Internet Rating System Plans to Globalize 111
The New York Times ran a great article about the upcoming Global Rating System, coming to a country near you sometime next year. Stephen Balkam, the characteristically disingenuous defender of rating systems, is described as saying that so far no governments have mandated that content providers use online rating systems. Okay, that's true - because it hasn't been passed yet. Australia's states are in the process of implementing model legislation which would criminalize failing to rate or mis-rating a site - even accidentally. Similar legislation has also been proposed in Great Britain and the U.S. -- michael
More top level domains? (Score:1)
This way, you leave the decision in the hands of the consumer WHERE IT SHOULD BE. Right now, I can choose to go to a store and buy this stuff or not. Why not make the web work that way too?
Bias and Ambiguity in Rating System (Score:2)
This will fail to satisfy, for example, a hard-core materialist that doesn't want his kids viewing content with supernatural overtones, or a vegetarian extremist who wants to filter out content which glorifies the eating of animal flesh.
Furthermore, whatever the "language" rating/component will be, I have no doubt that it will be ridiculous in some way. Recently I saw Star Trek IV on the SF channel, and while they let "hell" get through, they censored "dumbass" (i.e. "double dumbass on you!!!"). This serves as an example of how stupid language valuations always turn out to be. Another example of this is the fact that for every "evil" word one finds in a language valuation, there's another word (often with more syllables) which means the same thing but isn't regarded as "evil". Does anyone have specific information on how the "Language" rating will work?
I suppose what it comes down to is that these four areas (sex, nudity, violence, language) represent the neuroses of segments of the population that are large enough to form a voting block that must be pandered to.
Re:More top level domains? (Score:1)
What?! Are you saying there are people who WANT to see porn?? I thought the smut merchants were trying to force their disgusting nudity into the minds of our impressionable young children in order to warp and corrupt them and turn them into homicidal killers and playthings of Satan!! Of course we should act to save these poor defensless children from their unholy impulses! They don't know what they want! WE know what they want! They only think they don't want what we know they want, and we know it! Choice is EVIL! It lets bad things happen! End choice! More Censorship! PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!
Kintanon
Disclaimer: The above was sarcasm and possibly satire, please do not take this as a serious statement regarding my position on any subject, ever.
Net censorship aphorisms (Score:1)
Definitions (Score:2)
And I'm only presenting the artwork problem with a rating system. What about medical sites? Try learning about breast cancer without encountering words that are normally filtered. Try learning sex ed without getting filtered.
I just fail to see where this rating system will actually work and succeed at what its trying to do without causing a lot of problems.
-cpd
Web Authoring Tools (Score:1)
"Balkam also hopes to get the rating system integrated into Web authoring tools...."
Nobody's integrating anything like that into my 'ed'.
Australia's ambiguity about Hi-Tech (Score:1)
Top Ten (Score:2)
sed -e 's/sex/xes/g' -e 's/fuck/fsck/g'
Filtering proxies (to filter content ratings, or replace them with erroneous data).
if(remote_is_a_bot()) show_safe_page() else show_sexy_page();
Relocate your servers to a censorsh*t-free zone.
Digital underground!!! e-mail me at hotsexybabes@somecorp.com and I'll send you jpegs of *insert name of hot sexy babe here*.
IRC. Need I say more?
You can filter, but you can't hide! This system is doomed to fail... as it should. There is no substitute, technical or other, for parental supervision. Until the world figures that out, these botched attempts to "save the children!" will continue indefinately.
--
Deja? (Score:4)
This just can't work. Not on the Net.
ratings systems (Score:1)
International? Yeah, right. (Score:4)
Twelve people.
Do not take the following as an 'I hate Americans' statement
The problem is that as far as the US is concerned, everyone else is secondary. To a certain extent this is admirable; no government can succeed unless the needs of its people are paramount. But when that nation is as powerful as America, and that nation perceives international web sites as a threat to its moral purity ("for the children!!!") then by gosh the world better fall in line with the US.
This wouldn't be so much of a problem if the Americans could come up with a reasonable and fair system of rating. Unfortunately, there ain't no such animal. So we're likely to be stuck with a shitty rating system that pays lip service to the problem of American Children Seeing Breasts and proves to be (at least) an inconvenience to the majority of surfers around the world.
Yes, I know Bertelsmann's report hailed from Germany. I never said the Americans had a copyright on stupidity.
Bastard Child of the MPAA (Score:2)
"All the lawmakers have to do is pass a law saying that if you run a website with x% naked people you have to get a .xxx (or whatever) domain name. "
.com site. But as soon as you use the "F" word three times or you start showing to much sexual content you get and Internet equivilent of an NC-17 or XXX rating roled into a .xxx suffix? Laddies and Gentleman of the jury I would like you to say it with me now... PLEASE!!!!
My god, please tell me he is not actually suggesting an MPAA type of rating system for the Internet. Oh yes, I can see it now. You can have all the violence you want in a
seen this before? (Score:1)
larger issue (Score:2)
The more general problem is, "how should we index the web?". It's the digital library problem, really.
What we really want is a way to look up exactly the information that we want, getting pointers to all relevant sources and to no irrelevant sources.
For the censorship people, what they want has to do with the keyword 'smut' (and friends). If I look up smut, I should get all and only smut. If I look up something else, I should get no smut.
If the larger problem gets solved, the "censorship" problem is much simpler, and also shouldn't bother those who don't consider it an issue.
Web Pages = movies? (Score:1)
Huh? I've always thought of a "web page" as being analagous to print publication --- a newspaper, or a flyer tacked on a light pole, or a magazine (depending on the content). Or, for something like
Re:International? Yeah, right. (Score:2)
Unfortunately? What?? First you call the people trying to rate the web (who with no doubt believe they ARE trying to create a reasonable and fair system) censors, and then you admit you think it is unfortunate that the system is doomed to be unreasonable and unfair.
The fact that there is no fair, reasonable, managable, or even remotely feasible way to rate the Internet is the most fortunate thing about this whole affair. The most frightening thing I can imagine is censorship that actually works and doesn't make people angry.
Don't confuse this with an issue of practical problems: it is not. This is a human rights issue.
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Do it yourself censorship. (Score:2)
But there is a fairer solution than forcing everyone else to rate all pages and posts. Why not have a setting in browsers that will require the presence of a certain meta tag (like meta name="rugrat-level" content="kidsafe" or whatever) before displaying the page?
Those who don't want to limit themselves to kiddie content wouldn't have to. Content providers who don't want to exclude kids wouldn't have to. Browser writers wouldn't be forced to modify their browsers, if there is a big enough market for one, someone will write it.
Unless a reasonable alternative is presented we are going to get stuck with an RSACi type system. This is one alternative, let's hear some others.
Wow, Big differnce there... (Score:2)
And, how, exactly, is forcing sites to register under certian domain names any different from forcing sites to carry meta-tags for filtering services?
The point here is not that people don't like meta-tags. Its that we don't like censorship. Period.
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Re:International? Yeah, right. (Score:1)
The fact that there is no fair, reasonable, managable, or even remotely feasible way to rate the Internet is the most fortunate thing about this whole affair
This would be true if everyone realised that. I said 'unfortunately' because the impracticality is not seen as a hinderance, and will only cause layer upon layer of subclauses inevitably to be added in attempt to make the system fair(er). This will result in a bureaucratic mess that will end up persecuting sites for such ridiculous things as 'link to a link to porn'.
It is a human rights problem, but one that is exacerbated by the intransigence of the censors in recognising the impracticality of their task.
How to prevent this. (Score:5)
I can't keep them from accessing it, even by sitting over the shoulder the whole time, because pornographic sites deliberately misrepresent themselves as appropriate sites. And many (most?) of these sites deliberately include images on their front pages which are inappropriate for children (and me for that matter). Do you really want your seven year old daughter seeing pictures of a man peeing on a woman, even for a second as you make a dive for the monitor power switch? If you think this isn't a problem, you are either a fool or have never been a parent. For examples, take a look www.whitehouse.com sometime.
And the fact is that you can't watch your kids all the time. You have to sleep sometime. Don't even get me started on page jacking -- your kids don't even have to be doing something wrong to get sent to some of the worst smut on the Internet.
To make matters worse, anyone without Internet access is rapidly being marginalized by our society. So, my choice is to (a) have my children be marginalized or (b) have them grow up thinking that normal sexuality is whips, chains, and defecating on each other. Or milder, but just as bad, have them grow up thinking that pornography is harmless and a normal expression of sexuality (its not -- pornography treats people as objects. I though that was something geeks were against?).
As I see it, ratings systems are a good thing because if they aren't setup, the government will find a way to outlaw porn all together. At least outside the united states. In the US, they will come up with some way to worm around the 1st ammendment and water it down just as they have the second.
What is desperately needed (now) is an organization and appropriate technologies to construct a publically, freely available list of offensive sites. You want to resist censorship? Help construct this list. Believe me, it is far better to exercise responsibility voluntarily than with the government making you.
Re:Bias and Ambiguity in Rating System (Score:1)
Eyes Wide Shut: UK:18 / Finland:K-16 / Norway:15/ Sweden:11 /
Speed: Netherlands:12 / Norway:15 / Spain:18 / Sweden:15
Alien: France:-12 / Germany:16 / Norway:18
Depending on which country you happen to live in, there is a 6 to 7 year variation between the ratings of these films. Are 13 year olds somehow different in Spain than they are in Sweden? I don't think so, it's all got to do with the attitude of those doing the rating, and the culture they live in.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:3)
teach your children what filth is. tell them that your value system doesnt support men peeing on women or girls fucking snakes. if you raise them correctly, seeing this garbage isnt going to permanently scar their minds. and if you think it's going to, keep your damned kids off the internet.
I, for one, refuse to label my web pages. and I suspect that a huge number of people will make the same choice that I will if this passes, and there will be waaay too many of us to arrest.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
www.cc.org - The Christrian Coalition - I disagree with their stance on so many issues it is not even funny.
www.microsoft.com - They release buggy as hell software, charge an arm and a leg, and don't get around to fixing 1/2 of their bugs. Therefore, they are a bad example for kids in that they are teaching them that money is the most important thing in the world, and it is okay to cheat your customers (MY opinion).
www.slashdot.org - People are allowed to post their opinions uncensored and sometimes people say the word "fuck"
Now, where do we draw the line? If a list such as what you are advocating is allowed to be created, every web page is going to be listed on it because there is someone who disagrees with it!
-------------------
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may be drafted...
The possible upside, as seen by TV Ratings (Score:1)
To quote a June press release from the Libertarian Party (if you are going to comment on this post, please leave the offtopic, probably easily supportable shots at the LP out of them.), "after the federal government mandated a prime-time TV ratings system in 1997, sexual content on the major networks jumped by 42% and offensive language shot up by 30%."
The same source offers the following reason for the jump:
Brent Bozell, chairman of the Parents Television Council, said that networks "would insert edgier content into their shows and justify
insertions by pointing out that attached ratings warned the audience it was coming."
Perhaps we'll see "freer" speech with the coming of inevitable Internet ratings. Probably not, but maybe.
Let me guess - you are christian -- right? (Score:2)
Glad I live in Sweden... (Score:1)
Re:ratings systems (Score:1)
Should sites that that emit XXX content with child-acceptable ratings be prosecutable? One would think it would be easier to draw up such standards, but each locality has its own standards. But any such efforts to enforce ratings has to deal with the vast body of information already out there, so sensibly dealing with unrated content is necessary.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
Pardon me, but what constitutes an offensive site? I have no problem at all viewing someone without clothes, but you might draw the line at viewing a woman's breasts and a Muslim might not want to see a woman's face! You might think that a "voluntary" system lets a browser choose what to view, but how does the creator of a webpage know that her descriptions of safe sex practices would offend you?
Further, you have already conceded that the very sites you're trying to protect the kids from are the ones who "deliberately misrepresent themselves as appropriate sites." So what, under a voluntary system stops them from continuing to do this?
Finally, there's that old refrain that "pornography treats people as objects," whatever that means. First, define pornography. Then explain to me how an image of a man and woman (or man, or two women, or whatever!) engaged in sex suddenly reduces the participants to simple objects in a way that is any different from any other form of entertainment or instruction.
The fundamental flaw in this approach is the effort to shield children from the realities of the world rather than teaching them basic, realistic ways of coping with them. Rather than desperately diving for the monitor's power switch when you and junior get an eyeful of a man peeing on a woman, maybe you should just let it linger for a moment and then turn to Junior and simply say, "Eeew! That's gross!"
Educate. Don't legislate!
Ratings systems (Score:1)
smut (Score:1)
There is a problem of smut on the internet, but ratings aren't the answer.
Safe havens (Score:1)
An odd decision, considering the CRTC's past track record in these matters, but a welcome one. Personally I think the CRTC realized the futility of trying to sift through the entirety of the Net and the Web. Now if only the government of our southern neighbors would follow suit... I sympathise with Americans. They've got the First Amendment, yet their government is blatantly defying their own Constitution, what with the CDA and similiar schemes.
I wish I had moderator access for this post. (Score:1)
I think this deserves at least a 2, and a big bright "Insightful" tag...
Re:Safe havens (Score:1)
Of course, the rest of the world could then decide to
a) bomb canada
b) block every canadian site
c) sulk and complain to the canadian government
All of which will probably be in vain. Bwahahahaha!
question ... (Score:1)
answer: nothing
Much great art is pornography. There isn't any reasonable way to distinguish the two.
Re:Web Authoring Tools (Score:1)
If it gets integrated into my VIM, or my Apache, or my Perl or my PHP3 --- It's getting taken out.
The proposed rating system is not the answer (Score:1)
I consider myself a sophisticated internet user, and I have chosen NOT to look at pornographic material. What's interesting is that AVOIDING it hasn't been a problem AT ALL. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort or intelligence - just adhering to a few simple rules, really. These are rules that any kid can follow, and if they don't, it's not an internet problem, it's a discipline problem.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
The answer isn't government. It's being responsible for yourself and your children. Sure, you can't sit there and watch them. Call arround and find an ISP that has a filtering proxy server. You can get most of it filtered out that way. There are lists online.. you just have to find them. I know there are some ISPs that will let you have an account that cannot access anything unless it's through the proxy and it filters the content. Or set one up yourself. A Linux box, Squid, and a decent list of sites to block could do this. Of course, it requires some technical know-how. That's the price you pay for doing it yourself.
Or there's always Net-Nanny, Cyberpatrol and friends. They will block most of the offensive content.
I can understand you not wanting your kids to see it. Even not wanting to see it yourself. That's your right and your choice to make. So make it, any one of the above options would solve 90% or more of the problem for you. Sure, it's not perfect, but nothing ever is. You will always have people putting up more sites, and some won't even have DNS names, just IP addresses. You can't filter it all. You can get most of it though.
Also, it may help to educate your kids about this stuff at some point. They don't grow up in a vacuum and I would think they would be better off learning it from you, the parent, then thier friends, or any of the many other places people learn about it. This is the real world, and even the kids have to live in it. If they are taught they have a much better chance of getting into adulthood unscathed. This is, of course, also your choice. Nobody should be telling you how to raise your kids. Just a thought from someone that was there not too long ago and I wish my parents would have done more teaching. IMO sheltering the kids from the real world is half the problem we have here in the US with teen pregnancy and such.
Re:seen this before? (Score:1)
It gets to be a big deal when it's required by law on all web sites. I have enough trouble getting my site to be technically functional, I refuse to try to make it buerocratically compliant as well.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
Pornography is imagery and other materials designed for the soul purpose of sexual titillation. Spare me your lawyers jargon. You know very well the difference between porn and legitimate art. Also, I'm interested in constructing a list (more a list of ratings, not a list of banned sites) of sites from the perspective of western culture: if the muslims want one that bans faces (which is a very foolish example btw) they can build one.
I may as well dive off the deep end and speak truth (and don't waste time trying to tell me this is just my opinion). God intended sex to be a way in which two people, a man and a woman, could experience a profound and joyous union. I know that sounds pious, but its true. As it so happens, this kind of union was intended to be permanent -- hence, Christians don't approve of divorce. From a biblical perspective, there is no such thing as pre-marital sex since sex
The problem is that porn is for the purpose of titillation: this image that you are defending takes what is intended to be a joyous union of bodies and (yes) souls, and turns it into an excuse to masturbate. The people pictured are not even known as people, they are nothing but objects -- so many pounds of protoplasm in a pleasing shape.
Let me guess: you don't have kids, do you? If you had kids, you would know how literally impossible it is to censor everything they do. The problem is that everything that happens creates an impression on them -- and the impressions last forever. The other problem is that they lack judgement. And, I do have to sleep sometime. If you had kids, you would know that too. Somehow, I suspect that you either don't have kids or just plain don't care about your kids.
Finally, stop your whining. You don't have to help -- you can just wait until the government takes over. It will happen, because for all the nonsense that goes around more people agree with me about this stuff than agree with you. The problem is that most of them don't agree with me about freedom of speech.
"Educate, don't legislate" you say? You seem to suffer from the modern theory of education, which is "throw the kids in the vat with everything you wouldn't want to happen to you. The ones that make it out, we keep". Has it occurred to you that the rise of your ideology (screw freedom: just give me liberty and give it to me now) is exactly what makes our country so screwed up today?
in other words ... (Score:1)
No thanks.
Outsourcing morality (Score:1)
If your child's first ideas of human sexuality come from pornographic materials, you've already dropped the ball. You can't wait until your child is 12 or 13 and then suddenly start acting like a parent.
A young child, when presented with pornographic images, will probably be totally disinterested or "grossed out". At the age of sexual awakening, he or she may be intrigued by the imagery. You'd better make damn sure that you've given them a framework for interpreting that imagery.
I think that the root of this and related issues is that modern people are increasingly outsourcing more and more of their responsibilities. We outsource the production and preparation of food, we pay other people to be charitable in our place, we rely on the government to tend to the well-being of our communities, we rely on the school system to educate our children, we rely on television to babysit those kids when they're not in school... and of course, some want to go so far as to let the governments take responsibility for the moral education of our children as well.
Anybody see a pattern developing here?
(And yes, I do have a child of my own.)
"kid safe" tags (Score:1)
What happens when I put up my sex education pages marked as kid-safe? (Hell, not just safe but recommended viewing for teens.)
What about my collection of photos and painting that happen to feature nude images? Surely those are ok, right? Can I mark those kid safe?
Who decides? You're still relying on either the page creator to decide what's best for your kids (bad idea), or on some outside government agency to create and enfore rules about what's best for your kids (worse idea). Either make your own damn decisions or hire a third party to do it for you. Leave me the hell out of it.
Why do people keep saying this? We killed off the CDA, we can kill this off too.First, protest like hell. Inform your congresscritters that this is unacceptable.
Second, if it comes about, engage in civil disobedience [infamous.net]. I suggest a "This page has not been rated!" campain, in the footsteps of the Blue Ribbon campain.
Third, if all else fails, start shooting the censors.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
You probably should not be leaving children unattended at a computer with Internet access if they are not old enough to handle any innapropriate material they may happen upon. If your children are not old enough to handle it, then yes, you need to be right there at the computer ready to explain why this crap is bad for them. When you aren't available to do this, then they shouldn't be on the Internet. How to stop them from accessing the Internet while you are asleep, or making dinner, or washing the dog is your problem, not ours. If you have a dial-up Internet account, then change the password and don't tell them. Or set up a separate account for them on your computer but don't tell them the password so they will only be able to log in when you are there.
Yes, I know that you will not be available to monitor their computer usage everytime they want to use the computer, but again, that is not our problem. You can also be bombarded with innapropriate material while watching TV (not just cable either, just check out FOX), answering the phone (ever had a pervert call your house before?), gettting your mail (I had a Playboy delivered to my house by accident once), walking down the street, bookstores (I'm sure there are many books you would not want your children reading at Barnes & Noble), or the most popular ways for kids to get access to these materials, over at a friends house. How do you deal with these and all of the countless other ways that your kids will come in contact with this crap?
Personally, I don't buy the line that unless kids have unlimited Internet access at their disposal, they will left behind. The big trend in my area is for even the grade schools to have Internet access in every room. Why does a 1st grader need Internet access? Don't they have to learn to read and write first? I'm not saying that they should not be exposed to computers, or even the Internet, but do they really need Internet access all the time? I would be interested in hearing more how you feel your kids would be marginalized by not allowing them to use the Internet while you are not there to monitor them.
For those times when you can't be there for your children, instead of giving them access to the Internet, why not direct them to other computer skills that don't require Internet access. Get them started on a programming language, or graphic design, or just learning the OS in the first place. Run a web server on your computer and let them desing their own web site. If you have more than one computer in the house, let them network the computers together. There is definately more to computers then surfing the web.
I truly am trying to be sincere here, and I hope you don't think I am attacking you too much. I sympathize with your problem and I have tried to provide a few answers. But I cannot agree with you that some sort of rating system forced on the world is the answer to protecting kids from innapropriate material on the Internet. Besides, the Internet is so dynamic, that enforcement would be pratically impossible, equivalent to the unsuccessful war on drugs, where we pour a ton of money down the drain trying to cut of the supply instead of focusing on the real problem; demand.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
(You do realize that some people get titillated by things other than pictures of breasts and genitals? (Well...maybe you don't.) If a foot fetishist shoots photos for a "Doctor Scholls" ad, is it porn?)
I don't! Naked people confuse me! (But they don't scare me, as they apparently do you. Damn shame, that.) Please, oh Enlightened One, help me out here. Please provide an objective checklist that I can use to determine if it's Fine Art or Dirty Porn.
Fighting Censorship! (Score:1)
I propose that we declare cyberwar on *ANY* government that tries to pass such legislation. I call on all hackers and
Amandla!
Simon.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
Be that as it may, your shot-in-the-dark about whether I have kids is about as accurate as the rest of your comments. "More people agree" with you? It's likely a more vocal minority from where I sit. What happened to CDA, Amphigory? What's the status of CDA-II? These brain-dead approaches to regulating web content failed in the US because they went exactly as far as where you predict things will go if we don't all panic and adopt this latest effort at control of speech immediately.
And I definitely insist that education is superior to legislation. An educated thinker who can reason around a problem is far superior to one whose only experience is falling back upon the politically expedient demands of the close-minded.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
Do you have any idea how condescending this sounds?
What makes you think parents don't already realize this?
Part of good parenting, IMNSHO, is the attempt to make the home a shelter, in as much as reasonably possible, from that big bad world out there. Especially for the youngest children. Right now, I don't want my children to have to deal with some of the "realities" of life (which can be pretty unreal, at times). There will be time enough for that as they mature.
This does not mean raising kids as hothouse flowers, so delicate that they faint at the first touch of the outside air. But I do believe that kids will do better if given a chance to grow strong before exposure to the harsher elements.
No. I do not want to teach them what filth is. I want to teach them what health is, and hopefully the filth will be obvious by contrast.
But I am of the belief that one doesn't have to wash in filth to recognize that it is filthy.
What about my ability as a parent to determine when it is appropriate for my children to learn about such topics?
To pick a non-Internet example, I know a lot of parents who were extremely unhappy with the media coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, because they didn't appreciate having to explain to their seven-year olds what "oral sex" was.
Maybe, maybe not. I would hope so.
But what we see does affect us. Images are highly effective at implanting themselves in our brains and affecting our attitudes and behaviours. Even if we don't buy into the message at a conscious or intellectual level. This is why advertising works, and why corporations spend billions of dollars/yen/euros every year on it.
If something wounds my kids, it's not a great consolation to know that it might not scar if we're lucky.
If my only choices are (a) keep my kids off the Internet altogether or (b) drink from the firehose of sludge trying to get the few pearls, then what do you think I'm going to need to choose?
I'd like another choice, which is why I hope that we can come up with some sort of rating system, or at least some effective netiquette, that will allow some leeway between "all" and "nothing."
Re:More top level domains? (Score:1)
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
--
Re:Top Ten (Score:1)
-Mars
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
Funny, I've always thought that, and I'm a well-adjusted, pacifistic honors college graduate with a good programming job and loving, stable relationships with his parents and his girlfriend. Maybe it takes another ten years or so for the depraving influence of porn to kick in, eh?
And the fact is that you can't watch your kids all the time. You have to sleep sometime.
Bingo. No matter what you do, they will find a way around it. Worse yet, they will be more inclined to seek out those things you forbid, because of normal childhood contrariness. The only solution is to teach them to think for themselves, and to tell them that BDSM and coprophilia aren't normal sex (not that there's anything wrong with either, or with being other than normal). Yes, that's right, you'll have to talk honestly and openly with your kids about sex. If you can't deal with that, you should never have had them in the first place. You'll also have to accept that you don't have complete control over your kids' lives--nor should you. They must grow up with control over their own thoughts, so that they can become responsible and self-directed adults.
pornography treats people as objects. I though that was something geeks were against?
Jokes about object-orientation aside, I think this is wrong. Pornography does not absolutely objectify people. It casts people in a certain role, the role of providing you, the voyeur, with erotic thrills. This is no more objectification than basketball with its roles of providing you, the fan, with the thrill of the game. Do we consider it objectification to think of Michael Jordan first and foremost as a basketball player? No? Then why should we condemn people for thinking of porn stars in primarily sexual contexts?
I think the whole, tired "object" argument is used only by people who think, deep down, that there's something dirty or degrading about sex. If that's your opinion, it's your right to maintain it, but don't go expecting me or anyone else to buy it.
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Re:The possible upside, as seen by TV Ratings (Score:1)
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
> people, a man and a woman, could experience a
> profound and joyous union
Okay, I'm going to go off-topic here. Feel free to moderate me down folks. But just whose God are you talking about? Are you speaking about the Christian God, the Hindu God (which one), the Muslim God (arguably the Christian God), the Confucian God (again, which one), or the 'I don't believe in the supernatural I am a secular humanist God' (In which case I would really like to know exactly who you think that is.)
Obviously I am taking a poke at you because you seem to believe that you have the right to impose your religious views on me. I don't for a minute think that kids should see everything on the internet, in fact I don't know anyone who does. However I do strongly object to using any religion's beliefs on anything to regulate a multi-national, and thus multi-religion, medium like the internet.
Not to too strongly offend you, but take your Christian belief system and go take a long walk off a short pier. I am not Christian, none of my friends are, and most of the world is not. Keep your moral code out of our lives. In return I will agree to leave your children alone. They can have my pity for being raised Christian, but they are yours to raise, not mine.
-Absimiliard
Who doesn't have time to make a sig while he rants at Christians.
No Alternative? (Score:1)
On the other hand, I understand the need to protect the children. A very informative post has already been written and I won't repeat him, but I agree with much of what he says. For instance, we probably wouldn't want our children to accidently run accross a KKK page, or an explicit sex site.
I guess what all this rambleing comes down to is one simple fact: Smut, hate, and misinformation exist. Porn isn't going to go away just because we find a way to not allow childeren to view it. I don't understand this -- kids aren't supposed to know anything about sexuality or view porn until they're 18, when suddenly everything changes? Yeah...right. Like that's ever going to happen.
Disgusting things exist, but that's the world we live in. We can't shelter people from it, or the problem will only get worse. Remember, these same children we're claiming are losing their innosence at one time were subjected to viewing executions at all ages. These executions were considered to be festivities, and children learned to become excited over the death of another human. IMHO, this is much worse than the digital information they can view today.
Filtering does not eliminate the problem, it only makes it worse. You can cut information off from those who need it, and brainwash others into thinking this doesn't exist. Remember all the bans on racist books and movies? This didn't make racism go away, it only made people think racism no longer existed. Ignoring and filtering out the problem only makes things worse.
My advice to parents: Keep open communications with your kids!!! Make sure your children understand that they can talk to you for anything, and never make them afraid to come to you. If your child views sex pics which disturb him, make sure he can talk to you. Only then can you teach your child your ideas of right and wrong, and what is moral and what isn't. If your child, on the other hand, thinks you'd scold him for viewing such material, he will never tell you, and may believe such is the norm. This, I believe, is the only viable solution: Build Better Parents.
--DranoK.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
--
IETF draft ratings system: INMP (formerly NNMP) (Score:1)
It is on my Homepage [dimensional.com] in the INMP/NNMP section.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
--
My reply ala Scott McNealy (Score:1)
"You can't be safe from Internet information systems anyway. Get owver it."
--Rares Marian
freenet.on.openprojects.net
Australia (Score:1)
As everyone knows, it will be unworkable and an administrative nightmare. Previously, when Telstra (our ex-monopoly telco) controlled the vast majority of bandwidth into Australia, this could have been 'enforced' by the use of transparent proxying and cache hierarchies.
Now, life is a bit more difficult - the large and small ISPs (Ozemail, Connect, Optus/C&W, et al) are and have been laying cable for several years. Distributed networks mean distributed administration and exponential problems.
This is also an issue in terms of who is an ISP or not - it is the ISP meant to respond to the request to block a site. Telstra's range of Internet Services are called Big Pond xxx (Home - self explanatory, Cable - high speed, horrendous price, and Direct - ISP intercommunication/reselling). I have Big Pond Direct (BPD) for a permanent connection which means I could probably argue that I should be classed as an ISP (I don't have anyone connecting through me, but I do host one or two websites ;) ) and therefore I should be responsible for administering any site blocking requests - given that these requests are meant to come from the Broadcasting Authority or my customers (*cough*), this'd make my life easy. So many holes for sneaking through - faked log files, filtersets which are inactive, etc etc. After all, who is going to notice and complain that my "ISP" isn't blocking sites?
This is just going to collapse in a heap, and rightly so. Last night, we had a TV show (Sex In The City) use the C word. But I can't look at R (your NC17) porn without breaking a law?
No coincidence that this is being pushed by those with a vested interest... the filter authors here in AU have been leaning quite heavily on "The New Source Of Evil That Is The Internet" and the "won't somebody *please* think of the children?" lines.
I should make a comment that this doesn't mean I spend my time surfing for pr0n *lol*
List of "good" sites, not list of "bad" sites. (Score:1)
I believe it should be obvious for almost everybody on Slashdot that maintaining such list would be absolutely impossible. New "offensive" sites would keep popping up in new places, sites would keep moving and changing their names and URLs, and nobody would be able to keep up with them
It may be possible to create and maintain a list of "good" and "appropriate for children" sites but of course the problem with such list would be that as soon as such list appears, some people would decide that it may be a good idea to force everybody (first schools and libraries, than may be universities, than ...) to filter their traffic against it. So if we do not like the idea that the government will find a way to outlaw porn all together we better do not give it such a way!
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
Re:Do it yourself censorship. (Score:1)
As far as I'm concerned, you have 2 options. You can either supervise what your children do if you consider what they're doing might be harmful in some way, or you don't let them do it. If you can't physically keep your children from getting on the computer without your supervision, then you need to incorporate some other method, such as a bios password or a keyboard lock, or even, god forbid, NO COMPUTER. Because, if you're going to leave your children alone with the computer you either need to trust that they can appropriately deal with what they might come across (or intentionally search for), or you need to take approprate precautions as you would in any situation where you can't trust them.
-Restil
Stop Ranting Everyone (Score:1)
Parents : Either gets your kids off the net entirely or get a reasonable proxy server. Forget the oafish, futile censorware. Its just not an answer. If they're on the net, they have access to loads of smut, dangerous chat,... You can't monitor your kids all the time. But (until they master proxy administration) you can look over their shoulders and monitor where they've been. You can use this to figure out if they've been actively surfing for smut or not, or if they've tripped over it (its hard not to). This will be helpful in figuring out how and when to broach the subject of porn and on-line sex. Even without a proxy log, the browser history list is useful for this. Check their bookmarks list too. Its an invasion of privacy at some level - but its responsible parenting when done conscientiously.
You must talk with your kids about sex anyway since they watch T.V., listen to radio, read magazines, see billboards around town,... they're exposed to the objectification of sex and sexuality all the time in our society. They have a clue real early these days, so deal with it. And if you feel the need, you can equip your home based net access with tools to help you track their net habits. Perhaps some PICS based scheme might theoretically reduce the risk of accidental exposure to smut someday. Don't hold your breath. Deal with the issue now using available sensible means - and common sense.
Freedom fighters : Fight to keep the web free. But please be more thoughtful about the nature of that threat. PICS and genuinely voluntary, pluralistic classification schemes are not the enemy. Commercialization and monopolistic control, as well as government interference are the real enemies.
There is a problem with the net that can and should be fixed. Its not porn. Its the complete absence of any means of cataloging and classifying site content. Any library has this and we all rely on this. Commerce and free marketplaces have this too. The net would be a far more valuable compendium of information if there were some means for content publishers to inform the net at large about the purpose, intent, and content of their site. Enter PICS.
PICS could, if adopted thoughtfully, help every single net user that has ever used a search engine. Absent of coersive forces, the classification is only as good as the content publishers make it. But it would make a huge difference. Let Muslim clerics publish a classification schema that can be voluntarily adopted and communicated via PICS. Let the Moral Majority, the PRC,... and ISO, ANSI, and the Library of Congress publish their schemas too. And let web publishers tag their sites with as many classifications as they see fit.
Its all good as long as its voluntary and the commercial forces and governmental agencies stay in their corners.
YRO's nattering nabobs assume that if a rating system exists, and if it is used to rate sites for adult content, that censorship is the inevitably outcome. Ergo PICS=censorship. Bull. I don't accept that web information cannot be better organized, that web publishers will never have an effective tools to help them reach their audience.
I love the chaos of the web. PICS preserves the full free chaos of the web ecology. It does not impose any specific structure, vision, or values on the web. It merely provides a modest feedback mechanism that could help build a more interesting web culture over time. Let idiot politicians and e-commerce fools try and coopt PICS for their hopeless folly. They will fail. But if it helps foster widespread use of a free and plural PICS, we all win in the end.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
Ahh, that's the first time I laughed since my partition table on my primary drive got completely wiped yesterday.
Re:seen this before? (Score:1)
OT: Religion in the public square, and even in /. (Score:2)
I highly recommend that you find and read The Culture of Disbelief [amazon.com] by Stephen Carter on the attempted exclusion of faith-based views from American politics and law, and then contemplate a "freedom of religion" that actually celebrated people freely and unapologetically following their religions, or a "multi-culturalism" that didn't mind people propagating their own cultures.
Oh, please. Amphigory is obviously a Christian, and is arguing as such. So clearly he believes that the Christian view of God is the correct one. Why should he pretend otherwise?
News flash: most Christians are aware that not everybody is a Christian, and that other views of God exist. But it would be incredibly tedious to have to mention that fact every time the word "God" is used, so most of us don't.
This is not about "imposing" religious views. No one is trying to forcibly convert you to Christianity.
Oh, but you mean that his viewpoint is religiously motivated, and you disagree with him, and therefore he's trying to "impose his religious view" on you? To that I have to say, "get over it." If you disagree, do so on the real grounds that you disagree. But, if Amphigory were advocating exactly the same position, not out of Christian theology but out of some secular existentialist "I-have-chosen-this-side-in-the-debate-to-actualiz e-myself" philosophy, what would you say then? I guess you have to meet the issue face on, since you couldn't dodge behind illusions of religious persecution.
Nice to see you not imposing your irreligion on anyone.
So, if I see you getting mugged someday, I should just walk on by? After all, robbery, assault, and murder are against my religion, but you wouldn't want me to go around imposing my religious views on anybody, would you?
I thought the debate was precisely about how to accomplish just that.
yeah, lucky you (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
I find it interesting that everyone on Slashdot becomes instant child psychologists the moment the issue of porno censorship comes up. And while I'm grateful to everyone for the illuminating ideas, I'm also firmly of the opinion that I will raise my children my own way, thank you very much.
(Isn't it ironic that people who don't want to be told what they can and can't put in their Web sites feel free to tell people "you must raise your kids this way"? Which infringement on personal rights is worse? You decide.)
Now, it's true that the conflict between parent's rights and free speech is a hard problem to solve. It seems that the arguments all seem to devolve to each side attempting to restrict the other. It would be nice to come up with a solution that requires as few concessions as possible from either side, while still allowing each side to go on largely as they always have.
But Amphigory's point is this, plainly and simply: So far, we haven't found a solution like this, and the masses are getting restless. If we don't come up with something RIGHT NOW for doing this in a fair and equitable matter, the saviors from the holy hills are going to ride in and earn themselves millions of votes by "cleaning up the Internet", and when they're done, we'll be lucky to keep forums like this one.
This may mean that we have to do things like rate our pages according to some set of guidelines, some of which may seem less fair than others. In return, we should (if we bargain right) be able to get some protection for free speech online: perhaps exemptions for "general public" Web discussions like this one, exemptions for E-mail and Usenet, and/or limitations of liability for various groups. There will likely be a bargaining process that we will have to go through.
If you don't think this has to happen, then tell me: what are you going to say to the restless masses? It had better sound a lot better than the larger-than-life congressman pledging to "get those dirty Internet perverts" - to the cheers of millions of average people who think the Internet was invented by porno freaks. Remember, all you First Amendment types: this is the country that passed a constitutional amendment banning alcohol consumption and who dictates irrevocable public health policy from a document written in 1790.
If you don't have a solution, then you are free to stick your head in the sand and sound all libertarian and anarchist and quote cool people like Chomsky and Ayn Rand. Just don't be surprised if you find a RSACi rating brand on your ass next time you come up for air.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:umm..no (Score:1)
Um, where's the rights-taking part of rating?
AFAIK, it's just a *measure*. Like a 2x4 being 1.5"x3.5" or so.
So what if a movie is rated 'R'? or 'XXX'? Does that mean, as an adult, that I can't watch it?
Is it against the law that I can't buy music labeled "explicit"?
Is it breaking some quaint bylaw stating that websites that don't have an "approved" label can't be viewed?
Yes, if these are made into law, then rights are being taken away. But ratings are just another piece of information. Point in case: Movie ratings by critics. I have yet to see a movie that is wildly popular (say, the Matrix) get anything above two out of five. This "rating" doesn't judge me the movie. I may not want to watch a movie with 3 out of 5, but that's *my* choice, not the government.
Rant=off;
Now, for a good point: nothing's worse than having the government legislate. And generally speaking, they don't legislate until there is evidence of something not working. Best way to prevent legislation? Don't create the problem. Or find workable solutions to the problem. *Remove the incentive for people to complain to government*.
Here's a lame analogy: RedHat IPO. A lot of us (not me) got "the letter." A lot of people couldn't join, because of SEC recommendations. I don't know for sure, but I'll bet those recommendations came about because people decided that they should throw money down on bad IPOs.
Re:Takings clause issue... (Score:1)
BTW, a law that simply outlaws renewal of the current foo.com contract and the registration of new objectionable names might not even be considered a de facto taking. If it additionally reserved foo.xxx for the current holder of foo.com...
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
I am curious what you are referring to there. (No offense, I just can't figure out what document you are referring to and what publicy health policy that might be"
Re:Dont use the internet! (Score:1)
Maybe "The InterSTATE was not designed for children, neither was the InterNET"
(Letting your kids play in the street again? Maybe we should outlaw cars!)
Re:Australia's ambiguity about Hi-Tech (Score:1)
The only thing stopping the US from turning out like Australia is the First Amendment. I'm amazed at how few americans understand this.
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Re:Web Pages = movies? (Score:1)
The Minister gave a speech in the Australian Senate yesterday which tagged everyone who disagreed with the recently passed Broadcasting Services Act as "maniacs". How is rational, measured discussion supposed to be carried out in that kind of environment?
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Re:How to prevent this. (Score:1)
The truth is that there's no such thing as an absolute truth. If something is true, something else must be false. The absolute is beyond the opposites, to be absolute, it must encompass both right and wrong. That means the absolute can't be judged, not objectively, only subjectively. Beyond the mere human perception of true and false, it just is, that's the fact. Although we're all human beings (least I think so), we're all different, so we can only decide on our own for ourselves. We're individuals and our beliefs and values are all individual, others might or might not agree, that's important to realize. We live in one world yet our world views vary, that means there are different worlds within one, it's essential to keep that balance. Since we want to be allowed to freely make our own decisions, it's only fair if we let others choose on their own, without forcing our attitude.
In my world, I'd rather have people make love to each other in public than fight each other as openly as they use to do. To me, sex is a creative act, violence is a destructive action. That's my view. Neither better nor worse than yours or anybody else's. To prepare my children for life, I won't hide them from the world or the world from them, I'll teach them how to handle the real life. Children are not as fragile as one might think, they do have their own brains, we should teach them how to use them instead of make them mindless clones or drones. The most important lesson is respect, to respect yourself and all others as equally valid beings with equally valid choices, a lesson we adults also have to learn and live.
Re:Web Authoring Tools (Score:1)
Who are your pages for? (Score:1)
What possible objection could you have to labelling your pages?
It is a big, bad world out there, but that shouldn't mean that you can't start making your corner a little cleaner - if we all did a bit, the whole would be slightly less big and bad. Simplistic, trite and as shallow a soundbite as our esteemed PM could hope for, but there's a point in there, too! Look at car design, there are still accidents, but you use seat-belts, air-bags and what-have-you.
I don't have a problem with porn, but if I'm using a search engine to look for some non-porn information, I don't want 7 of the top ten hits to contain page-jacked URLs which have bugger all (sic) to do with the search term I entered.
Some search engines are better than others and if the search engines tend toward the sites that are correctly rated and are monitored for their content then I will tend toward using them because I'll have confidence in the results they return. If that means that I'm less likely to find your page, then sure, it might be my problem - but who are you producing your web pages for? Your own gratification or because other people might find your output interesting end/or useful? If it's the latter, then reducing the chance that users will find your page isn't productive, is it?
This isn't *their* net. (Score:1)
This isn't broadcast. MPAA isn't a law, it's voluntary, industry self-regulation imposed to keep McCarthy off of their backs. Is McCarthyism back?
It will never work (Score:1)
Re:Who are your pages for? (Score:2)
I DO NOT SUPPORT CENSORSHIP IN ANY FORM. I WILL SAY WHAT I WANT WHERE I WANT WHEN I WANT AND YOU CANT SHUT ME UP JUST BECAUSE I HAPPENED TO SAY FUCK. EOF.
I refuse to support a world in which major access providers are capable of not routing my page because it has some objectionable stuff on it.
Re:How to prevent this. (Score:2)
Feh. How many people did you treat as objects today? I dealt with multiple cashier objects, sales clerk objects, and hundreds of Slashdot poster objects, including you. I watched a number of actor objects, who I might have "cared" about, but if so it was about their screen persona, not themselves. Do you really care about me or the person you responded to? Don't be ridiculous, your sole contact and concern is with what we've said, which is a microscopic detail in the entirety of our lives.
We all treat many people as "objects", few as anything more. Claiming otherwise, or that this is only objectionable when it comes to sex, is specious.
Re:Who are your pages for? (Score:1)
Fair enough, but I want to go to a search engine and not have objectionable stuff returned when I used non-objectionable search terms because my boss, my mother or my elderly next door neighbour is looking over my shoulder at the results. If your page has objectionable stuff, then I don't want it caught in a search term that was looking for something completely different.
Routing is an issue, yes. Censorship is not a clearly defined black-white issue, there is a morass of blurred greyness in the middle. Your page not being routed by a major provider is my search engine use being more productive for me. We need to find a system which satisfies both these things (and all the other gripes besides.)