Just curious.
Re:RSAC (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot is the perfect example of why ratings systems don't work. You can't really rate Slashdot. You'd have to rate individual posts. After all, each post is under the editorial control of the poster, not Slashdot. In a sense, Slashdot is a tiny little internet, and it already has its own form of filtering--moderation.
Of course unlike with a filter, Slashdot does not provide any way for the "parent" to keep the "child" from reading posts that have been moderated down. Many would argue that filters don't either. :)
However, if you backed me into a corner and forced me to rate Slashdot, I'd give it a PG. That's because it's not a "kiddy" site. It sometimes displays or links to material that ought to be in a more restricted category, but such material is almost always moderated down. In fact, Slashdot may actually teach a valuable lesson in that regard. The young reader probably develops some sense of what the community at large considers acceptable. Of course you can *link* to anything and presumeably rating on the other site would take care of it.
I guess, now that I think about it, the analogy to use is walking through the neighborhood. You don't keep your kid from going to the store because he might hear a stranger use dirty words. So, if the express purpose of the mailing list, newsgroup, or weblog is PG in nature, then it should be rated PG even though people sometimes abuse it.
And yes, that doesn't keep kids from using the group to exchange porn, just as they couldn't keep us from accessing some parent's stash "back in the day". So, to reiterate... ratings are just not very practical, which is why I don't like them... but they help us to maintain a certain fiction... which in strict logical terms is useless, but it probably serves a social function. After all, wasn't part of the thrill knowing you were doing something bad?
Kill two birds with one stone (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Kill two birds with one stone (Score:1)
heh
Re:Kill two birds with one stone (Score:2)
There are other issues with new content specific TLDs, especially ones that could be used to easily defame their
some issues with this... (Score:1)
I have several problems with this, and they are not new or novel:
- Parents know less about the computers than the kids
- This is likely to be a Windows-only program, and most likely an IE-only program (I know, serious FUD alert, but who are we kidding here).
- Like 99% of porn sites CARE if they are filtered because they do not rate themselves (the article mentioned blocking all sites which do not provide ratings).
- Yet ANOTHER centralized, run by the big corporations 'standard' - one which is free for now, but absolutely no guarantee to play fair later. Wanna be on the web? Pay $$$ per year to our new 'Rating Compliance' group or you will be on the black list, baby!
anyway...My concerns (Score:2)
The more people that go along and adopt this, the more of a "standard" it will become. I'm afraid other non compliant sights, will be forced to either rate themselves, or loss exposure.
It also concerns me as to what the cumulative effect on more risqué sites is, as they may try to tone down potentially objectionable content to pass through the filters
It's gotta work... (Score:2, Insightful)
Information (Score:2)
We all didn't see our first dirty picture at 18, we saw it when we became so interested in it, that we hunted it. Want to prevent people from not sharing sound and video, or have control of who accesses it: never have it to begin with.
A secret best kept is known by only one.
Drawing the line (Score:1)
How much of the web do you want your kids to see? Are you concerned about hate, but not about porn? What rating level do you think counts as objectionable? Draw your own line, for your own kids.
Here's My Rating System Contribution... (Score:2)
Stick that in your pipe and grep it!
I have the solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Uncertified ISP's could be banned from serving dns for
No one says I have to opt in to the
Make it expensive for business to get a
It's not censorship, no one has to do it. If I illegaly serve
you could even make it based one
And best of all..... I still get to look at porn.
G
Re:I have the solution (Score:2)
Re:I have the solution (Score:2)
Your plan has holes I could throw a cat through. redirecters get in trouble with who? What if I'm serving my 'dirty' content from Malasaya?
What if I post family photos from my trip to a nude beach on the French Riveara? Does your kids group censor this? People in France certainly won't find it objectionable.
Who gets to be in the kids group? Pentacostal ministers who find images of Catholic Saints 'blasphemous' and inappropriate for kids? What body picks it's members? and who picks them? Where does the power REALLY flow from?
The judgements are SO subjective, it immediately renders any division of the net based on content completely pointless. When you add in the fact that the rest of the world also has net access, it just ends up downright stupid.
Any censoring body that does not derive its power from the Congress is by default illegitemate and illegal. Congress can never set up a censoring body because the people will never allow it, and it's prevented by the Constitution. The technology prevents any attempt from being even marginally successful. The judgements are too subjective and impossible to implement uniformly across the world.
In short, it's hopeless. Give up on technology and start being a parent.
Re:I have the solution (Score:2)
The
I want my daughter to be able to explore and stumble across new and interesting concepts...
If I direct her searches and surfing habits then I'm going to fall into a patern that creates a little clone of myself not an educated and interesting person who follows her own path and learns what she wants to learn.
I. also, am a parent of three, and my eldest, a girl, is 6. Now think about this:
First, what you're actually saying isn't that you want your daughter to be a free-thinking independent person, but that you want your daughter to be restricted to a tiny subset of the net with extremely homogenous content deemed 'safe' by a standards body which has no reason to heed your input. She won't be stumbling across any new or interesting concepts in your
.clean would have to block access to all of DejaNews, which effectively censors a third of all the useful commentary and info on the net. Otherwise, the system would devolve into the same old broken censorware we've seen fail to screen usenet properly. In the end,
Now, your ideas about what's safe for your daughter are certainly different from mine, and they would without a doubt be different from the
You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either you monitor her, or you risk a trip to goatse.cx, or you effectively censor he rin exactly the way you were trying to avoid by not monitoring her.
Incedentally, what you're really advocating here is (at the bottom of that nasty slippery slope) is fragmentation of the most severe kind for the net, with every interest group setting up the sort of walled garden for their content that killed off prodigy and Compu$erve. It's the eventual de-linking of the web, perhaps damaging it permanently in the process, or else it's a poor idea that withers away in the face ot the true free flow of information, even the most objectionable kind. What I'd imagine might happen: every interest group starts restricting content into their own TLD, and if you want to find anything, you have to either go to one of a hundred different search engines, or else find some meta-search bot that covers them all, which is for all intents and purposes the same thing we have now!
Also, as you probably know, you would be sorely taxed trying to turn your daughter into a clone of yourself. Short of hardcore brainwashing, there's little you could do to prevent her becoming her own person. She's going to learn a lot of what she wants regardless of your opinions on the matter. IMHO (and this is exactly what I'm doing with my three) there isn't a subject my kids should be afraid to ask me about. That gives me the opportunity to let them select the topic without also letting them run across goatse.cx. Hopefully that will continue.
Being a parent requires you to take a level of responsibility that many people aren't comfortable with, but regardless, there's no middle ground available. Either you're involved, or you're not. You can't put a technological or regulatory system in place that absolves you of your responsibility to teach what is appropriate when you think it's appropriate, however you might define it.
Finally, there's a HUGE difference between the Boy Scouts banning gay kids (perfectly constitutional, it's not a governmental ban) and allowing a regulatory body like ICANN (who's power flows from the Congress) appoint anyone to a position which allows them to screen access based on content. That's censorship, as would any attempt to restrict a public PC to the
Re:I have the solution (Score:2)
Also, certain groups might want to segment off areas of the net and prevent people from linking into those areas, as well as preventing webmasters from linking out into the wider net. That sort of idea is poison to the net in general. The Better Business Bureau is taking this approach, bringing legal action against non-BBB sanctioned companies who link into their website! I suppose a
Incedentally, wouldn't a webring that doesn't link outside the ring provide basically the same thing? At least as far as outbound links...
Regarding the censorship issue, I think I come from a slightly more 'old-school' viewpoint. IMO, the issue of whether or not we trust the govt. to regulate content is moot. The govt. isn't allowed to regulate content, no matter how much we citizens might want it to or how good an idea it might be. They have not been granted the Constitutional power to regulate any content, and in fact they have been, clearly and with much consideration, specifically prevented from doing so by the 1st amendment. Even if we desperately wanted to regulate assfuckmydonkey.com in a library, we'd need a constitutional amendment to legally make it happen.
Therefore, much as I might want the librarian to hit the power switch if she sees my kid typing goatse.cx, as an employee of the state or federal govt. she does not have the authority to do so. Neither can any group, association, or local/state/federal governing body in a public place. The ONLY stick they have to swing is the SCOTUS opinions on obscenity, in the narrowly defined legal sense, and on child porn because it's illegal to exploit children in that fashion. A library (or a school for that matter) could not restrict itself to
I found it an interesting irony that this quote appeared at the bottom of your message: Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick
You've got to take the good with the bad. Someone with the power to ban goatse.cx could also ban gayrights.com or wicca.org, hell.com, or even democrats.com.
I really know what you mean about that desire to be worry-free. I grew up in a very small town, and I was very frequently out after dark playing in the woods or whatever. In fact, I wished the same for my kids so much that, when I got the opportunity, I moved the whole family to Oranmore, Co. Galway, Ireland (pop: 3000). In a lot of ways, it's like being able to step into my own past while still bringing all the modern stuff along with me. I don't think the desire to not worry makes you lazy or bad, but I can't think of any effective way to protect your kids from the bad stuff except to pull up a chair and go exploring with them.
They are doing it all wrong (Score:2)
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of! If you are going to rate your own pages, you should rate them on the pages themselves. What's wrong with using Meta tags in the content itself? huH? Or even better yet, configure your server to add a special header. All that would need to be done then is agree upon the Meta tag info that filters would look for, etc.
It never ceases to amaze me the ridiculously complex sytems people come up with to solve simple problems. Sheesh.
Just my 2-1/2 cents.
Some good, some bad, but overall seems good. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I really don't know what to say here. For one thing, they mention it at the bottom of the article that this has been tried before but is not widely used. The reason it has not been widely used is because most people don't know about it. For example, people call in to MSN tech support wondering how to block sites and they are told to use Content Advisor which can be found in internet options under the tools menu or in the control panel. However AOL has put its content-blocking up-front in its interface because they felt it was an important option for their customers.
Now, if you think about this sytem, yes, people could lie about the content ratings. People could also rate themselves incorrectly because they don't think they are being objectionable. It's a very subjective thing. So I think for the most part this part of the system will fail because e.g. the author of a website advocating gay-rights may not find their content to be objectionable. And in reality, it really isn't unless they are describing a specific sexual act which I think the person rating the page would realize and rate it appropriately (one would hope). Note that the same would be true for a website describing any sexual act (homo/hetero/whatever you please).
The problem is that some parents want their kids to live in ignorance and like to cry that it should be legislated-- especially after watching the latest NBC/ABC/CNN/etc. report about the dangers of the internet.
So what intrigued me most was that the software would allow you to specify to receive blacklists from organizations that you trust. This is actually a really damn cool idea and I am surprised no-one thought of it before. That is, rather than by some prepackaged software with a prepackaged blacklist that may or may not follow what you want to allow your kids to see you can setup your software to point to several organizations that independently come up with blacklists.
On the software side of things it should be possible (and I would say desirable) to write free software which can utilize these lists (and I am speaking in the GNU sense of free software). This way you are absolutely certain that your program is not doing things it shouldn't be.
On the business side of things you can make money very easily simply by charging a very modest subscribtion fee for your blacklists. You can even create your blacklists by using other orgs blacklists. For example you could collect several blacklists from either non-profit or profit organizations (which presumably you may need to pay a license fee for) and then sell the easy collection of them as one master blacklist. You could even then allow parents to select which ones they would like to have combined into their personal blacklist.
Notice that this actually sounds like a real business model... i.e. charge people a recurring fee for a recurring service. Assuming the cost of creating the blacklists or licensing them from other orgs (i.e. your costs) are less than the total revenues you make from your subscribtions then using the basic profit=revenue-cost you make a profit. Go figure, an internet company making a profit.
This also has benefits as it creates a lot of competition. I.e. if your customers find out your blacklists are crappy and are blocking things they didn't ask for they will just go to one of your competitors. Creates incentive to actually run your business properly. This competition in turn is good for the economy. Damn, funny how when you think about it if everyone follows the basic rules of capitalism then everyone wins. Obviously this is a simplistic view of things but it does at least make sense (at least in my mind).
Feel free to beat me with a clue-stick (well, don't be that harsh, just post a reply) if you feel I or others would benefit from your opinion. That is to say if all you want to say is "censorship sucks" please go away. I hate censorship as much as the next guy, but the bottom line is that we need to make things as easy as possible for parents to control what their children view so the government doesn't step in and do it for us. And one can hope that the clued-in parents will say the hell with it, do what you want, if you don't know better it's your damn problem (that was my parents attitude). However note that very few parents would like their kids to see the goatse.cx pages and that is really what most parents want to prevent and why people are crying for filtering on the internet. If a self-rating system combined with blacklists from trusted organizations who provide open blacklists can do this without requiring government intervention then I am all for it.
Technophobe parents (Score:2)
"Kids, you need to help your parents. Show them how this software is installed. Show them how to set it up and how to select the preferred rating categories. Make your technophobe parents feel comfortable with this software. Then when they go to bed you can boot back into Linux."
Training a new generation of hackers (Score:2)
Hey Johnnie, if you crack the PICS system on the PC you can get to see all this P0rn.
The security on the system should be calibrated so that by the time the kid can bypass the controls they are ready for it.
It would be kinda self defeating though since the geeky kids who break the controls probably don't have girlfriends.
Re:Technophobe parents (Score:2)
Great. Does this mean we have to have an unconstitutional DMPA to go along with the unconstitutional DMCA?
Jeremi - Don't wonder too much (Score:2)
The Net != Corporate Entertainment (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see very large differences which distinguish these projects from something like an internet website, namely, (1) they're all done by a limited set of corporations, (2) they're all done expressly for profit, (3) they're basically all done in some class of retail outlets that can apply pressure on the manufacturers to comply or be ostracized.
Publishing on the web doesn't resemble these kinds of things, I think, even in the majority of cases to date. Anyone can publish a web site nowadays, and desire for as huge a customer base as possible is not a compelling motivation in a lot of cases.
I may be reaching, but I tend to think that the act of publishing on the web is more akin to sending a piece of postal mail, or using a photocopier to make some cheap posters or pamphlets. It's just too widespread, accessible, and low-impact for a lot of the practicioners to be concerned about being compliant with some categorization system for their website. There's no "website industry" as such to reach an agreement and take universal action in this regard, as there has been for the other self-rating programs which have to date succeeded.
Re:The Net != Corporate Entertainment (Score:2)
Yeah I had the same realization a while back. Those ratings are still there, it just got to the point where no on notices them, same as the little closed caption symbol at the beginning of most programs. I watched specifically for them after I realised that I didn't remember seeing them in a while. They made them more prominent when they first came out, full screen then shrinking into the corner, or large in the corner for a few seconds, now they are smallish.
"Adult content" (Score:3, Funny)
Re:"Adult content" (Score:2)
SEE BARELY-LEGAL GIRLS POSTULATE THEOREMS LIVE!!! Just $3.99 per minute!
Re:"Adult content" (Score:2)
ICRA, RSACi, it's been around for ages (Score:2)
Most sites have material that falls into multiple ICRA classifications, and labelling it all just isn't going to be feasible. And when I looked a few years back at Australian sites that tried to rate themselves, most had either failed technically or clearly mislabelled themselves.
Danny.
Why is porn always the issue? (Score:2, Insightful)
Were you created by violence or human sexual behavior?
Won't stop the AVSes. (Score:2)
I doubt much will change. I doubt most AVS sites use AVSes to avoid liability. Technically, you can still do that with a splash screen, an "I am not a kiddie" agreement, and OK and LEAVE buttons. The AVS system makes them money. And they probably wouldn't be as well listed if they weren't on the AVS bandwagon. Just talk to people who run pr0n sites about how much pressure they are under to run "AdultCheck" or one of its clones.
No, AVS and filterware are an industry racket that has little to do with avoiding legal liability, and everything to do with making money. I suppose a few sites might switch, but I doubt many will.
-Kasreyn
P.S. If you're wondering what my beef is with AVSes, it has to do with sites falsely advertising themselves as "free" (Piratemedia is a great example), AVSes charging 25 bucks and providing no service except extortion, and having to have a credit card (???) to prove I'm an adult.
Ratings = good, IF # of Raters many more than 1 (Score:2)
Rating systems can be very good, as they provide a short, distilled summary of the information contained in the thing rated. And face it, given the massive amounts of information available out there, everyone (not just kids) needs help sorting out what's valuable, and what's crap. We can't read it all - you have to depend on someone else's opinions. This is the way life works, you depend greatly on others opinions and summaries of material to make a judgement about it.
The problem isn't with a rating system per se, but rather with who controls the ratings (ie, who are the raters), and what criteria they use for rating content.
In a pluralistic society, the ideal way to form an opinion is to take input from several different sources. You trust (or weigh) the opinion from each source based on how closely that source has matched previous decisions of yours, plus knowledge of how closely that source's ideals, morals, et al fit yours. You can then make a good informed judgement.
What the web needs is multiple independent rating organizations. The ALCU should be able to rate things. So should the New York Times, the Christian Coalition, the Aryan Nation, the Nation of Islam, the American Medical Association, and anyone else. There should even be an organization that allows for the Web site owner to self-rate based on that organization's posted guidelines. The only two criteria for being a Rater should be that the rating criteria be published, and that the ratings of various sites be publicly displayed. I can thus chose to accept ratings data from any parties I consider trustworthy.
The PICS system was a great proposal, and honestly, one that I think needs to have a much greater push with it. It allowed for this independent ratings network to be set up, didn't require a single centralized ratings system, and was easily parsable by any "filtering" software. It even allowed for multiple ratings from different raters for the same site.
I want PICS. If we could get the system set up, and get everything rated, it would be a whole lot easier to find stuff out there. And it would leave the choice of making informed opinions where it belonged: in the user's hands, not in the government's, not some semi-legal ratings board, and not some random corporation.
-Erik
Why rating systems do not work... (Score:2)
Declan riding shotgun for anti-censorship (Score:2)
This is a GOOD idea (Score:2)
I want to give people the choice over what they want to see. It's all very well saying that we should not allow the government to censor free expression, but its another thing altogether to ram content down people's throats.
A self-regulated system, if people use it properly, is an excellent idea. I don't even mind being required to put ICRA tags in by law, if it goes that way. This way, I can deliver the content I want without restriction, and viewers get to choose if they want to see it or not, and parent get to choose if their kids should see it or not. No losers.
However, there's one danger. If sites use, or forced to use ICRA tags, then it makes it more attractive for governments to force users and/or ISPs to forcably block sites that display certain tags. Have a look at Australia: I'm sure they'd love for all these off-shore (eg, USA) sites to put in ICRA tags... it'll make the Censor's job that much easier.
NOT Proposed to Congress (Score:2)
Bob Corn-Revere was one of the speakers at the ICRA press event. He is the noted First Amendment lawyer who represented Playboy before the Supreme Court and helped establish the legal idea that tools -- like filters or like cable boxes that limit signal bleed -- available for voluntary use are a "less restrictive means" of protecting children from "harmful to minors" material than making the material illegal.
Bob particularly reminded the press and attendees that there is a tendency in Washington to think that if something is a good idea under some circumstances, it should be made mandatory -- like CIPA made filtering mandatory for schools & libraries taking certain types of federal funding.
ICRA and the people who support it as one tool parents may want to use -- are not asking Congress to make it mandatory. They ARE however, working with the Congressional "bully pulpit" available to them since Jennifer Dunn & others are supporting their efforts, labelling their own sites, and asking others to do the same. But that's a far cry from compelling speech via use of these labels -- which would, IMO, be unconstitutional.
On PICS -- ICRA *is* a labeling system that uses PICS. It isn't trying to be the only labeling system, and the icra.org site is rated using the old RSACi and SafeSurf labels as well as the new ICRA labels. (They demonstrated this at the launch event.) Of course IRCA wants everyone to use their sites, and if they aren't reasonably successful, they aren't going to be relevent. But getting a commitment from AOLTW, MSN & Yahoo seems like a strong start.
As always always always, these are only my opinions. I don't speak for ICRA or anyone else.
Liza
Content rating that actually works (Score:2)
However, I can envision a technical system that could work. In order to be effective, the system would have to use a "white list" approach as opposed to a blacklist. This would mean that all content not explicitly approved would be blocked. Under such a system, a web publisher would submit pages to a reviewing authority. If the reviewing authority decides that the page in question meets their criteria, they sign it with their public key and send it back to the publisher. Parents could then download the public keys of reviewers that they trust and place them on their keyring. The browser would only display pages that have a valid signature from one of the keys in their keyring.
A similar approach could be done site-wide via SSL. In order to get a "kid-friendly" SSL certificate from the certifying authority, the publisher would have to sign a legally-binding contract to conform to the CA's content restrictions. The site would also need to be periodically audited to ensure compliance. Again, the browser would have to refuse to connect to a SSL site that does not have a kid-friendly certificate from a CA they trust. Some arrangement would have to be made to allow for multiple CA's to sign a given site's certificate, so that the webmaster isn't locked in to using only one CA
Both of these approaches allow for parents to chose a CA that matches their views: rabid fundamentalists could use only Pat Robertson / Jerry Fallwell approved CA's, while more openminded folks could use ones that subscribe to more tolerant ideologies.
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! (Score:2)
If we don't put warning labels on these dangerous, horrible devices, some child, or even adult, might find out the hard way. Can we really afford to let people learn on their own?? We must educate them about the dangers of salt, or abandon this salt-shaker technology altogether! Think of the children!
Congress should make a LAW! We must protect the public from itself at all costs! They must never have to deal with the intense pain of throwing a dash of salt in their eyes because nobody told them not to!
Re:Slashdot is dying (Score:1)
Re:This is censorship (Score:1)
Re:This is censorship (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically, this is not manditory - nobody is going to force you to use their filter (except perhaps your Mom) and it doesn't make anybody take any content off the Internet. As for the blocking all content that hasn't been rated - it's the only way to
a) make people rate their sites (assuming they want the largest audience possible)
b) protect themselves against unknown sites, after all, if it's not rated, who knows if it's Betty's Cooking Secrets or Live-XXX!!!
Anyway, IMNSHO, this is a good idea.
TV sucks because it's regulated by the government (Score:2)
>only 1/2 shit, now it's 80% shit IMO. Commercials and content
>included.
And that's exactly why they're going after the internet (although it too is arguably 80% shit). Television in this country has become so filtered that it's difficult to find anything truly "objectionable" unless you subscribe to the Spice channel. Think fast, when was the last time you saw a radical political opinion - OK, OK, a non-Christian radical political opinion - on any TV channel?
You can flip back and forth between the major networks and the talking heads are saying the same thing. CNN slants it left, Fox slants it right, but neither side makes any real commentary. The only radical opinions on TV are the ones showing up on 700 Club, but I digress. It's okay for some nut to go on TV and blame September 11th on gays and abortion, but it's not okay for someone to go on TV and criticize the government. It's okay for the religious right to proseltyze on the public airwaves, but God forbid Howard Stern says "penis."
It's quite clear that government regulation of any media ends up favoring the government and stifling anything they see as prude. The stuff they've worked so hard to keep off of television and radio now flows freely on the internet, and you better believe it scares the hell out of them. If you can't control the medium, you can't control the speech. It seems to me like they're starting to realize that the internet cannot be FCC'd, and they're moving toward scare tactics instead ("we'll be watching you, and we won't need a warrant!").
I don't like the idea of a ratings system, but if we have to have web ratings, I'd rather they come from the industry than from the government. TV would be a much more interesting phenomenon if the FCC bailed out and left the networks to regulate themselves! Of course, if we speak loudly enough and refuse to participate, we don't have to have web ratings. A product no one uses fails to be significant.
Shaun