From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 20 Nov 1995 09:50:31 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 113 Message-ID: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> [Background: PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) is a system for ratings being sponsored by many companies, an undertaking with significant impact in the net censorship debate. See the web URL http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/ Also informative is the "labeling" section of the MIT Student Association for Freedom of Expression, URL http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/home.html This has items such as the Comics Code, mentioned below] The following is an outline of doubts I have about the uncritical support, even in the most vocal electronic civil-libertarian community, of the development of Internet labeling technology. I'm not attempting to refute every argument in favor of it here, which would require long and detailed article, or perhaps even a book to really do the topic justice. But I want to put forth a note of dissent for consideration. To sketch my concerns, I think civil-libertarians are being taken on this issue. There's all this wonderful technology being thrown around that's dazzling to people. It's similar to "voluntary" Clipper. There, the government came up with a fantastically detailed plan about how the keys are going to be kept by two separate agencies, and both would have to sign off, and even more safeguards to prevent abuses, etc. etc. Just about everybody saw through this in a second. What's all the infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. Sure, it'll remain "voluntary", r-i-i-g-h-t. Now comes PICS. More wonderful technology. A fantastically flexible standard that's going to prevent abuse by allowing diversity of ratings. Anyone can rate, anyone can make up a system, etc. etc. Just about everybody seems taken by this. But ... What's all the infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. Sure, it'll remain "voluntary", r-i-i-g-h-t. I think this difference of reaction is because Clipper came with "government" tagged on it, and filtering/PICS with "anti-government" tagged to it (very good PR). Filtering as often advocated makes no logical sense. We keep hearing about all these parents who are stumped by the Internet, can't figure out the software, being outstripped by their cyberchildren. If that's so, how are they going to install and configure a complicated net filter tool? No, there's going to have to be a way it's "installed" for them, some default system. Maybe all accounts come with that default put on, and a specific form has to be sent in to change it or unlock it. In this way of thinking, the burden of figuring out how to unlock the system, not lock the system, has to be on those who can do it (this in itself might be enough to ensure a lot of control in practice). I believe the PICS effort is a government-industry collaboration to put in place the technology for a *private-IZED* censorship system, similar to Red Channels in McCarthyism, the MPAA for movies, and the Comics Code Authority for comics. But to discuss this, it's important to understand how all of that works and functions. Already I foresee a dozen uninformed replies yammering about "Conspiracy theory!" "It's PRIVATE, so IT'S NOT CENSORSHIP" "How dare you propose to interfere with the rights of a BUSINESS OWNER to make decisions on what to carry or not" etc. etc. Save it, please, if you don't know about any of the cases above. Basically, censorship discussion seems to run along a "toy" model where the only thing that is considered is government against creator. That's important, certainly, but it's the most crude form. Far more significant in my view is the complicated government-business-creator system that evolves and defines the market. There's also another big "toy" concept that if control is not 100%, it's considered as 0% especially if there's no *direct* government law against creators (somehow government laws against businesses don't seem to enter into people's minds in terms of censorship). There's a deep issue, one regarding which form the Internet provider service market will eventually assume. Perhaps it will be a "devil's bargain" where some businesses accept market regulation in return for near-monopoly control of the media. I think that's partially what's going on here. But more at large players driving out the independents, though. What will happen is that there will be a trade association that will publish a ratings system that Prodigy, Apple, Microsoft, etc. all agree on. They all subscribe to it, all netwatch software comes with it by default, and here's the kicker, anyone who doesn't support it runs the risk of being hauled into court on a Communications Decency Act-like "harmful to minors" or Memphis-like "community standards" charge. But it's not *certain* that latter will happen. More accurately, anyone who follows their standard is basically guaranteed not to be prosecuted - otherwise, do you care to risk dire consequences (jail/fine) for a Web page? Despite all the protestations of content-neutrality, there will probably be one rating system that "matters", and an unrated WWW page will then get about as far as an unrated movie. That is, not quite illegal, but *very* hard to distribute. Critically, the government coercion will be mostly done not at the *creator* level, but the *provider* level. This partly answers the questions that come up about "voluntary-ness". The government doesn't say "You must label your pages", your contract with your provider does. Don't like it, find another provider? Those won't be easy to find, because their legal risk is significant. And even if so, none of the subscribing providers will accept your unlabeled pages (yammer, yammer, yammer "THAT'S THEIR CHOICE ARE YOU PROPOSING TO FORCE THEM DOES A BOOKSTORE HAVE TO STOCK EVERYTHING ..." - save it, please!). Mislabel them? That's fraud, violation of contract, possible violation of the Communications Decency Act, and so on (someone will probably say it's THEFT, since it reduced the value of the system). The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any different? -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 20 Nov 1995 12:57:02 -0500 Organization: Project Glue, University of Maryland, College Park Lines: 76 Message-ID: <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> >[Background: PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) is a system >... I want to put forth a note of dissent for consideration. Thank you. Thought provoking note - Here are some further thoughts. > Now comes PICS. More wonderful technology. A fantastically >flexible standard that's going to prevent abuse by allowing diversity of >ratings. Anyone can rate, anyone can make up a system, etc. etc. Just >about everybody seems taken by this. But ... What's all the >infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. It seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that your primary concern is that "Anyone" above will come to be a single large (and very conservative) group catering to the lowest common denominator. The big rating machine will become a de facto decency standard. The courts will start to weigh this standard in their judgements on obscenity, and we all lose. > Filtering as often advocated makes no logical sense. We keep >hearing about all these parents who are stumped by the Internet, can't >figure out the software, being outstripped by their cyberchildren. If >that's so, how are they going to install and configure a complicated net >filter tool? The same way they install MSWord, Quattro Pro, or any other complicated piece of software. Put in the install disk and click on the "Install" icon. Easiest software to use will win in the marketplace. The problem arises when the market leader defaults to "Ralph Reed" mode without giving any advice or assistance to those parents who think it's appropriate to permit their children access to the PFLAG web site. >No, there's going to have to be a way it's "installed" for >them, some default system. Maybe all accounts come with that default put >on, and a specific form has to be sent in to change it or unlock it. So we need to encourage ISPs and software manufacturers to make it easy to choose and set your filter criteria. Enough people want access to dirty pictures that making easily changed filters should be a significant selling point for the ISP/Software Maker. >In this way of thinking, the burden of figuring out how to unlock the >system, not lock the system, has to be on those who can do it (this in >itself might be enough to ensure a lot of control in practice). This is a significant potential problem. Or is it? Why should you care if someone who's VCR flashes 12:00 can't look at nekkid pitchers? The problem arises when the techno illiteracy of the majority sets the community standard for everybody. > I believe the PICS effort is a government-industry collaboration >to put in place the technology for a *private-IZED* censorship system, >similar to Red Channels in McCarthyism, the MPAA for movies, and the >Comics Code Authority for comics. It's something to guard against, certainly. Do you oppose any and all ratings systems or do you see the possibility for a workable and non-intrusive system? > Despite all the protestations of content-neutrality, there will >probably be one rating system that "matters", and an unrated WWW page >will then get about as far as an unrated movie. That is, not quite >illegal, but *very* hard to distribute. Could you elaborate on why this is necessarily bad? A web page is not a movie - The creator of the page isn't making money from hits (in most cases). If it's unrated the page will get fewer hits, no doubt, but I go to see unrated movies and I'll bet you do too. > The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system >that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not >ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any >different? Because we're aware of the risks and are willing to fight them? I'm not sure exactly where I stand on PICS (or ratings in general), but I appreciate the time you've taken to point out some relevant issues. ......Andrew From: Karen Coyle Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 21 Nov 1995 19:14:31 GMT Organization: University of California Lines: 34 Message-ID: <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system >that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship >not >ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any >different? > >-- >Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu I find it interesting that this is such a hot question on the Net, when libraries answered this one for themselves over 40 years ago. From the Policy Manual of the American Library Association: "53.1.7 Describing or designating certain library materials by affixing a prejudicial label to them or segregating by a prejudicial system is an attempt to prejudice attitudes and, as such, is a censor's tool; such practices violate the Library Bill of Rights. A variety of private organizations promulgate rating systems and/or review materials as a means of advising either their members or the general public concerning their opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate age for use of certain books, films, recordings, or other materials. For the library to adopt or enforce any of these private systems, to attach such ratings to library materials, to include them in bibliographic records, library catalogs or other finding aids, or otherwise to endorse them would violate the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted 1951, amended 1971, 1981, 1990." BTW, private rating systems, like the film rating system of PG, R, etc., has no legal bearing. -- Karen Coyle kec@stubbs.ucop.edu University of California - Library Automation http://stubbs.ucop.edu/~kec From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 21 Nov 1995 20:51:01 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 353 Message-ID: <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> In article <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) writes: >>... I want to put forth a note of dissent for consideration. >Thank you. Thought provoking note - Here are some further thoughts. > >> Now comes PICS. More wonderful technology. A fantastically ... >>infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. > >It seems to me (please correct me if I'm wrong) that your primary concern >is that "Anyone" above will come to be a single large (and very >conservative) group catering to the lowest common denominator. The big >rating machine will become a de facto decency standard. The courts >will start to weigh this standard in their judgements on obscenity, >and we all lose. That's not quite right. The above still comes across as the "government directly against creator" model that I think is not the right one to consider. The action is not really in court with standards of obscenity. The problem is more the effects of *the slightest chance* of being subject to an obscenity or indecency or harmful to minors prosecution on the businesses which provide internet service. Often the charge doesn't have to be won. Just the costs of defense can bankrupt a business and ruin someone's life. The rating service draws its power from a tacit deal in which those who follow it are assured of not being prosecuted. This isn't the same as saying those who don't are definitely going to be prosecuted. But just the chance is typically enough to have wide-ranging effects. The important point to realize is that the machinery is enforced NOT by the government first-hand, through direct court cases, but through the private sector, but under the *threat* of being in court. This is crucial. >> Filtering as often advocated makes no logical sense. We keep >>hearing about all these parents who are stumped by the Internet, can't >>figure out the software, being outstripped by their cyberchildren. If >>that's so, how are they going to install and configure a complicated net >>filter tool? > >The same way they install MSWord, Quattro Pro, or any other complicated >piece of software. Put in the install disk and click on the "Install" Would that it were that simple. I've worked with people who don't know where the "on" switch is (and *it's not obvious* in some cases). It's really important to get out of technoland sometimes, and realize how different one's perceptions are from others. The people making these decisions are NOT going to be you or me. We'll maybe be on the technical advisory board, which has no actual power. Members of Congress are not reknown for their computer literacy, and the constituency they are pandering to isn't very comfortable with this technology in the first place. >>No, there's going to have to be a way it's "installed" for >>them, some default system. Maybe all accounts come with that default put >>on, and a specific form has to be sent in to change it or unlock it. > >So we need to encourage ISPs and software manufacturers to make it >easy to choose and set your filter criteria. Enough people want But there's going to be a default. Can we agree on that? And the default won't be "nothing", because of the setting problem. The argument will be "Why should these poor parents have to learn anything more to Protect The Children. It already comes Child-Safe, just like child-proof caps. Your freedom is not infringed, because *you* can easily change it if you just send in the "I am a pervert" form and two photo ids and birth certificate as proof of age" (OK, I got a little sarcastic towards the end, but the idea is clear). >access to dirty pictures that making easily changed filters >should be a significant selling point for the ISP/Software Maker. It's not that it'll be *impossible* to change filters. Just like it's not *impossible* to see a movie with explicit sex in it. But it's much, much, harder. And that market difference is applied to a lot of things other than sex - the movie "Clerks" being a good recent example. >>In this way of thinking, the burden of figuring out how to unlock the >>system, not lock the system, has to be on those who can do it (this in >>itself might be enough to ensure a lot of control in practice). > >This is a significant potential problem. Or is it? Why should you care It is, because it affects a lot of people. >if someone who's VCR flashes 12:00 can't look at nekkid pitchers? Again there's this "nekkid pitchers" bit. The question is better put as "Why should you care if people are required to do something burdensome to them in order to see something the censors have determined should be in a prejudicial category". I would hope the answer is obvious. >The problem arises when the techno illiteracy of the majority sets the >community standard for everybody. It's not about technology so much as burdens. I realize there's a widespread feeling in netland that people who aren't as smart and competent as all us cool people deserve whatever happens to them. But if we're going to be concerned with the development of the Internet as a mass medium, we have think of the masses, not just the technological elite. And lots of people have a hard time with their VCR's. >> I believe the PICS effort is a government-industry collaboration >>to put in place the technology for a *private-IZED* censorship system, >>similar to Red Channels in McCarthyism, the MPAA for movies, and the >>Comics Code Authority for comics. > >It's something to guard against, certainly. Do you oppose any and all >ratings systems or do you see the possibility for a workable and >non-intrusive system? I don't think there can be a non-intrusive system put in place under a threat of "censor yourself or we will censor you", which is exactly the situation now. That's the very background in which all this stuff is being developed! The abstract question isn't of much interest to me at the moment - there's a tendency to get lost in abstraction (remember Clipper? Two agencies, fancy decoder boxes, warrants, etc). I want to sound the alarm for what's happening in the real world. >> Despite all the protestations of content-neutrality, there will >>probably be one rating system that "matters", and an unrated WWW page >>will then get about as far as an unrated movie. That is, not quite >>illegal, but *very* hard to distribute. > >Could you elaborate on why this is necessarily bad? A web page is not >a movie - The creator of the page isn't making money from hits (in most >cases). If it's unrated the page will get fewer hits, no doubt, but >I go to see unrated movies and I'll bet you do too. This is what I meant when I talked about the problem of thinking that if control isn't 100%, it's 0%. I argue that these rating system are in fact censorship systems (backed by pure government power through the threat of use of force, for you Libertarians out there). But they are *sophisticated* censorship systems, not blatant, crude, ones as usually discussed. They work by burden and intimidation of businesses, on the *provider* level, not on the *creator* level. Civil-libertarians don't usually argue along lines that if there's any possible way to get to material, even if it's complicated and sparsely available, that's an OK system. That's typically a censor's line. A system doesn't have to be 100% effective to be very bad. >> The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system >>that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not >>ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any >>different? > >Because we're aware of the risks and are willing to fight them? I'm not >sure exactly where I stand on PICS (or ratings in general), but I >appreciate the time you've taken to point out some relevant issues. But "we" aren't, either aware of risks or notably willing to fight them. This is pretty involved stuff, and particularly vulnerable to the habit of arguing from abstraction ("In theory anyone can rate ...". Sure, in theory the MPAA and Comics Code and Red Channels are just advisories). As far as I've observed, most (not all) of the "we" you refer to seem to operate on a very simple basis. Government is bad. Business freedom is good. What happens when lots of businesses "freely" choose to do something out of fear of the government? This just isn't a big topic of discussion, though I'd argue it's far more influential than direct government-creator cases, especially in shaping an emerging market. In fact, what seems to happen in reality is that almost everyone forgets about the original coercion that sets up the system (or even discounts it), and ends up defending it on the basis roughly that outsiders shouldn't be criticizing any action of a business ("They OWN the system, it's THEIR PROPERTY, they can do what they want ..."). Everyone sort of knows about the movie ratings systems, but not in much detail. I've met very few people who know about the Comics Code. Red Channels is very obscure. There's no widespread awareness of the dangers creating a system like these. And willing to fight them? That's almost a joke. Everyone's *embracing* the infrastructure. What will be fought? The technology itself? That's being pushed as saving us from Senator Exon and co. The development of a trade association ratings board ("THAT'S THEIR RIGHT, HOW DARE YOU TELL A BUSINESS WHAT TO DO ...")? The installation of these ratings as a standard ("Well, who cares if some idiot can't figure out how to look at the nekkid pitchers")? This is actually kind of discouraging. Well, I didn't claim to have all the answers, just a lot of questions. Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). Appendix: Just for information, here's the 1954 Comics Code (it's been changed since then, but still a problem) STANDARDS OF THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY FOR EDITORIAL MATTER AS ORIGINALLY ADOPTED Source: Comix, a History of Comic Books in America, by Les Daniels, copyright 1971 by Outerbridge and Deinstfrey, New York. Reprinted in Ink 19 Magazine, January 1994. General Standards Part A: 1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals. 2) No comics shall explicitly present the unique details and methods of a crime. 3) Policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority. 4) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity. 5) Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a position which creates the desire for emulation. 6) In every instance good shall triumph over evil and the criminal punished for his misdeeds. 7) Scenes of excessive violence shall be prohibited. Scenes of brutal torture, excessive and unnecessary knife and gun play, physical agony, gory and gruesome crime shall be eliminated. 8) No unique or unusual methods of concealing weapons shall be shown. 9) Instances of law enforcement officers dying as a result of a criminal's activities should be discouraged. 10) The crime of kidnapping shall never be portrayed in any detail, nor shall any profit accrue to the abductor or kidnapper. The criminal or the kidnapper must be punished in every case. 11) The letter of the word "crime" on a comics magazine shall never be appreciably greater than the other words contained in the title. The word "crime" shall never appear alone on a cover. 12) Restraint in the use of the word "crime" in titles or subtitles shall be exercised. General Standards Part B: 1) No comic magazine shall use the word "horror" or "terror" in its title. 2) All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, masochism shall not be permitted. 3) All lurid, unsavory, gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated. 4) Inclusion of stories dealing with evil shall be used or or shall be published only where the intent is to illustrate a moral issue and in no case shall evil be presented alluringly nor so as to injure the sensibilities of the reader. 5) Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with walking dead, torture vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited. General Standards Part C: All elements or techniques not specifically mentioned herein, but which are contrary to the spirit and intent of the Code, and are considered violations of good taste or decency, shall be prohibited. Dialogue: 1) Profanity, obscenity, smut, vulgarity, or words or symbols which have acquired undesirable meanings are forbidden. 2) Special precautions to avoid references to physical afflictions or deformities shall be taken. 3) Although slang and colloquialisms are acceptable, excessive use should be discouraged and wherever possible good grammar shall be employed. Religion: Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible. Costume: 1) Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure. 2) Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable. 3) All characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society. 4) Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities. NOTE: It should be recognized that all prohibitions dealing with costume, dialogue, or artwork applies as specifically to the cover of a comic magazine as they do to the contents. Marriage and Sex: 1) Divorce shall not be treated humorously nor shall be represented as desirable. 2) Illicit sex relations are neither to be hinted at or portrayed. Violent love scenes as well as sexual abnormalities are unacceptable. 3) Respect for parents, the moral code, and for honorable behavior shall be fostered. A sympathetic understanding of the problems of love is not a license for moral distortion. 4) The treatment of love-romance stories shall emphasize the value of the home and the sanctity of marriage. 5) Passion or romantic interest shall never be treated in such a way as to stimulate the lower and baser emotions. 6) Seduction and rape shall never be shown or suggested. 7) Sex perversion or any inference to same is strictly forbidden. Code For Advertising Matter: 1) Liquor and tobacco advertizing is not acceptable. 2) Advertisement of sex or sex instructions books are unacceptable. 3) The sale of picture postcards, "pin-ups," "art studies," or any other reproduction of nude or semi-nude figures is prohibited. 4) Advertising for the sale of knives, concealable weapons, or realistic gun facsimiles is prohibited. 5) Advertising for the sale of fireworks is prohibited. 6) Advertising dealing with the sale of gambling equipment or printed matter dealing with gambling shall not be accepted. 7) Nudity with meretricious purpose and salacious postures shall not be permitted in the advertising of any product; clothed figures shall never be presented in such a way as to be offensive or contrary to good taste or morals. 8) To the best of his ability, each publisher shall ascertain that all statements made in advertisements conform to the fact and avoid misinterpretation. 9) Advertisement of medical, health, or toiletry products of questionable nature are to be rejected. Advertisements for medical, health or toiletry products endorsed by the American Medical Association, or the American Dental Association, shall be deemed acceptable if they conform with all other conditions of the advertising code. From: sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 21 Nov 95 15:56:34 CST Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO Lines: 38 Message-ID: <1995Nov21.155634@sdg.dra.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> On the other hand, libraries don't remove or obscure labels already on the material. For example, if a videotape comes with an MPAA rating, the library doesn't cover the MPAA rating code. Many libraries also stock various rating guides, e.g. Roger Ebert's movie home companion. And finally, many libraries consider target audience (e.g. juvenile literature) when cataloging materials. I believe Dallas was the last city in the US to end their official ratings of movies. Most municipalities implicitly use the MPAA ratings. But you are correct, MPAA has no legal standing as a government rating system. In article <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu>, Karen Coyle writes: > I find it interesting that this is such a hot question on the Net, > when libraries answered this one for themselves over 40 years ago. From > the Policy Manual of the American Library Association: > > "53.1.7 Describing or designating certain library materials by > affixing a prejudicial label to them or segregating by a prejudicial > system is an attempt to prejudice attitudes and, as such, is a censor's > tool; such practices violate the Library Bill of Rights. A variety of > private organizations promulgate rating systems and/or review materials > as a means of advising either their members or the general public > concerning their opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate > age for use of certain books, films, recordings, or other materials. For > the library to adopt or enforce any of these private systems, to attach > such ratings to library materials, to include them in bibliographic > records, library catalogs or other finding aids, or otherwise to endorse > them would violate the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted 1951, amended > 1971, 1981, 1990." > > BTW, private rating systems, like the film rating system of PG, R, etc., > has no legal bearing. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation From: acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 21 Nov 1995 22:21:16 -0500 Organization: Project Glue, University of Maryland, College Park Lines: 101 Message-ID: <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Seth Finkelstein wrote: >In article <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) writes: >The problem is more the effects of *the slightest chance* >of being subject to an obscenity or indecency or harmful to minors >prosecution on the businesses which provide internet service. Often the >charge doesn't have to be won. Just the costs of defense can bankrupt a >business and ruin someone's life. Especially the little guy on the fringe who's exactly the person most likely to produce innovative and adventurous material. I see your objection much more clearly. Thanks. > The people making these decisions are NOT going to be you or >me. We'll maybe be on the technical advisory board, which has no actual >power. Members of Congress are not reknown for their computer literacy, >and the constituency they are pandering to isn't very comfortable with >this technology in the first place. But they desperately want to be "on the information Superhighway" and they want to protect their kids from 'harmful' material. We're outnumbered. Without some method of locking people out of specific files we run the risk of being Exoned into a pallid lowest common denominator decency. The existence of a single uniform ratings system is terribly bad for anyone who values free exchange of ideas and information (as you have pointed out). The thing that makes it evil, though, is the fact that there is only one system. It seems to me that an attempt to avoid the chilling consequences of a single system must start by dealing with the "default setting" issue. I'm not sure how to deal with this other than to pressure the makers of the relevant software to force the user to choose from a palette of options when they first set up the software. The palette would have to have to be very friendly and provide easy access to any information that the user needed in order to make their decision. > But there's going to be a default. Can we agree on that? Sure. Perhaps the default should be "no net access". I'm sure that a lot of people would object, but if they can't figure out how to point and click their way through a simple set of menus (with a bit of typing for a password), then how the hell are they going to use a web browser? I don't mean to sound snide, but sooner or later the user has to figure out that a computer is not a toaster. The problem is that the user wants 'protection' from the moment they plug the thing in, and they'll figure out how to use the machine only after they've played with it for a while. >Your freedom is not infringed, because *you* can easily change it >if you just send in the "I am a pervert" form and two photo ids and >birth certificate as proof of age... Actually, my "I am a pervert" certificate is already on file with the FBI :) > It's not that it'll be *impossible* to change filters. Just like >it's not *impossible* to see a movie with explicit sex in it. But it's >much, much, harder. And that market difference is applied to a lot of >things other than sex - the movie "Clerks" being a good recent example. I think that the movie analogy may be somewhat misleading. "Clerks" wasn't shown at many theatres because the big chains didn't want to take a chance. Access to material on the Internet is not dependent on somebody nearby making it available. Nobody in the US has a web page with the Fishman affidavit on it, for example, but I can read it within minutes of sitting down in front of a machine that's got a web browser. > Again there's this "nekkid pitchers" bit. The question is better >put as "Why should you care if people are required to do something >burdensome to them in order to see something the censors have determined >should be in a prejudicial category". I would hope the answer is obvious. "Burdensome" covers a lot of possibilities. I don't find it particularly burdensome to have to show proof of age in order to purchase alcohol. To some people this is an outrageous violation of their rights. I don't know what might make a reasonable test for whether something is burdensome or not, but if all we expect from the user in order for them to change the filter settings are skills they need anyway just to be able to operate the computer, I don't see it as particularly burdensome. If we demand that they write a letter to their ISP in order to make the adjustment, it's a different story. In fact I'd suggest that privacy issues would be involved that might provide a means to pressure the ISP into a change of policy. >Well, I didn't claim to have all the answers, just a lot of questions. And good ones at that. I think the issue you have raised is a significant one. I doubt that we agree to the last decimal on what's acceptable as far as ratings systems go (at least in part because I'm somewhat fuzzy about where I stand), but there are clearly pitfalls ahead. I've tried to make a couple of suggestions about how some pitfalls might be avoided, but I think something nasty is likely to happen over the next few years unless we (those who give a shit about these sorts of things) can come up with concrete proposals for improvements. Please contribute, one and all... ......Andrew P.S. Thanks for the posting Comics Code. Interesting reading. From: Karen Coyle Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 21 Nov 1995 23:54:20 GMT Organization: University of California Lines: 30 Message-ID: <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <1995Nov21.155634@sdg.dra.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) wrote: >On the other hand, libraries don't remove or obscure labels already >on the material. For example, if a videotape comes with an MPAA >rating, the library doesn't cover the MPAA rating code. > No, of course not. Libraries do NOT modify the materials they carry. >Many libraries also stock various rating guides, e.g. Roger Ebert's >movie home companion. > Yep, it's called "Freedom to Read". Libraries carry the widest possible range of materials that they can afford to. Inclusion in a collection is not a recommendation nor does it imply that the library "agrees" with the content. >And finally, many libraries consider target audience (e.g. juvenile >literature) when cataloging materials. Yes, there is a concept of "target audience." But as long as no patrons are refused access to materials based on these "target audience" concepts, nor based on their age, then it's merely a convenient arrangement that may help patrons more easily locate materials of interest. It is not a form of censorship. -- Karen Coyle kec@stubbs.ucop.edu University of California - Library Automation http://stubbs.ucop.edu/~kec From: 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu (David B. Nash, III) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 10:06:54 UNDEFINED Organization: John Marshall Law School Lines: 29 Message-ID: <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> In article <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> Karen Coyle writes: >BTW, private rating systems, like the film rating system of PG, R, etc., >has no legal bearing. Perhaps I misunderstand. Certainly there would be legal constraints for a public library to loan MPAA 'R' rated videotapes to children under 17? If the local law is punishing movie theaters for allowing children under 17 to see 'R' movies, then why allow libraries to distribute the films to the same people. === dbn3. 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu p.s. Now that I think about it, I don't know the legal constraints on movie rental stores for renting out tapes that are not classified as obscene, but are still rated 'R'. >-- >Karen Coyle kec@stubbs.ucop.edu >University of California - Library Automation > http://stubbs.ucop.edu/~kec From: 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu (David B. Nash, III) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 10:21:38 UNDEFINED Organization: John Marshall Law School Lines: 26 Message-ID: <5nashd.4.00752E0F@stu.jmls.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> >Appendix: Just for information, here's the 1954 Comics Code (it's been >changed since then, but still a problem) > > STANDARDS OF THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY FOR EDITORIAL MATTER > AS ORIGINALLY ADOPTED > >Source: Comix, a History of Comic Books in America, by Les Daniels, copyright > 1971 by Outerbridge and Deinstfrey, New York. Reprinted in Ink 19 > Magazine, January 1994. > This is interesting. Never run across it. However, I don't think _Love & Rockets_ and many other of the black and white comics that I got at the corner book store when I was younger (early-mid '80's) paid muchattention to this. Granted, those comics were not in the 7-11, but so what? I assume that DC was (felt) constrained by this code, but they were putting out some damn fine stuff (_Hellraiser_ (sp?)) without using the language or sex in _L&R_. dbn3. 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu p.s. If you have argued this too many times, point to some books (like the above), and I will hapily RTFM. (umm RTFB ?). From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 22 Nov 1995 21:14:46 GMT Organization: Despams R Us Lines: 37 Message-ID: <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <1995Nov21.155634@sdg.dra.com> <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> Originator: clewis@bcarh6bc In article <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu>, Karen Coyle wrote: >sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) wrote: >>And finally, many libraries consider target audience (e.g. juvenile >>literature) when cataloging materials. >Yes, there is a concept of "target audience." But as long as no patrons >are refused access to materials based on these "target audience" >concepts, nor based on their age, then it's merely a convenient >arrangement that may help patrons more easily locate materials of >interest. It is not a form of censorship. Where does 53.1.7 say _anything_ about refusing access? It refers to "Describing or designating ... by affixing a prejudicial label _OR_ segregating". (emphasis mine) Segregation is an "or", not an "and" to labelling. And segregation doesn't necessarily imply refusal of access. "Juvenile" is prejudicial. Having a separate "juvenile literature" section is thus explicitly in violation of 53.1.7: "53.1.7 Describing or designating certain library materials by affixing a prejudicial label to them or segregating by a prejudicial system is an attempt to prejudice attitudes and, as such, is a censor's tool; such practices violate the Library Bill of Rights. A variety of private organizations promulgate rating systems and/or review materials as a means of advising either their members or the general public concerning their opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate age for use of certain books, films, recordings, or other materials. For the library to adopt or enforce any of these private systems, to attach such ratings to library materials, to include them in bibliographic records, library catalogs or other finding aids, or otherwise to endorse them would violate the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted 1951, amended 1971, 1981, 1990." From: sayre@cs.sunysb.edu (Johannes Sayre) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.culture.internet Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 23 Nov 1995 19:14:12 GMT Organization: State University of New York at Stony Brook (guest) Lines: 20 Message-ID: <492h64$3mo@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Keywords: Thanksgiving light CDA repression Exon fascist Crawl Connected In article <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, Seth Finkelstein wrote: >[excellent critical analysis of the proposed PICS internet ratings system] > And even if so, none of the >subscribing providers will accept your unlabeled pages >[...] >Mislabel them? That's fraud, violation of contract, possible violation >of the Communications Decency Act two minor points - - the CDA is NOT law - let's keep working to keep it that way - if the CDA becomes law, then adherence to the PICS proposal will _not_ be a defence against persecution (usage intended) for CDA violation (or no ?) In this year of our Lord 1995, let us give thanks that the lights, the true ones, not the false "light" of the permanent Darkness of the Crawling conservative Lie, are burning brightly yet. Fuel for the lamps ! From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.culture.internet Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 24 Nov 1995 02:28:39 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 37 Message-ID: <493akn$7bn@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <492h64$3mo@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> Keywords: Thanksgiving light CDA repression Exon fascist Crawl Connected In article <492h64$3mo@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> sayre@cs.sunysb.edu (Johannes Sayre) writes: >In article <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, >Seth Finkelstein wrote: >>[excellent critical analysis of the proposed PICS internet ratings system] > >> And even if so, none of the >>subscribing providers will accept your unlabeled pages >>[...] >>Mislabel them? That's fraud, violation of contract, possible violation >>of the Communications Decency Act > >two minor points - > > - the CDA is NOT law - let's keep working to keep it that way I know. The point above is that some sort of CDA-like law could pass, and in that case "willful mislabeling" could readily be argued to be an affirmative step in "making available" "indecency" to minor. his is to answer the objection "I'll just put ``OK for kids'' on all my pages, so what?". The point is such labeling could carry *CRIMINAL LIABILITY*. > - if the CDA becomes law, then adherence to the PICS proposal > will _not_ be a defence against persecution (usage intended) > for CDA violation (or no ?) No. In fact, that's exactly one of my main points. It's not "adherence to the PICS proposal", but "adherence to a particular ratings system (Internet Providers Association of America - IPAA?) made possible by the PICS proposal", WILL be regarded as a "reasonable measure" insulating a provider from legal liability. This will probably be tacit rather than explicit, but that's of little comfort. You don't HAVE to subscribe to that system, but you don't have to stay out of jail either. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 13:19:15 -0600 Organization: ZOG Lines: 48 Message-ID: References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu> X-Path-Mangled: Bill Gates doesn't need my posts. Let him get his own In article <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu>, 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu (David B. Nash, III) wrote: >In article <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> Karen Coyle writes: > >>BTW, private rating systems, like the film rating system of PG, R, etc., >>has no legal bearing. > >Perhaps I misunderstand. > >Certainly there would be legal constraints for a public library >to loan MPAA 'R' rated videotapes to children under 17? No. MPAA ratings are totally extra-legal. The MPAA is a private organization made up of individuals chosen by and largely selected from the motion picture industry. Their ratings are not law. >If the local law is punishing movie theaters for allowing children >under 17 to see 'R' movies, then why allow libraries to distribute >the films to the same people. Cite a case where a theater has been legally punished for admitting underage kids to an R movie. I am not a lawyer, but I know that where I live, there is no law against letting kids into R movies. I would think that such a law would be invalidated if challenged because the MPAA is a totally private body and not accountable to government or the public in any formal manner. For the law to sanctify such a totally independent trade association with the ability to censor what movies can be shown to what viewers strikes me as completely at odds with basic constitutional principles and the ethical basis of government. Do you really think that the heads of the major studios and theater chains should have the power to decide what your kids can see? >p.s. Now that I think about it, I don't know the legal constraints on >movie rental stores for renting out tapes that are not classified as >obscene, but are still rated 'R'. In many places, there are none. I strongly doubt that ther are any such laws anywhere that could pass constitutional muster. -- Bill Stewart-Cole What is Stewart-Cole Consulting? Hell if I know. I'll find out when I finish the web page. Current projected date: 12/1. I'm not saying what year From: acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 24 Nov 1995 15:05:31 -0500 Organization: Project Glue, University of Maryland, College Park Lines: 28 Message-ID: <4958ib$3md@cappuccino.eng.umd.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu> Bill Stewart-Cole wrote: >In article <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu>, 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu (David B. >Nash, III) wrote: > >>In article <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> Karen Coyle > writes: >> >>>BTW, private rating systems, like the film rating system of PG, R, etc., >>>has no legal bearing. >> >>Perhaps I misunderstand. >> >>Certainly there would be legal constraints for a public library >>to loan MPAA 'R' rated videotapes to children under 17? > >No. MPAA ratings are totally extra-legal. The MPAA is a private >organization made up of individuals chosen by and largely selected from >the motion picture industry. Their ratings are not law. This is one of the major problems with the MPAA system. It's not law, but its position as the dominant rating system (are there any other formal rating systems for movies?) gives a misleading impression to the uninformed public. I'll bet you can find large number of video store clerks who believe that they would be in violation of the law if they rented a R rated movie to a 16 year old. Will PICS take us down the same path? - I suspect it may. ......Andrew From: sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 24 Nov 95 21:18:22 CST Organization: Data Research Associates, St. Louis MO Lines: 32 Message-ID: <1995Nov24.211822@sdg.dra.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <5nashd.3.0067AF26@stu.jmls.edu> In article , bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: >>If the local law is punishing movie theaters for allowing children >>under 17 to see 'R' movies, then why allow libraries to distribute >>the films to the same people. > > Cite a case where a theater has been legally punished for admitting > underage kids to an R movie. Like most things, this gets a bit complicated, and varies in every jurisdiction but it goes something like this: The "law" doesn't punish theatre owners per se for admitting underage people into a MPAA rated movie. Nor does the law generally punish electricians who use electrical cords that aren't UL listed. Both the MPAA rating, and the UL listing are extra-legal standards. However, a theatre owner, or an electrician, relying on those industry recognized ratings can often escape liability if something "bad" happens anyway. Theatre owners love the MPAA ratings because it lets them show extremely graphic movies. But escape the legal consequences of using their own judgement to evaulate movie in terms of their community standards. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was an extremely graphic movie which many parents felt was inappropriate for younger children. But movie theatre owners didn't have to care, MPAA rated the movie PG. So the parents should have known better, and movie theatre owners escape liability for showing the movie to young children. Ratings are not a panacea. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation From: Henry Ayre Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 27 Nov 1995 06:40:39 GMT Organization: Internet Alaska, Inc. Lines: 58 Message-ID: <49bmh7$sam@calvino.alaska.net> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <1995Nov21.155634@sdg.dra.com> <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) wrote: >In article <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu>, >Karen Coyle wrote: >>sean@sdg.dra.com (Sean Donelan) wrote: > >>>And finally, many libraries consider target audience (e.g. juvenile >>>literature) when cataloging materials. > >>Yes, there is a concept of "target audience." But as long as no patrons >>are refused access to materials based on these "target audience" >>concepts, nor based on their age, then it's merely a convenient >>arrangement that may help patrons more easily locate materials of >>interest. It is not a form of censorship. > >Where does 53.1.7 say _anything_ about refusing access? It refers >to "Describing or designating ... by affixing a prejudicial label _OR_ >segregating". (emphasis mine) > >Segregation is an "or", not an "and" to labelling. And segregation doesn't >necessarily imply refusal of access. > >"Juvenile" is prejudicial. Having a separate "juvenile literature" section >is thus explicitly in violation of 53.1.7: > > "53.1.7 Describing or designating certain library materials by > affixing a prejudicial label to them or segregating by a prejudicial > system is an attempt to prejudice attitudes and, as such, is a censor's > tool; such practices violate the Library Bill of Rights. A variety of > private organizations promulgate rating systems and/or review materials > as a means of advising either their members or the general public > concerning their opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate > age for use of certain books, films, recordings, or other materials. For > the library to adopt or enforce any of these private systems, to attach > such ratings to library materials, to include them in bibliographic > records, library catalogs or other finding aids, or otherwise to endorse > them would violate the Library Bill of Rights. Adopted 1951, amended > 1971, 1981, 1990." > I am unalterably opposed to any form of ratings or cataloging of Internet material, even on a voluntary basis. I am unalterably opposed to ANY attempt to censor the Internet AT SOURCE in any way. What begins as voluntary is never planned as such by those whose names never appear as originators of such plans. What IS planned is to demand, at an appropriate time, that previously voluntary actions be made mandatory "in order to fully implement the working of the system," or words spewed out to that effect. It happens all the time. Haven't we learned that finally? Let the software developers create ingenious programs that will help concerned parents keep junior from gawking at D-cup boobs. Then let those concerned parents BUY these programs from commercial software dealers and use them in their own homes. This is censorship where it belongs, in the private home, not at source. And just where are all these concerned parents, anyway? I keep hearing about them but they seem, nonetheless to be without names, faces, or addresses. H. Ayre. From: an405881@anon.penet.fi (Ashley) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.culture.internet Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 11:15:58 GMT Organization: Ashley Lines: 3 Message-ID: <49c534$e74@sydney1.world.net> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <492h64$3mo@newsserv.cs.sunysb.edu> Reply-To: an405881@anon.penet.fi All we need to know is that whatever governments do in terms of the Internet it is in some way censorship, whatever they call it. From: Karen Coyle Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 27 Nov 1995 23:57:39 GMT Organization: University of California Lines: 43 Message-ID: <49dj9j$8q1@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48t8en$edo@agate.berkeley.edu> <1995Nov21.155634@sdg.dra.com> <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) wrote: >In article <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu>, >Karen Coyle wrote: >>Yes, there is a concept of "target audience." But as long as no patrons >>are refused access to materials based on these "target audience" >>concepts, nor based on their age, then it's merely a convenient >>arrangement that may help patrons more easily locate materials of >>interest. It is not a form of censorship. > > >"Juvenile" is prejudicial. Having a separate "juvenile literature" section >is thus explicitly in violation of 53.1.7: Well, to resolve this we'd have to know the exact ALA definition of "prejudicial" and they don't give it in the policy manual, as far as I can see. I don't think that "juvenile literature" is any more prejudicial than saying "mysteries" or "non-fiction." Books for young children are often shelved based on reading levels. There are various advantages to this. To begin with, it's very important to have picture books for the youngest "readers" on the lowest shelves. And it helps parents who are not experts in children's literature to help their children find books that won't be "too easy" or too frustrating. The books are not segrated based on their subject matter. Some public libraries did experiment with integrating their whole collection - adult, YA and children's. There were some advantages - many adult readers with poor vocabulary skills checked out books that formerly would have been in the YA section, and which they would probably have been embarrassed to select from that area. Some children greatly expanded their world of reading. But in the end, the system turned out to be disadvantageous to the younger readers who had a hard time finding books for their educational level among the many books on each shelf. I don't know of a library that's using this integrated system today. -- Karen Coyle kec@stubbs.ucop.edu University of California - Library Automation http://stubbs.ucop.edu/~kec From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 27 Nov 1995 17:16:26 GMT Organization: Despams R Us Lines: 10 Message-ID: <49crpa$ev7@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49bmh7$sam@calvino.alaska.net> Originator: clewis@bcarh6bc In article <49bmh7$sam@calvino.alaska.net>, Henry Ayre wrote: >I am unalterably opposed to any form of ratings or cataloging of Internet >material, even on a voluntary basis. So you're against having more than one newsgroup. And archiving. And publishing indexes. Or even building overview databases on Usenet servers. Some people really are out in the out-field. From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 28 Nov 1995 18:51:48 GMT Organization: Despams R Us Lines: 45 Message-ID: <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49dj9j$8q1@agate.berkeley.edu> Originator: clewis@bcarh6bc In article <49dj9j$8q1@agate.berkeley.edu>, Karen Coyle wrote: >clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) wrote: >>In article <48torc$n13@agate.berkeley.edu>, >>Karen Coyle wrote: > >>>Yes, there is a concept of "target audience." But as long as no patrons >>>are refused access to materials based on these "target audience" >>>concepts, nor based on their age, then it's merely a convenient >>>arrangement that may help patrons more easily locate materials of >>>interest. It is not a form of censorship. >>"Juvenile" is prejudicial. Having a separate "juvenile literature" section >>is thus explicitly in violation of 53.1.7: >Well, to resolve this we'd have to know the exact ALA definition of >"prejudicial" and they don't give it in the policy manual, as far as I >can see. I see. Just like "obscene", "prejudicial" can't be defined, and we fall back onto the "we'll know it when we see it" story. >I don't think that "juvenile literature" is any more >prejudicial than saying "mysteries" or "non-fiction." Books for young >children are often shelved based on reading levels. There are various >advantages to this. To begin with, it's very important to have picture >books for the youngest "readers" on the lowest shelves. And it helps >parents who are not experts in children's literature to help their >children find books that won't be "too easy" or too frustrating. The >books are not segrated based on their subject matter. Next you'll be telling us that labeling material as "obscene" or "violent erotica" has such an advantage. I'm quite well aware that labeling things in this fashion can be of great benefit. The real point that I'm making is that those people who stand on their pedestals and sing high praises about how virtuous they are about absolutely/unalterably refusing to label things are just plain wrong. They're either not telling the whole story, or their "code" can be just as easily twisted into abuse of civil liberties as anything else. I'm against "bad" labelling too. "Bad" is just as bad as prejudicial. So I don't judge or label. Well, except for spam. Which has an objective definition. From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 1 Dec 1995 12:50:43 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 33 Message-ID: <49mtn3$jue@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49dj9j$8q1@agate.berkeley.edu> <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, Chris Lewis wrote: >I see. Just like "obscene", "prejudicial" can't be defined, and >we fall back onto the "we'll know it when we see it" story. Without getting into the ALA manual, I think "prejudicial" has a rough workable objective definition, whereas "obscene" does not. Prejudicial labeling is that done under government threat, or related to the categorizations of censorship laws. The basic test is whether these labels tend to find themselves being used in laws or in reference to laws. Thus, given that attempts are sometimes made to write the MPAA ratings into laws, and people certainly often think they have the force of law, they are prejudicial. I am unaware of any case where anyone thought that "mystery" or "science fiction" was against the law or illegal to distribute to minors. This answers the old canard about "people categorize material all the time - there's western, SF, drama - what's different about a category of "potential thoughtcrime" "? (sarcastic, but the point should be clear). >I'm quite well aware that labeling things in this fashion can be >of great benefit. The real point that I'm making is that those >people who stand on their pedestals and sing high praises about >how virtuous they are about absolutely/unalterably refusing to >label things are just plain wrong. They're either not telling the >whole story, or their "code" can be just as easily twisted into abuse >of civil liberties as anything else.^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That's where the argument fails. Not all code are similarly easy to abuse, by far. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 1 Dec 1995 13:37:51 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 380 Message-ID: <49n0ff$lv7@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <5nashd.4.00752E0F@stu.jmls.edu> In article <5nashd.4.00752E0F@stu.jmls.edu>, David B. Nash, III <5nashd@stu.jmls.edu> wrote: > >>Appendix: Just for information, here's the 1954 Comics Code (it's been >>changed since then, but still a problem) >> >> STANDARDS OF THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY FOR EDITORIAL MATTER >> AS ORIGINALLY ADOPTED >> >>Source: Comix, a History of Comic Books in America, by Les Daniels, copyright >> 1971 by Outerbridge and Deinstfrey, New York. Reprinted in Ink 19 >> Magazine, January 1994. >> > >This is interesting. Never run across it. >However, I don't think _Love & Rockets_ and many other of the black and >white comics that I got at the corner book store when I was younger >(early-mid '80's) paid much attention to this. That's 30 YEARS later. Three decades. A generation and more. Nothing lasts forever. The Comics Code was quite rigid for 15 years or so, and started to break a little during *another* 15 years, and is much diminished (though I still say not gone) 10 years more afterwards, today. The mid-1980's was the start of when it drastically lost influence, *precisely* because of the distributions done to those corner *book* stores. It's called the "direct market", when the marketing system assumptions that the Code was based on no longer held true. The market *changed*. Not demographically, but *structurally*. So the old control system lost power. I'd certainly be willing to conjecture that around 2035, any PICS-based censorship system would likely be of minor influence. That's really not very comforting. >Granted, those comics were not in the 7-11, but so what? So what??? This is what I mean by a common problem of thinking that if control isn't 100%, it's not significant. If a system is put in place where it's not *impossible* to find something, it "just" has to struggle and be sold on the margins, that's still a very strong control. > I assume that DC was (felt) constrained by this code, but they were putting out some damn fine stuff (_Hellraiser_ (sp?)) without using the language or sex in _L&R_. It's not just sex or language. _Hellblazer_ is non-Code too. In fact, virtually all of DC's good new stuff is non-Code. One of the biggest fallacies around is that the censorship system are *only* based on sex. That's what they use to sell (a kind of inverted sex-sells marketing), but if you examine them in detail, they tend to cover a whole lot more. One of my favorite parts of the Comics Code is "3. Policemen, judges, government officials and respected institutions shall not be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority. ..." >dbn3. 5nashd@stu.jmls.edu > >p.s. If you have argued this too many times, point to some books (like >the above), and I will hapily RTFM. (umm RTFB ?). The book above is the best one I know, it has a chapter on the Comics Code. There's a few pages in the book "Adult Comics: An Introduction", by Roger Sabin. There's also a video "Comics Book Confidential" It's a topic far less known than it should be. The subject comes up a lot in rec.arts.comics.misc, sometimes tangentially regarding proper response to topics such as current arrests of store-owners and their - literal -trials. Search for subjects like "obscene", "arrest" and "Florida". Below are two articles I wrote on a recent thread there, opposing labeling proposals. Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,alt.censorship Subject: Re: Comics and publishing ethics References: <474232$d7i@noc2.drexel.edu> <47harp$49k@maureen.teleport.com> <47ht1k$d5u@acmey.gatech.edu> Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Keywords: [Note: This article is written in a rather Libertarian mode. Its thesis is not that the MPAA and CCA are the equivalent of government bureaus, but rather that there is government threat and force involved in the labeling systems that they administer, so these system are systems of censorship where even the strictest use of the word is justified. The definition of censorship here is *involving* state coercion. It is not that the government must attack the creator only. No, the government often merely threatens the retailer or distributor. That's more sophisticated, but still using state power.] [alt.censorship added to the newsgroups line] In article <47ht1k$d5u@acmey.gatech.edu> gt3588a@prism.gatech.edu (Patman) writes: >In the USA, you're free to produce your artistic vision as well >as you can. This, in and of itself, does not guarentee financial success. In my view, the MPAA, CCA, and so on qualify as censorship in the strictest sense of the word because they were set up in a climate of fear and intimidation by the government. They were imposed, for you Libertarian-types out there, under the threat of force. Note "threat". A threat does not have to be actively carried out to be effective. These "censor yourselves or the state will censor you" systems tend to be very effective, because once they are set up, after a while people tend to forget about the immense coercion that went into establishing it and claim that it's "private", as if it were a spontaneous free-market matter. Then they argue, as you proceed, that it's just a matter of "choice", all purely voluntary, and so on. But that's simply wrong. It wasn't voluntary in the first place, and the threat of renewed prosecutions is one factor keeping the system going. It is purely unnecessary, when discussing the MPAA & CCA, to go further into censorship theory and discuss the problem of distribution of unpopular material. That tends even to be distracting, since it just brings down the denunciation visited upon those who question The Market ("Who determines what to stock? Are you going to force stores to carry things?", etc). These systems were specifically set up to *stop* The Market from functioning fully, to *prevent* material circulating which would otherwise have willing buyers, by raising the cost and risk of distribution. Since there is a reasonable fear of government prosecution throughout, the simplest Libertarian theory suffices. These rating systems are government-powered distortions of the free market, "private" refers only to their administration, not to their ultimate base of influence. >By even submitting a film to the MPAA for a rating, the creator gives >the MPAA authority over their work. To operate in the film arena, >the present paradigm calls for films to be rated by the MPAA for the >theatres to carry the film. The theatres have given the MPAA authority This "present paradigm" language is exactly the sort of rhetorical deflection that hides what's actually going on. The "paradigm" didn't just descend from heaven or arise spontaneously, it was specifically created in a coercive climate. >to give out the ratings, and the theatres abide by the ratings because >of the ratings imply a socially acceptable amount of violence, sexual >situations, and language per rating level. The theatres rely on the >ratings in order to stay in business without having the patrons go >ballistic because no forewarning was given of the content of the film. And how would the patrons "go ballistic"? Are you willing to state that no government action will be involved here? Again, there's this pretense that there is not state power waiting in the wings. Maybe it isn't there directly, but it's always at the end of the chain. >The creator is free to release an unrated version of the film and >suffer the social stigma of films released as "unrated". This >includes lack of distribution of the film, which in the end affects >the financial potential of the film. An "unrated" film is more And why does that lack of distribution exist? You write as if it simply "is", It's not a natural law of the universe. >The MPAA doesn't censor. It rates film submitted to them. What the Yes it does, because there is state power involved in the system, simply not in the crudest form. To be more accurate, the MPAA acts as an agent for a system of censorship by prejudicial labeling. The government power is a few links down, mostly by threat, but it's still there. The genius of this system is that because the MPAA is basically an administrative agent, people can be deluded about the system by the fact that it's not the government. This relies on a very myopic view, that state power can only be used on the most direct, rawest form. But government force is still quite influential even if exercised indirectly and remotely. >situations, and/or language. In no way does re-editing of the >artistic vision have to occur if the creator is content with the balance >of the a harsher rating for the possibility of less financial success. >It's a free choice. To re-edit or not re-edit, that's the $64 million >question. :) And the creator doesn't have to re-edit if content with the threat of prison either. This is the "consequences" argument, which relies on thinking of the system itself as intrinsically justified. >To relate this back to comics and the CCA: Unfortunely, there's only Indeed. Just replace everything I said about MPAA with CCA, it's the same argument. And the same passive description is used to divert attention from a system created coercively. >give the comic the seal of approval. It's a choice that the creator >makes if they give the CCA authority to pigeon-hole their comic in >the marketplace. Again this very passive view of the way things work. The CCA gained it's authority *in part* by government threat. The creator makes no choice in this. It's like the silly saying "no-one can oppress you without your consent". Sure they can. The creator has a "choice" of complying with a state-powered system, or not complying and suffering. Here the suffering is not jail, but a lot of distribution problems. But it still traces itself back to a threat of government force, >seal of approval doesn't carry much weight with consumers, since it's >a binary rating (thumbs up, thumbs down) and not many are familiar >with what the CCA thinks is acceptable content in comics. Right. It's not for the consumers at all. That's another story, this article is long enough already. >In an era where violation of local obscenity laws may get local comic >shops in hot water by selling/distributing material deemed locally >obscene, it's important to alert potential consumers of the content >of the comics since it's the shops who are on the front lines of >the comic book industry. It's imperative that the shops know what >the boundaries they are allowed to operate under the law in their >community. Wow! What a cold-blooded argument. "Since the state may come and throw people in jail, it's important for them to know how much of a risk of this they are running". This completely blows away any nonsense about a "voluntary" or "private" system, not government censorship. I'm really impressed by the mental acrobatics here. >While free speech is guarenteed to each and every US citizen, >I am not sure of the right to distribute one's artistic vision >unencumbered if it violated the a local community's standards and laws. Well, it isn't very free if you can't distribute it. That's a rather hollow freedom (I am indeed against "community standards", I know this puts me past current law, I advocate changing it). >This means to me that you are free to create the most vile piece of crap >ever known to comic consumers, but the distribution of said piece >of crap can be prosecuted as a violation of community standards and >legally prosecutable in those communities who've deem such artistic >works as a danger to the community due to the content of the work. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Now we really see what's going on. >Does the Constitution guarentee the unobstructed distribution of >your right to free speech? No, not when it violates community >standards. Shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre when no fire >is present is something that would violate community standards Do you know where this comes from (the _Schenck_ decision)? It was about suppressing an anti-war newspaper. It's long-overruled law, and has nothing whatsoever to do with "community standards". >win in court. No easy answers on this topic. Pragmatically, a >shop would carefully label comic which might be considered offensive >w/r/t community standards, and card every would-be buyer of the >those comics. Ideally, the shops should be able to stand behind the You're confused here, between the legal standards "obscenity" and "harmful to minors". Carding protects against the latter. NOTHING protects against the former. That's why it's so dangerous. >right to free speech and sell whatever they want to sell, but the >stores and their customers don't live in a vacuum. Community That's right. They live in an environment of state force, as you've been saying. Therefore, what we are discussing is CENSORSHIP. Government censorship. State censorship. Not *uncoerced* private actions. Not information to consumers. But censorship in the strictest sense of the word, from the crude to the refined. Once we have that straight, and stop going off on less-common theory about private power, we can perhaps have more effective discussion. >standards were set up so the agreed upon values of the community >via legislation passed locally are protected. What's unfortunate Now you seem to be arguing the censorship is justified if legal. A very different proposition, with it's own arguments. >is that community standards are also always in a state of flux. >What's acceptable one day is not so kosher the next. What gets >a store owner prosecuted one year couldn't even get the law to visit >the store the next year. Times change, societal norms change. Exactly. And we should try to change them further in the direction of freedom, and resist every sort of argument that these particular labeling systems are anything but a refined form of government-backed censorship. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,alt.censorship Subject: Re: Comics and publishing ethics References: <47j1l0$8du@news.cs.hope.edu> <47qsfv$ccr@netnews.upenn.edu> In article <47qsfv$ccr@netnews.upenn.edu> sg94ace9@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu writes: >In article <47j1l0$8du@news.cs.hope.edu>, >Todd VerBeek, GWM wrote: >>sg94ace9@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu (Johanna Draper) writes: >>>Todd VerBeek, GWM wrote: >>>>The Hollywood Blacklist was not governmental, but it was certainly >>>>real... >> >>>Wasn't it a major outgrowth of the Congressional hearings? >> >>Yep: a small part government, mostly private vendetta/paranoia. A perfect >>example of why the distinction is fairly meaningless... and of why we need >>to get past the knee-jerk assumption that "non-governmental = OK". The important point to realize is that widespread *private* actions can be induced by relatively small government threat. Because the actions themselves are not directly done by the government, but out of *fear of* the government, they belong in the "government censorship" slot of any theory which is based around state power. It's a matter of multiplier control, from "Who wants to be the test case, to fight in court?". This is not to deny the lesser-known, but critical, way repression in McCarthyism actually functioned. Very briefly, there was a "private" system of "clearance", the organization which put out "Red Channels". If your name was on this list, your chances of getting a job anywhere were much reduced. Was it OK since it was a "private" organization? I think this makes for good theoretical question, but to think it was *solely* private is just wrong. Anyway, it's a discussion for another time. >I still think the difference between "you can't do this, or we will arrest >you" and "you can do this, but no one will buy it" is significant. Isn't >that what we're talking about here? (Actually, I'm not sure any more what >we *are* talking about. All I wanted was for purchasers of a comic to know >more about the comic's content.) That difference is significant, but that's not what we're talking about here. We have "you can do this, but we MIGHT arrest you (so it will be hard to find people willing to sell it)". Labels have nothing to do with content in the way I think you're using the word. That isn't their function. Rather, they are judicial advisories, private-ized, not "private". G, PG, PG-13, and CCA approval mean "There is no risk at all of arrest for selling this to minors, no risk of arrest for selling this to adults" R and "For Mature Readers" mean "There is some small risk of arrest for selling this to minors alone, no risk of arrest for selling this to adults" X, NC-17, and "Adults Only" mean "There is substantial risk of arrest for selling this to minors, and some small risk of arrest for selling this to adults" Note that the latter two are not absolutes - they don't say what *will* happen, and actual results can vary dramatically. Do you feel lucky? Care to risk *many* years in jail and financial ruin for a comic? Viewed this way, all the contradictions based on thinking of the labels as some sort of consumer information go away, and the censorship system becomes clear. As has been pointed out many times, there's too little information for them to be informative for the wide difference of opinions in taste. That's not their function. If these were being applied by an official "Board of the Censor", it would be blindingly clear what's going on. But, for complicated reasons, it's a *privatized* system. Thus many creators hate them passionately, not because they're against "giving out information" or other such propaganda, but because who wants "Warning: potential thoughtcrime here" stuck on their work? That's information, sure, but so is wearing a special mark to identify you as a stigmatized minority. So talking about how a retailer is making a "voluntary" decision not to carry a product with a credible threat attached of "Selling this could land you in jail" is ridiculous. It's similarly "voluntary" to hand over your wallet at gunpoint. You don't have to comply if you're willing to face the consequences ... >>That's not what I'm saying.There are no criminal penalties, but many theatre >>managers act AS IF there were: carding teenagers who ask to buy tickets for >>R-rated movies, and turning them away if they're under 17. > >Again, acting "as if" is very different than actually having criminal >penalties. The ID model works, so theater owners use it. Does that mean my >university shouldn't issue IDs because the DMV does also? There ARE criminal penalties. Not for violating the ratings themselves, but the ratings are indicators of potential penalties, see above. People get confused, and think the ratings have the force of law. They don't, but that's hardly the end of the story. They're reflections of the force of law, that's where you get the "as if" effect. Once again, these are NOT purely private decisions. They are ultimately grounded in state power. That misunderstanding needs to be discarded. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 1 Dec 1995 14:47:29 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 152 Message-ID: <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu>, Andrew Case wrote: >Seth Finkelstein wrote: >>In article <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) writes: > >>The problem is more the effects of *the slightest chance* >>of being subject to an obscenity or indecency or harmful to minors >>prosecution on the businesses which provide internet service. Often the >>charge doesn't have to be won. Just the costs of defense can bankrupt a >>business and ruin someone's life. > >Especially the little guy on the fringe who's exactly the person most >likely to produce innovative and adventurous material. I see your >objection much more clearly. Thanks. Exactly. Disney isn't going to have a problem. The "alternative" people are the ones who will have to worry. >> The people making these decisions are NOT going to be you or >>me. We'll maybe be on the technical advisory board, which has no actual >>power. Members of Congress are not reknown for their computer literacy, >>and the constituency they are pandering to isn't very comfortable with >>this technology in the first place. > >But they desperately want to be "on the information Superhighway" and >they want to protect their kids from 'harmful' material. We're outnumbered. People want their kids to read, but not read "harmful" material too. But we don't have book censorship, and book publishers tend to fight very hard for intellectual freedom. I haven't seen major publishing houses forming consortiums like PICS to put targets, err, ratings, on their products. And they are perhaps the freest industry. Doesn't this indicate something? Is a fight worth pursuing only if you're on a side with superior numbers? >Without some method of locking people out of specific files we run >the risk of being Exoned into a pallid lowest common denominator decency. So we'll do it ourselves, to save them the trouble? This is the problem I have with all the arguments of the form "We must censor ourselves or the government will censor us". If there is going to be a repressive system in any case, why be a collaborator? >The existence of a single uniform ratings system is terribly bad >for anyone who values free exchange of ideas and information (as >you have pointed out). The thing that makes it evil, though, is the >fact that there is only one system. It seems to me that an attempt >to avoid the chilling consequences of a single system must start by >dealing with the "default setting" issue. I'm not sure how to deal >with this other than to pressure the makers of the relevant software >to force the user to choose from a palette of options when they >first set up the software. The palette would have to have to be >very friendly and provide easy access to any information that the >user needed in order to make their decision. I don't think it will happen. The objection to a uniform default is too complex, too complicated, to garner broad support. And what vendor wants to deal with any avoidable support call? >> But there's going to be a default. Can we agree on that? > >Sure. Perhaps the default should be "no net access". I'm sure See above. I can just imagine the calls that'll flood into Tech Support. "I just bought your Internet product, and IT DOESN'T WORK!. It says "access denied" and tells me something about a PICS pallete that needs to be selected. Is this an art program?" >that a lot of people would object, but if they can't figure out >how to point and click their way through a simple set of menus >(with a bit of typing for a password), then how the hell are they >going to use a web browser? I don't mean to sound snide, but sooner With great difficulty. But at least they won't complain to the manufacture about "Access denied" and the like. >or later the user has to figure out that a computer is not a toaster. >The problem is that the user wants 'protection' from the moment they >plug the thing in, and they'll figure out how to use the machine >only after they've played with it for a while. Yes, abstract civil-liberties won't stand a chance against a frustrated user. That's why the problem has to be addressed at a different stage, like the setting up the PICS system itself. >> It's not that it'll be *impossible* to change filters. Just like >>it's not *impossible* to see a movie with explicit sex in it. But it's >>much, much, harder. And that market difference is applied to a lot of >>things other than sex - the movie "Clerks" being a good recent example. > >I think that the movie analogy may be somewhat misleading. "Clerks" >wasn't shown at many theatres because the big chains didn't want to >take a chance. Access to material on the Internet is not dependent >on somebody nearby making it available. Nobody in the US has a It *IS* dependent on all the links being willing to pass it along. That happens now because there's no way to distinguish content. But put in place a *common* way to do that task, and that critical element changes drastically. >"Burdensome" covers a lot of possibilities. I don't find it particularly >burdensome to have to show proof of age in order to purchase alcohol. >To some people this is an outrageous violation of their rights. I don't >know what might make a reasonable test for whether something is >burdensome or not, but if all we expect from the user in order for >them to change the filter settings are skills they need anyway >just to be able to operate the computer, I don't see it as particularly >burdensome. How many people know how to do some simple things with the computer, but not any configuration? Really, it's good to talk to some non-technical computer users to get a sense of this. Or work Technical Support. Or just read some of the stories. It's almost frightening. The process "showing ID" is simply not comparable, since in the US at least, you almost can't get by WITHOUT having an ID that will work (driver's license). If so large a proportion of the population had the requisite computer background, we'd be having a *very* different conversation. >>Well, I didn't claim to have all the answers, just a lot of questions. > >And good ones at that. I think the issue you have raised is a significant >one. I doubt that we agree to the last decimal on what's acceptable as >far as ratings systems go (at least in part because I'm somewhat >fuzzy about where I stand), but there are clearly pitfalls ahead. >I've tried to make a couple of suggestions about how some pitfalls >might be avoided, but I think something nasty is likely to happen >over the next few years unless we (those who give a shit about these >sorts of things) can come up with concrete proposals for improvements. >Please contribute, one and all... What bothers me most is that people don't seem to be *thinking* along these lines. Nearly every month, one who shall not be named (to avoid triggering kill files) posts a defense of Clipper, stressing theoretical merits and policy controls, and half a dozen people (or more) voice great skepticism and point out potentials for problems. Of course, he can't be *proven* wrong analytically, since we're discussing the future, but there's a widespread view that such technical infrastructure will inevitably be misused. The EFF was flogged over making a deal for "compromise" for Digital Telephony. People did not take kindly to any sort of "we're outnumbered/best we can do/go along with the government or it'll be worse" argument. But it seems in every EFF/VTW/CDT/etc alert, ratings systems are touted as the savior of a free net. Next to no dissent. No wildcat activism. I'm not sure how to change the dynamic, but it's very disturbing. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Sat, 02 Dec 95 05:20:34 GMT Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 47 Message-ID: <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> In article <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: >The EFF was flogged over >making a deal for "compromise" for Digital Telephony. People did not >take kindly to any sort of "we're outnumbered/best we can do/go along >with the government or it'll be worse" argument. But it seems in every >EFF/VTW/CDT/etc alert, ratings systems are touted as the savior of a >free net. Next to no dissent. No wildcat activism. I'm not sure how to >change the dynamic, but it's very disturbing. That's the problem when parents blindly throw their children into the "superhighway" and expect them to be safe from getting hit by traffic. No solution is a good one, except the solution of creating a special KidNet separate from the real thing. Internet was NEVER designed with children in mind and it's not a toy. Of course, they want it all NOW, and they want us to pay for it. We didn't ask them to throw their kids onto the net! They did it themselves. It's inevitable that someone would come up with the idea of a rating service. They have the right to free speech as much as the rest of us, and as long as they're providing a service which will tend to keep the fundamentalist kids safe from thoughtcrime, why complain about it? As long as we're not required to place ratings on our own text, and as long as the *rating services* are responsible for the accuracy of the ratings, I see nothing wrong with the concept. Any system that puts the burden on the author, on the other hand, is antithetical to free speech, and must be rejected. What the censors are trying to do is to use children as a political tool to exert a "chilling" effect on the content of discussion in the only existing forum for free speech that is widely accessible. Congress is not allowed to abridge the freedom of speech; therefore, the only Constitutionally acceptable solutions to the much-exaggerated problem of free speech on the net are 1) to do nothing, 2) to encourage the creation of a separate KidNet designed to be a G-rated happy purple dinosaur world, or 3) to encourage the non-invasive use of blocking software and rating services by narrow-minded parents. I'd prefer 1) or 2), but Congresscritters are too stupid to pick 1), and probably 2) as well. squirrel pictures & more! -> +---------------- | GREAT MOMENTS IN CRITTER HISTORY #5 Thryomanes (Herman Miller) | "Early to bed, early to rise, gets the worm." (hmiller@io.com) | Benjamin Francolin From: malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Sat, 02 Dec 1995 12:31:04 GMT Lines: 46 Message-ID: <30c045b3.13894541@news.demon.co.uk> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> On Sat, 02 Dec 95 05:20:34 GMT, hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) wrote: > No >solution is a good one, except the solution of creating a special KidNet >separate from the real thing. Internet was NEVER designed with children in >mind and it's not a toy. Of course, they want it all NOW, and they want us to >pay for it. > The problem I see with that is that it's one further step in the increasing trend to deny kids access to the adult world. I think kids now are desperately isolated from any chance to observe real adults interacting _as_ adults (and no, I'm not using "adult" as a euphemism for sex). I'm not sure if it's this bad in the States yet but here in Britain the moral panic about child molesters is so acute that it's actively dangerous for an adult, especially a man, to even hold a conversation with someone else's child. The manufactured moral panic about kids on the net is just an extension of the same thing. How the hell are kids supposed to learn how adults behave? Teachers don't interact in a natural way in front of the kids. TV is about the only sight they get of the adult world and that hardly presents a representative picture does it? The damage done by concerted campaigns to tell children that strange adults are probably bent on hurting them is inestimable. The internet is one place that kids can actually observe adults engaging in semi-rational discussion. You kiddienet would completely deny them that. Oh, and by the way there probably _are_ one or two potential child molesters out there on the net looking for possible victims. You won't find these people, if they exist, on alt.sex.pedophile, you'll find them on the k12 hierarchy and alt.fans.power-rangers etc. where they will post nothing likely to cause the Exons of this world to prick up their ears. These people would immediately transfer their activities to your kiddienet once it was formed. How is you network going to ensure that all it's subscribers are actually children? ---------------------------------+---------------------------------- I was born weird: This terrible | Like Pavlov's dogs we are trained compulsion to behave normally is | to salivate at the sound of the the result of childhood trauma. | liberty bell. ---------------------------------+---------------------------------- Malcolm From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Sun, 03 Dec 1995 01:35:31 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 45 Message-ID: <30c0f1aa.31524848@news.dnai.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4903s6$oi8@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49dj9j$8q1@agate.berkeley.edu> <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49mtn3$jue@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> On 1 Dec 1995 12:50:43 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > Thus, given that attempts are sometimes made to write the MPAA >ratings into laws, and people certainly often think they have the force >of law, they are prejudicial. I am unaware of any case where anyone >thought that "mystery" or "science fiction" was against the law or >illegal to distribute to minors. So, categorization is acceptable, only if the categories have no moral/political bias? But they do... Suppose 'Atlas Shrugged' were classed under 'Science Fiction', instead of 'Philosophy' (or General Fiction). It certainly *is* science fiction -- it's set in an unspecified future where the geopolitical structure of the world is radically different and much of the plot revolves around new alloys, force fields, and death rays. But by classifying it as such, you radically change who is going to see it in casual browsing, and indeed, how they will approach the book. > This answers the old canard about "people categorize material all >the time - there's western, SF, drama - what's different about a category of >"potential thoughtcrime" "? (sarcastic, but the point should be clear). > Well, not at all. Suppose you are browsing through the 'politics' section at your library, and hit 'propaganda'. There will be, one hopes, subcategories -- American, Fascist, Communist, etc. But wait -- 'Fascist Propaganda' is illegal in Germany, and 'Communist Propaganda' was borderline illegal in the US at one time, and is still considered an epithet. But what would you call 'Triumph Of The Will', if *not* Fascist Propaganda? But by calling it that, you make it a target for criminal action in some parts of the world. Hell, the choice to call 'Chariots of The Gods' 'fiction' or 'non fiction' is making a statement about the value of the book. *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard You can't get takeout Chinese food in China, Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba, and that tells you all you need to know about socialism:P.J.O'Rourke. From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 3 Dec 1995 07:35:07 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 73 Message-ID: <49rjvb$9nc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49mtn3$jue@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30c0f1aa.31524848@news.dnai.com> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <30c0f1aa.31524848@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >On 1 Dec 1995 12:50:43 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) >wrote: > > >> Thus, given that attempts are sometimes made to write the MPAA >>ratings into laws, and people certainly often think they have the force >>of law, they are prejudicial. I am unaware of any case where anyone >>thought that "mystery" or "science fiction" was against the law or >>illegal to distribute to minors. > >So, categorization is acceptable, only if the categories have no >moral/political bias? But they do... No, categorization may be non-prejudicial only if the categories have no "color of legal prohibition". This is quite different from "moral/political bias", and in fact is specifically constructed to look not at "bias", whatever that is, but at the law and its "penumbra and emanations", to steal a phrase. In fact, that definition was constructed to appeal to people like you, who I thought consider legal/illegal a very different, mostly objective matter, than the more fuzzy, mostly subjective, idea of bias. >Suppose 'Atlas Shrugged' were classed under 'Science Fiction', instead >of 'Philosophy' (or General Fiction). It certainly *is* science >fiction -- it's set in an unspecified future where the geopolitical >structure of the world is radically different and much of the plot >revolves around new alloys, force fields, and death rays. But by >classifying it as such, you radically change who is going to see it in >casual browsing, and indeed, how they will approach the book. The definition above does not attempt to capture all effects of a classification. It is based on providing a framework to reject a certain subset by identifying an area where (traditional) Liberals and Libertarians have common agreement. >> This answers the old canard about "people categorize material all >>the time - there's western, SF, drama - what's different about a category of >>"potential thoughtcrime" "? (sarcastic, but the point should be clear). >> >Well, not at all. Suppose you are browsing through the 'politics' >section at your library, and hit 'propaganda'. There will be, one >hopes, subcategories -- American, Fascist, Communist, etc. But wait -- >'Fascist Propaganda' is illegal in Germany, and 'Communist Propaganda' >was borderline illegal in the US at one time, and is still considered >an epithet. Why do you consider this a theoretical problem? If the definition is tied to laws, then of course it changes with the laws. Hence 'Fascist Propaganda' is a prejudicial label in Germany, but not in the US. To call something 'Communist Propaganda' was obviously an extremely prejudicial label in the US in McCarthy era (in fact, that's whole point), not so in the USSR at a similar time. "Legal" is a very useful concept, even though the specifics vary from country to country. >But what would you call 'Triumph Of The Will', if *not* Fascist >Propaganda? But by calling it that, you make it a target for criminal >action in some parts of the world. Why do you think "accurate" and "prejudicial" are mutually exclusive categories? "Selling this material might get you jailed" can be both. >Hell, the choice to call 'Chariots of The Gods' 'fiction' or 'non >fiction' is making a statement about the value of the book. Indeed. But neither "fiction" or "nonfiction" relates to legality, hence has nothing to do with what I discuss. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 3 Dec 1995 20:09:51 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 79 Message-ID: <49t06f$pc3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> In article <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) writes: >In article <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, > sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > >>The EFF was flogged over >>making a deal for "compromise" for Digital Telephony. People did not >>take kindly to any sort of "we're outnumbered/best we can do/go along >>with the government or it'll be worse" argument. But it seems in every >>EFF/VTW/CDT/etc alert, ratings systems are touted as the savior of a >>free net. Next to no dissent. No wildcat activism. I'm not sure how to >>change the dynamic, but it's very disturbing. > >It's inevitable that someone would come up with the idea of a rating service. >They have the right to free speech as much as the rest of us, and as long as >they're providing a service which will tend to keep the fundamentalist kids >safe from thoughtcrime, why complain about it? Because this "service" is not free speech, but censorship once removed. It is being imposed under government threat, and historically every system of that type has turned out to be stifling. That's why one should complain about it. >As long as we're not required to place ratings on our own text, and as >long as the *rating services* are responsible for the accuracy of the >ratings, I see nothing wrong with the concept. Again, nearly every month The Unnamed One defends the Clipper proposal by stressing theoretical merits. The Clipper system is, so far, purely voluntary, the official statements are that it won't be mandatory, and it has such wonderful technological safeguards. Almost no-one believes this line. Yet people are strangely so willing to accept a similar assurance against similar historical outcomes. I believe this is because Clipper is mentally marked "government" and PICS is thought of as "anti-government". That's excellent PR. > Any system that puts the burden on the author, on the other hand, is > antithetical to free speech, and must be rejected. Is it OK if the government makes up the ratings? Then why does it become OK if a private company does it ON THE GOVERNMENT'S THREAT? Then it's just a privatized system, little different from contracting out other government actions. > What the censors are trying to do is to use children as a political > tool to exert a "chilling" effect on the content of discussion in the only > existing forum for free speech that is widely accessible. Exactly. And there are several different ways to do this ... > Congress is not allowed to abridge the freedom of speech; therefore, the > only Constitutionally acceptable solutions to the much-exaggerated > problem of free speech on the net are 1) to do nothing, 2) to encourage > the creation of a separate KidNet designed to be a G-rated happy purple > dinosaur world, or 3) to encourage the non-invasive use of blocking > software and rating services by narrow-minded parents. I'd prefer 1) or 2), > but Congresscritters are too stupid to pick 1), and probably 2) as well. I am very highly skeptical that 3) as stated is practically possible. The key word is "non-invasive". Filtering as often advocated makes no logical sense. We keep hearing about all these parents who are stumped by the Internet, can't figure out the software, being outstripped by their cyberchildren. If that's so, how are they going to install and configure a complicated net filter tool? No, there's going to have to be a way it's "installed" for them, some default system. Maybe all accounts come with that default put on, and a specific form has to be sent in to change it or unlock it. In this way of thinking, the burden of figuring out how to unlock the system, not lock the system, has to be on those who can do it (this in itself might be enough to ensure a lot of control in practice). The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any different? -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway From: house@helios.usq.EDU.AU (ron house) Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Message-ID: Sender: news@zeus.usq.edu.au (News Administrator) Organization: University of Southern Queensland References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> <30c045b3.13894541@news.demon.co.uk> Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 03:44:12 GMT Lines: 25 malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) writes: >On Sat, 02 Dec 95 05:20:34 GMT, hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) wrote: >> No >>solution is a good one, except the solution of creating a special KidNet >>separate from the real thing. >Oh, and by the way there probably _are_ one or two potential child >molesters out there on the net looking for possible victims. You won't >find these people, if they exist, on alt.sex.pedophile, you'll find >them on the k12 hierarchy and alt.fans.power-rangers etc. where they >will post nothing likely to cause the Exons of this world to prick up >their ears. These people would immediately transfer their activities >to your kiddienet once it was formed. How is you network going to >ensure that all it's subscribers are actually children? An excellent point. It also occurs to me that there will be many fewer adult readers of kiddienet, and thus less likelihood that sinister postings by pedophiles would be detected and pursued. -- Ron House. USQ | A nonviolent diet is the (house@usq.edu.au) Toowoomba, Australia. | foundation for a nonviolent world. From: rnewman@kalypso.cybercom.net (Ron Newman) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 4 Dec 1995 17:22:16 -0500 Organization: Cyber Access Internet Communications, Inc. Lines: 21 Message-ID: <49vsao$l2g@kalypso.cybercom.net> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49flo4$i4h@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca> <49mtn3$jue@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30c0f1aa.31524848@news.dnai.com> In article <30c0f1aa.31524848@news.dnai.com>, Lizard wrote: >Suppose 'Atlas Shrugged' were classed under 'Science Fiction', instead >of 'Philosophy' (or General Fiction). It certainly *is* science >fiction -- it's set in an unspecified future where the geopolitical >structure of the world is radically different and much of the plot >revolves around new alloys, force fields, and death rays. But by >classifying it as such, you radically change who is going to see it in >casual browsing, and indeed, how they will approach the book. However, the Net differs from a physical library in several critical ways: - A library (usually) has only one catalog. The Net can and does have many catalogs. - A library book can only be assigned one shelf location and call number. A Net document can have many "locations" and "call-number" equivalents. -- Ron Newman rnewman@cybercom.net Web: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/home.html From: bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 14:51:50 -0600 Organization: ZOG Lines: 46 Message-ID: References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> X-Path-Mangled: Bill Gates doesn't need my posts. Let him get his own In article <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > > The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system >that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not >ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any >different? Go to your local "Adult" entertainment store and tell me that unrated videos are hard to find. Hell, go to Blockbuster and look around. The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. My only problem with a net rating system is that I am extremely nervous about there being any sort of certification authority analogous to the MPAA. The web provides very good and obvious ways to label pages with content type tags. A web author who wants to tag his pages can do so, and a web author who does not want to neednot. Anyone who lies about their content type is scum, identical to the people who throw irrelevant 'keywords' into their pages to get indexed all over the place by automated crawlers. tyhere should be no need for some body that vettes pages individually, there should be instead a *standards* body that defines tags for types of content. Maybe it is simply an additional thing to consider for HTML 3 proposals. *INFORMATION* cannot be a bad thing. *STANDARDIZED* information about what sort of material is in a web page cannot be bad. It would be a good thing to have a set of page-scope tags that described in very general ways what kind of content they contain. It would be fairly simple to have tags that say "This page contains images of violence" or "This page contains images of nudity" or "This page contains images of sexual acts" and have browsers that can be set to block those. In the end, there is both a responsibility and a right of parents to filter what kids are exposed to, and that can be made easier by web authors. Given the legal ramifications, I have no doubt that content providers will be more than happy to tag their pages, since it offloads their responsibility. Much as the "not for sale to minors" text on pornography helps the publishers. -- Bill Stewart-Cole What is Stewart-Cole Consulting? Hell if I know. I'll find out when I finish the web page. Current projected date: 12/1. I'm not saying what year From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 5 Dec 1995 23:04:20 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 87 Message-ID: <4a2j5k$t2v@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: >In article <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>, sethf@athena.mit.edu >(Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > > >> >> The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system >>that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not >>ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any >>different? > >Go to your local "Adult" entertainment store and tell me that unrated >videos are hard to find. Hell, go to Blockbuster and look around. Here we go again, another instance of "a system which does not suppress 100% is thought of as 0%". Go to your local theater and tell me that unrated movies are not at a disadvantage. Or just look at a few examples. >The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution >except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents >from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. It definitely harasses some creators, Frank Zappa is a well-known instance. He got "labeled" even in one piece of pure instrumental (maybe it was from marching to a different drummer ...). >My only problem with a net rating system is that I am extremely nervous >about there being any sort of certification authority analogous to the >MPAA. The web provides very good and obvious ways to label pages with >content type tags. A web author who wants to tag his pages can do so, and >a web author who does not want to neednot. Anyone who lies about their And an author who doesn't want to stay out of jail need not either. If the censorship could be ignored, it wouldn't be effective. Hence there must be a government threat somewhere in the chain. And it's very evident in Rep. White's recent letter: "However, those who make good faith, reasonable efforts to label content and enable it to be blocked or filtered by parental control technologies (such as the PICS standards currently being developed by MIT and the World Wide Web Consortium) would be immune from prosecution." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Translation: Don't sign up with PICS, *risk* jail. This is exactly what I've been saying would happen all along in this thread. It's nice to be vindicated, though it's a bitter validation. >for HTML 3 proposals. *INFORMATION* cannot be a bad thing. *STANDARDIZED* >information about what sort of material is in a web page cannot be bad. It Sure it can. "I'm a good target to attack" is very bad information. >would be a good thing to have a set of page-scope tags that described in >very general ways what kind of content they contain. It would be fairly >simple to have tags that say "This page contains images of violence" or >"This page contains images of nudity" or "This page contains images of >sexual acts" and have browsers that can be set to block those. How about "This page contains religion"? "This page contains racism"? "This page contains right-wing opinions"? etc. > In the end, there is both a responsibility and a right of parents to > filter what kids are exposed to, and that can be made easier by web authors. I could certainly paint a large bulls-eye on my chest to make it easier for muggers to kill me (It's just information! Like, this is where my vital spots are). I don't think that's a good idea. Similarly for my web pages and small-minded censors. > Given the legal ramifications, I have no doubt that content providers > will be more than happy to tag their pages, since it offloads their > responsibility. Much as the "not for sale to minors" text on > pornography helps the publishers. Once again, it's not about "pornography", it's about ANYTHING that draws the ire of the censors. If the past is any guide, that will cover a whole list of things, including safe-sex material, rap music and gay and lesbian politics. I'm sure it will be helpful for content providers to be able to easily suppress all of those, and they'll be happy to do it. But now we've answered my question - it's indeed a censorship system, because of the "legal ramifications" you mention. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: kadie@ai.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 6 Dec 1995 02:52:12 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 22 Message-ID: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: [...] >The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution >except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents >from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. [...] Facts: The Music Labeling system was created because of overt government coercion. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer of Music in the U.S.. Wal-Mart will not sell labeled music. Conclusion: Government-coerced music labeling has significantly changed the music distribution in the U.S. - Carl -- Carl Kadie -- I do not represent any organization or employer; this is just me. = Email: kadie@cs.uiuc.edu = = URL: From: hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 06 Dec 95 04:21:52 GMT Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 24 Message-ID: <4a35pf$1ml@anarchy.io.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> <30c045b3.13894541@news.demon.co.uk> In article <30c045b3.13894541@news.demon.co.uk>, malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) wrote: >The internet is one place that kids can actually observe adults >engaging in semi-rational discussion. You kiddienet would completely >deny them that. Enlightened parents would let their kids use Internet. The point is, there needs to be a forum where free speech is respected. Until recently, that was the Internet. Then congress came along and said, "You can't have free speech, what about the children?" It should be the parent's responsibility if they let their kids wander in a huge library of information without any supervision. But no. Congress wants the Internet to be a kiddie-safe place. So let them make their own kiddie-safe place and leave the Internet alone. squirrel pictures & more! -> +---------------- | GREAT MOMENTS IN CRITTER HISTORY #5 Thryomanes (Herman Miller) | "Early to bed, early to rise, gets the worm." (hmiller@io.com) | Benjamin Francolin From: hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 06 Dec 95 04:09:11 GMT Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 79 Message-ID: <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> In article , bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) wrote: >My only problem with a net rating system is that I am extremely nervous >about there being any sort of certification authority analogous to the >MPAA. The web provides very good and obvious ways to label pages with >content type tags. A web author who wants to tag his pages can do so, and >a web author who does not want to neednot. It's worse now than it may have seemed before. If I understand the latest inkspills from Congress properly (as reported by CDT and others), you wouldn't have any choice BUT to rate your pages. I'll have to see the inkspills themselves to be certain, but I'm not planning on holding my breath. 1984, here we come!!! > Anyone who lies about their >content type is scum, identical to the people who throw irrelevant >'keywords' into their pages to get indexed all over the place by automated >crawlers. But what constitutes "lying" about content, when no one can even agree on what is "decent" or "indecent"? > tyhere should be no need for some body that vettes pages >individually, there should be instead a *standards* body that defines tags >for types of content. Considering the endless topics of whether a particular message is "off-topic" for a particular newsgroup, I think the difficulties of accurate labeling have been greatly underestimated. > Maybe it is simply an additional thing to consider >for HTML 3 proposals. *INFORMATION* cannot be a bad thing. *STANDARDIZED* >information about what sort of material is in a web page cannot be bad. It >would be a good thing to have a set of page-scope tags that described in >very general ways what kind of content they contain. It would be fairly >simple to have tags that say "This page contains images of violence" or >"This page contains images of nudity" or "This page contains images of >sexual acts" and have browsers that can be set to block those. Well, it might be nice to have a standard that says "This page contains images of squirrels", but it's not going to happen. What IS a bad thing is when certain information is REQUIRED, regardless of necessity. That is antithetical to free speech. Imagine filling out a government form every time you write a letter! That's what it would be like to rate all web pages. The government just wants to halt free speech, regardless of consequences. They've shown their immunity to rational argument and the voice of the Internet community repeatedly. What they want is a nice orderly playground where parents can abandon their children and let Big Brother protect them. > In the end, >there is both a responsibility and a right of parents to filter what kids >are exposed to, and that can be made easier by web authors. Given the >legal ramifications, I have no doubt that content providers will be more >than happy to tag their pages, since it offloads their responsibility. >Much as the "not for sale to minors" text on pornography helps the >publishers. "Congress shall make no law..." What they're trying to pull is NOT legal. It'll create lots of unnecessary pain and suffering until someone finally rules against it, though. If someone were to point a gun at my head and say "Please add 'I LOVE BIG BROTHER' to the beginning of each of your web pages", don't you think that I'd be "more than happy" to comply? Labeling is coerced speech, not free speech. Most web authors are not writing for children as their intended audience. The Internet is not a medium intended or designed for children. But Congress doesn't care. No matter what the results, they're determined to fit the square peg into the round hole. squirrel pictures & more! -> +---------------- | GREAT MOMENTS IN CRITTER HISTORY #5 Thryomanes (Herman Miller) | "Early to bed, early to rise, gets the worm." (hmiller@io.com) | Benjamin Francolin From: Pinkeye Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 10:15:30 -0800 Organization: SEMATECH, Austin Lines: 22 Message-ID: <30C5DDC2.3F0A@sematech.org> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Herman Miller Herman Miller wrote: > > In article , > bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) wrote: > > >My only problem with a net rating system is that I am extremely nervous > >about there being any sort of certification authority analogous to the > >MPAA. The web provides very good and obvious ways to label pages with > >content type tags. A web author who wants to tag his pages can do so, and > >a web author who does not want to neednot. > > It's worse now than it may have seemed before. If I understand the latest > inkspills from Congress properly (as reported by CDT and others), you wouldn't > have any choice BUT to rate your pages. I'll have to see the inkspills > themselves to be certain, but I'm not planning on holding my breath. 1984, > here we come!!! The simple solution is to label every web document, the kiddie pages included, triple-X (or whatever the most extreme rating is going to be). If enough web authors do so, the rating system will be both omnipresent and irrelevant. --pinkeye From: Pinkeye Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 06 Dec 1995 10:15:36 -0800 Organization: SEMATECH, Austin Lines: 22 Message-ID: <30C5DDC8.44A8@sematech.org> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Herman Miller Herman Miller wrote: > > In article , > bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) wrote: > > >My only problem with a net rating system is that I am extremely nervous > >about there being any sort of certification authority analogous to the > >MPAA. The web provides very good and obvious ways to label pages with > >content type tags. A web author who wants to tag his pages can do so, and > >a web author who does not want to neednot. > > It's worse now than it may have seemed before. If I understand the latest > inkspills from Congress properly (as reported by CDT and others), you wouldn't > have any choice BUT to rate your pages. I'll have to see the inkspills > themselves to be certain, but I'm not planning on holding my breath. 1984, > here we come!!! The simple solution is to label every web document, the kiddie pages included, triple-X (or whatever the most extreme rating is going to be). If enough web authors do so, the rating system will be both omnipresent and irrelevant. --pinkeye From: acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 6 Dec 1995 15:34:46 -0500 Organization: Project Glue, University of Maryland, College Park Lines: 42 Message-ID: <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> Herman Miller wrote: > bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) wrote: > >> Anyone who lies about their >>content type is scum, identical to the people who throw irrelevant >>'keywords' into their pages to get indexed all over the place by automated >>crawlers. > >But what constitutes "lying" about content, when no one can even agree on what >is "decent" or "indecent"? > >> tyhere should be no need for some body that vettes pages >>individually, there should be instead a *standards* body that defines tags >>for types of content. I've advocated such a system before, but Seth's objections have made me reevaluate my position. In an earlier round of this discussion ( > a year ago) somebody pointed out that the tags themselves are a judgement - there won't be tags for "offensive cuteness" or "sloppy logic" - It's going to be about "decency" (whatever that means). The act of creating the tag validates the position of those who find offensive. The lack of a tag is a judgement that anyone who would be offended by the (untagged) item is, in the eyes of the standards body, a sniveling weenie whose opinion isn't important. In this way the standards body becomes an arbiter of which thoughts are reasonable to be offended by and which are not. I sincerely doubt that I will be able to use such a system to 'protect' my children from exposure to "clueless starry-eyed idealism" if I so desired. Furthermore, the single standards body would have a significant influence on content by virtue of the fact that untagged items are perceived as being at greater risk of legal action. The problem is a _single_ standards body. Avoiding this is likely to be tricky, as pointed out by Seth and others. Anybody with any ideas on how to avoid a single standards body, please jump in and say something. I can't think of a good workable plan - Perhaps someone else can. Any takers? ......Andrew From: newcombe@aa.csc.peachnet.edu (Dan Newcombe) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Wed, 06 Dec 95 19:19:06 GMT Organization: University System of Georgia (PeachNet) Lines: 30 Message-ID: <4a4qba$tr0_001@news-demo.peachnet.edu> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> In article <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, kadie@ai.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) wrote: >bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: > >[...] >>The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution >>except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents >>from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. >Facts: > The Music Labeling system was created because of overt government coercion. > Wal-Mart is the largest retailer of Music in the U.S.. > Wal-Mart will not sell labeled music. Is that the largest single retailer? I'll bet that all the local music chains (Blockbuster, Strawberries, Camelot, Mom&Pop stores) have combined sales far greater than those of wal-marts. Therefore, it doesn't hold true. >Conclusion: > Government-coerced music labeling has significantly changed the > music distribution in the U.S. Yeah - now people know the good stuff is the stuff with the labels. -Dan -- Dan Newcombe newcombe@aa.csc.peachnet.edu -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= "And the man in the mirror has sad eyes." -Marillion From: steve.struthers@odyssey.on.ca (Steve Struthers) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.censorship,news.admin.censorship,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Thu, 07 Dec 1995 04:11:23 GMT Organization: WorldLinx Telecommunications Inc. Lines: 127 Message-ID: <4a5pf5$q3@news.worldlinx.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48qfhe$7a7@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <48te3l$6v2@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <48u4vc$hhk@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <49n4i1$n1r@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <49onnk$576@anarchy.io.com> <30c045b3.13894541@news.demon.co.uk> malcolm@pigsty.demon.co.uk (Malcolm McMahon) writes: >On Sat, 02 Dec 95 05:20:34 GMT, hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) wrote: >> No >>solution is a good one, except the solution of creating a special KidNet >>separate from the real thing. Internet was NEVER designed with children in >>mind and it's not a toy. Of course, they want it all NOW, and they want us to >>pay for it. >> >The problem I see with that is that it's one further step in the >increasing trend to deny kids access to the adult world. I think kids >now are desperately isolated from any chance to observe real adults >interacting _as_ adults (and no, I'm not using "adult" as a euphemism >for sex). I'm not sure if it's this bad in the States yet but here in >Britain the moral panic about child molesters is so acute that it's >actively dangerous for an adult, especially a man, to even hold a >conversation with someone else's child. The manufactured moral panic >about kids on the net is just an extension of the same thing. The phrase "manufactured moral panic" says it all, really. In regard to both the hysteria over cyberporn and kiddie porn. The attempt to separate adults from children is just a variation on the old "divide and conquer" strategy. If the kids can no longer trust adults in general, who can they trust? If my suspicions are correct, the society of the not-too-distant future may be one in which people who were children in the late 80's and 90's may trust nothing of what they read, hear, or see unless it is delivered to them by government agencies of one sort or another with a stamp of approval. They'll also be more likely to trust the media, who have also had a hand in fanning the flames. I view the concern over adult-child relations as a backlash against the libertarian trend that is sweeping many Western nations. The mass media and government, two bastions of power and influence, have lost their grip. A powerful few see the changes, and they don't like it. Naturally they will support the witch-hunt for as long as it is politically expedient and profitable to do so. Since the late 1950's human sexuality in Western society has made great strides in coming out from the the closet and into the mainstream. Think of it this way: in the Fifties, the door to the closet was slightly ajar. If you took a peek inside you could see a ghostly image of Sexuality. In the ealry Sixties, the door opened wider still, and the ghostly image became more clearly defined. By the late Sixties, the door was opened wider still, and Sexuality tentatively put one foot outside the door, and on the floor. By the mid-Seventies, Sexuality was halfway out of the closet. By the Eighties, completely out of the closet. By the Nineties, Sexuality had made its full presence known, although it had been forced to take a step or two back towards the closet thanks to concern over things like AIDS and pedophilia. It may even retreat into the closet if the paranoiacs and prudes have their way with things like the Communications Decency Act. The explosion of information about sex, sexuality and erotic/pornographic material that has taken place in the last two or three decades has been such that the prudes who see themselves as society's moral guardians find themselves unable to do much about it. Not that they haven't tried, of course. They lost the battle because they failed to capture the hearts and minds of those who were most sexually active. They failed to organize and lobby in a coherent fashion. They thought the obscenity laws then on the books would save the day for them. But then the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution and the Vietnam War came along, depriving the "moral majoritarians" of the chance to narrow the public's focus down to a single issue and seize upon it once they had the undivided attention of the masses. Shut out of that arena, they have had to move on - to the arena concerning intergenerational sex, kiddie porn, and cyberporn. >How the hell are kids supposed to learn how adults behave? They won't. And what they will see is rather stilted, sex-negative behaviour, which will leave them completely confused when they finally do encounter adult sexuality for the first time. >Teachers >don't interact in a natural way in front of the kids. TV is about the >only sight they get of the adult world and that hardly presents a >representative picture does it? The damage done by concerted campaigns >to tell children that strange adults are probably bent on hurting them >is inestimable. What may conceivably happen is that really confused kids will, as adults, express the sexual behaviours common to childhood instead of the adult behaviours that would be deemed more appropriate. In other words, they'll end up developmentally impaired. Oh, they'll probably get the hang of things eventually, but their sexuality will always be expressed with the dark shadow of puritanical values just behind them. >The internet is one place that kids can actually observe adults >engaging in semi-rational discussion. You kiddienet would completely >deny them that. There is still a place for newsgroups oriented solely towards children. Children have a different cognitive and perceptual makeup and as a result may not be able to take full advantage of "adult" newsgroups. On the other hand, barring them completely from access to anything not deemed "age appropriate" is grossly counterproductive. >Oh, and by the way there probably _are_ one or two potential child >molesters out there on the net looking for possible victims. You won't >find these people, if they exist, on alt.sex.pedophile, you'll find >them on the k12 hierarchy and alt.fans.power-rangers etc. where they >will post nothing likely to cause the Exons of this world to prick up >their ears. These people would immediately transfer their activities >to your kiddienet once it was formed. How is you network going to >ensure that all it's subscribers are actually children? The claim, "there are child molesters everywhere on the 'net" is grossly overstated - as grossly overstated as the argument that the Internet needs to be closely regulated to guard against terrorism, and for the simple reason that real terrorists are few in number, and not so stupid as to use an open medium like the 'net to communicate their plans to their cohorts. In the final analysis, Internet ratings will do nothing to help people effectively deal with the phenomenon of pedophilia, or understand intergenerational sex and its effects. If anything, the use of ratings and government mandated filtering systems as well as the criminalization of adult speech and sexual expression will probably make the situation worse, not better. Hardly what I call progress. From: "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 9 Dec 1995 04:03:47 GMT Organization: World Wide Web Consortium Lines: 25 Message-ID: <4ab1r3$5o9@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-URL: news:4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu >The problem is a _single_ standards body. Avoiding this is >likely to be tricky, as pointed out by Seth and others. >Anybody with any ideas on how to avoid a single standards body, >please jump in and say something. I can't think of a good >workable plan - Perhaps someone else can. Any takers? PICS is not a ratings standard. It is a mechanism for specifying ratings. It does not specify a single standard, it explicitly allows anyone to become a ratings organisation for any purpose. Ratings are themselves URIs and may thus be created as required. There is a dynamic that people are missing. The Web is not a traditional medium where there is a distinction between publishers and consumers. Every consumer has the potential to become a publisher. There is thus a difference to the normal mode of censorship in which the consumer is not forced to come to terms with the fact of being censored, its costs and so on. Phill -- Phillip M. Hallam-Baker Not speaking for anoyone else hallam@w3.org http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/hallam.html Information Superhighway -----> Hi-ho! Yow! I'm surfing Arpanet! From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Sat, 09 Dec 1995 07:19:58 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 39 Message-ID: <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> On 6 Dec 1995 02:52:12 GMT, kadie@ai.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) wrote: >bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: > >[...] >>The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution >>except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents >>from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. >[...] > >Facts: > The Music Labeling system was created because of overt government coercion. > Wal-Mart is the largest retailer of Music in the U.S.. > Wal-Mart will not sell labeled music. >Conclusion: > Government-coerced music labeling has significantly changed the > music distribution in the U.S. Addendum: People want to buy the music Wal-Mart won't sell. Therefore, small stores can stay in business in the face of competition from Wal-Mart by selling what Wal-Mart refuses to. This is seen in other areas -- small video stores can earn enough cash from renting hard-core porn to fend off Blockbuster. Small bookstores earn money selling books the 'mainstream' chains won't touch. This doesn't alter the fact that record-labelling is a form of government censorship. It just points out that it, like movie ratings, has backfired -- directors go out of their way to get an 'R' rating, because no one will see a 'G' or 'PG' movie. If you added a rating system to the net, owners of web pages would make sure their sites were titillating enough to get a 'forbidden' rating -- so that every 14 year old hacker in the country would be getting in. *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard Christmas -- Bah! Humbug!:C. Dickens URL:http:\\www.dnai.com\~lizard. From: spike@datasync.com (Thomas Neuhausen) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 10 Dec 1995 09:21:40 GMT Organization: DataSync inc Lines: 33 Message-ID: <4ae8r4$47p@osh2.datasync.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu> In article <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu>, acase@Glue.umd.edu says... > >Furthermore, the single standards body would have a significant >influence on content by virtue of the fact that untagged items >are perceived as being at greater risk of legal action. > >The problem is a _single_ standards body. Avoiding this is >likely to be tricky, as pointed out by Seth and others. > >Anybody with any ideas on how to avoid a single standards body, >please jump in and say something. I can't think of a good >workable plan - Perhaps someone else can. Any takers? > >......Andrew Well Andrew, IMHO, I don't think we have to worry about a single standards body in the sense of A SINGLE standards body, ie WORLDWIDE. With all of the wars and fighting in both the political and religious arenas going on, 200+ reps from 200+ countries wouldn't even be able to decide on a meeting place! What we need to worry about is a single US standards body. This is much more likely to happen, and soon. After being established, this HIGH and MORAL body would then procede (like other H&M bodies) to politically denounce the immoralness (sp?) of other 'more backward' and 'undeveloped' countries to try to 'bring them in line'. Hopefully, they'll just be laughed at . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= ***SPIKE*** This was my $0.02 but due to infaltion it's just $0.0000000001 From: hmiller@io.com (Herman Miller) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Fri, 08 Dec 95 03:51:02 GMT Organization: Illuminati Online Lines: 39 Message-ID: <4a8cnn$s7d@anarchy.io.com> References: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu> In article <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu>, acase@Glue.umd.edu (Andrew Case) wrote: >The act of creating the tag validates the position of those who >find offensive. The lack of a tag is a judgement >that anyone who would be offended by the (untagged) item is, in the >eyes of the standards body, a sniveling weenie whose opinion isn't >important. In this way the standards body becomes an arbiter of which >thoughts are reasonable to be offended by and which are not. I >sincerely doubt that I will be able to use such a system to 'protect' >my children from exposure to "clueless starry-eyed idealism" if >I so desired. Thanks for pointing out one of the biggest problems with self-rating systems. Indeed, like the background of a painting, what is left out of a message is just as significant as what is put in. And if a law says that you can't make the political statement of leaving out a bit of information that you find offensive (don't many of us find ratings offensive?), the law does not support freedom of speech. It makes more sense now. >Anybody with any ideas on how to avoid a single standards body, >please jump in and say something. I can't think of a good >workable plan - Perhaps someone else can. Any takers? The advantage of the Internet over other media is that anyone can rate anyone else's page (e.g., "Cool Site of the Day", "Mirsky's Worst of the Web".) IOW, we already have an informal "rating" system of sorts. The Christian Coalition, or anyone else, could have their own listing of "Evil Web Pages", if they really wanted to. Of course, someone would have take the time to go through all the 26,132 web pages (according to Lycos) that mention the word "sex". That is, unless you could set up your software to simply refuse to display pages that contain certain words (which wouldn't be too hard a feature to implement). squirrel pictures & more! -> +---------------- | GREAT MOMENTS IN CRITTER HISTORY #5 Thryomanes (Herman Miller) | "Early to bed, early to rise, gets the worm." (hmiller@io.com) | Benjamin Francolin From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 12 Dec 1995 15:40:14 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 26 Message-ID: <4ak7ou$i38@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> <30C5DDC2.3F0A@sematech.org> In article <30C5DDC2.3F0A@sematech.org> Pinkeye writes: >Herman Miller wrote: >> >>inkspills from Congress properly (as reported by CDT and others),you wouldn't >>have any choice BUT to rate your pages. I'll have to see the inkspills >>themselves to be certain, but I'm not planning on holding my breath. 1984, >>here we come!!! > >The simple solution is to label every web document,the kiddie pages included, >triple-X (or whatever the most extreme rating is going to be). If enough web >authors do so, the rating system will be both omnipresent and irrelevant. Almost none of the companies putting stuff on the Web will do this. Remember, PICS is being supported by a lot of major players, ranging from Apple and Microsoft to AOL and Prodigy. So the net result of the "let's all rate XXX" idea is that anything coming from independent-minded individuals is stigmatized, and the tripe coming from the organizations that would love to get control of the distribution channels does not have to pass through the "rot your mind" barrier. I don't think this is what you desire. Everybody-resist is a cute fantasy, but that's all it is. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 12 Dec 1995 15:48:26 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 36 Message-ID: <4ak88a$i6b@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4a4qba$tr0_001@news-demo.peachnet.edu> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <4a4qba$tr0_001@news-demo.peachnet.edu> newcombe@aa.csc.peachnet.edu (Dan Newcombe) writes: ]In article <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, ] kadie@ai.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) wrote: ]>bill@scconsult.com (Bill Stewart-Cole) writes: ]> ]>[...] ]>>The labelling of music has doen almost nothing to change distribution ]>>except at the very lowest level of stopping kids with attentive parents ]>>from buying 2LiveCrew CD's. ]>Facts: ]> The Music Labeling system was created because of overt government coercion. ]> Wal-Mart is the largest retailer of Music in the U.S.. ]> Wal-Mart will not sell labeled music. ] ]Is that the largest single retailer? I'll bet that all the local music chains ](Blockbuster, Strawberries, Camelot, Mom&Pop stores) have combined sales ]far greater than those of wal-marts. Therefore, it doesn't hold true. Sigh. One more example of the objection "control of less than 100% is not significant". This seems to be a real stumbling block in the discussion. I don't see how anyone can seriously argue that a major chain, especially one of Wal-Mart's influence, doesn't have market significance, but there you are. ]>Conclusion: ]> Government-coerced music labeling has significantly changed the ]> music distribution in the U.S. ] ]Yeah - now people know the good stuff is the stuff with the labels. *IF* you can find it. That's the point. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 12 Dec 1995 16:21:12 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 61 Message-ID: <4aka5o$is8@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <4a351o$1ml@anarchy.io.com> <4a4up6$a57@espresso.eng.umd.edu> <4ab1r3$5o9@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> In article <4ab1r3$5o9@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" writes: >>The problem is a _single_ standards body. Avoiding this is >>likely to be tricky, as pointed out by Seth and others. > >>Anybody with any ideas on how to avoid a single standards body, >>please jump in and say something. I can't think of a good >>workable plan - Perhaps someone else can. Any takers? > >PICS is not a ratings standard. It is a mechanism for specifying ratings. It >does not specify a single standard, it explicitly allows anyone to become a >ratings organisation for any purpose. Ratings are themselves URIs and may thus >be created as required. Yes, I know. PICS is the *technology*. The ratings body, what I call the "IPAA" (Internet Providers Association of America) will come next. But to me, it's blindingly obvious that this is inevitable. There has to be a default ratings system, else there is no point to the law, a parent can already buy a net-censor program. That's the one which will matter. Everything else is just fluff. Look at movie ratings. Anyone can publish their own reviews and ratings, for any purpose. But in the real world, as opposed to the abstraction, the only one which is significant is the MPAA. And it drew its power from a government threat (now a little misty in history), just like the "IPAA" is going to draw its power from the government threat which we see so clearly today. Let us not let slight imprecisions in terminology distract attention from the main concepts. PICS is the basis to make the "IPAA" workable. This is all rather detailed, so sometimes people misphrase things. >There is a dynamic that people are missing.The Web is not a traditional medium >where there is a distinction between publishers and consumers. Every consumer >has the potential to become a publisher. Sure there is a distinction. You don't have to be able to write HTML in order to read a web page. Perhaps your point is that the entry barriers for publishing and distribution to a mass audience are lower. I'll certainly agree with that. But that's not a magic anti-censorship barrier. The law works on a mass scale too. The economic entry barrier for running your own micro-power radio station is rather low in the US, same rough cost as a good PC. But we don't see a lot of pirate radio in defiance of the FCC. The legal risk dissuades most people or organizations from trying it, and the actual violators are simply hunted down and jailed or fined. The overall system is not so simply technologically determined. >There is thus a difference to the >normal mode of censorship in which the consumer is not forced to come to terms >with the fact of being censored, its costs and so on. What difference? How many people know what's in the Comics Code? *I* don't even know the details of the MPAA (does anyone?). This stuff isn't a secret. It's that consumers don't care overall. And similarly, I doubt they'll be any mass outrage to the "IPAA"'s censorship. All the major players signed on to it (the PICS list) certainly won't squawk. All that will be left is the opposition of some civil-libertarians. And you see how very well we've been doing in response to an extremely blatant government threat (sigh, this is depressing ...). -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 12 Dec 1995 16:35:47 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 49 Message-ID: <4akb13$j36@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >On 6 Dec 1995 02:52:12 GMT, kadie@ai.uiuc.edu (Carl M. Kadie) wrote: > >>Facts: >> The Music Labeling system was created because of overt government coercion. >> Wal-Mart is the largest retailer of Music in the U.S.. >> Wal-Mart will not sell labeled music. >>Conclusion: >> Government-coerced music labeling has significantly changed the >> music distribution in the U.S. > >Addendum: >People want to buy the music Wal-Mart won't sell. >Therefore, small stores can stay in business in the face of >competition from Wal-Mart by selling what Wal-Mart refuses to. Unstated and often untrue Assumptions: There exist stores which have enough of this and other business to compete The local DA doesn't unacceptably raise the cost of business with various charges >This is seen in other areas -- small video stores can earn enough cash >from renting hard-core porn to fend off Blockbuster. Small bookstores >earn money selling books the 'mainstream' chains won't touch. *IF* they can otherwise function. This is not universally true. >This doesn't alter the fact that record-labelling is a form of >government censorship. It just points out that it, like movie ratings, >has backfired -- directors go out of their way to get an 'R' rating, N'th time - a ratings system is not 100% perfect. It's a government-imposed market distortion (sic'em, Lizard, sic'em). Thus, the effects are not necessarily 100% suppression, but warping of the free market demand. Considering how seriously this is typically regarded in Libertarian thought, I would hope there would be more vehement opposition. >because no one will see a 'G' or 'PG' movie. If you added a rating >system to the net, owners of web pages would make sure their sites >were titillating enough to get a 'forbidden' rating -- so that every >14 year old hacker in the country would be getting in. Titillating but not "serious". That describes a lot of popular media. It's not very reassuring. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 05:34:38 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 34 Message-ID: <30cfa187.1556438@news.dnai.com> References: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4a4qba$tr0_001@news-demo.peachnet.edu> <4ak88a$i6b@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> On 12 Dec 1995 15:48:26 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > Sigh. One more example of the objection "control of less than >100% is not significant". This seems to be a real stumbling block in the >discussion. I don't see how anyone can seriously argue that a major >chain, especially one of Wal-Mart's influence, doesn't have market >significance, but there you are. > The problem is that if you define "Will not carry" as "censorship" then *every* retail outlet engages in censorship. Here in SF, we have a libertarian bookstore, and a left-anarchist bookstore. I would be shocked if more than 5% of their stock overlapped. So if I can't buy books on the Class Struggle at the libertarian store, or books defending landlords at the other store, am I being denied my rights? Or is the right to *not* sell in fact a way of preserving variety, by creating niche markets that can survive in face of magachains serving the mainstream? > *IF* you can find it. That's the point. > The point is that there's lots of material which is hard to find, due to limited appeal or personal choice. For example, unlike Europe, there are no laws in America against selling "hate literature" or Nazi propaganda -- yet while I can fine "Anarchy" (a left-anarchist magazine) at my local Borders, I cannot find equivalent radical-right materials, or anything to the right of "American Spectator". Censorship, or just a knowledge of the market? *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard Christmas -- Bah! Humbug!:C. Dickens URL:http:\\www.dnai.com\~lizard. From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 05:34:42 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 40 Message-ID: <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> References: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> <4akb13$j36@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> On 12 Dec 1995 16:35:47 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: > N'th time - a ratings system is not 100% perfect. It's a >government-imposed market distortion (sic'em, Lizard, sic'em). Thus, the >effects are not necessarily 100% suppression, but warping of the free >market demand. Considering how seriously this is typically regarded in >Libertarian thought, I would hope there would be more vehement opposition. > I am vehemently opposed to government regulation or threat thereof. My seeming vacillation on this issue is due to the fact that many of the arguments against voluntary labelling veer too close to the "if no one publishes my book, I'm being censored" school of thought -- the school of thought which holds that freedom of speech mandates a right to the means of distribution, private or public. If it is 'censorship' when Tower Records won't stock 'Gangsta Rap' due to labelling, is it censorship if their decision was made purely out of the owners/managers own code of ethics? The end result is the same... At what point does a voluntary labelling system become censorship? The line isn't 100% clear. Protest and boycott are also free speech -- is is censorship if a movie theatre in Greenwich Village refuses to show "Basic Instinct" for fear of alienating the large gay community which is their clientele? Does it become censorship when the decision is prompted by a rally by ACT-UP? When a city councilman is a prominent speaker at the rally? > Titillating but not "serious". That describes a lot of popular >media. It's not very reassuring. Touche. Ten points for you. *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard Christmas -- Bah! Humbug!:C. Dickens URL:http:\\www.dnai.com\~lizard. From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 17 Dec 1995 02:40:28 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 160 Message-ID: <4avvus$s6v@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <4a4qba$tr0_001@news-demo.peachnet.edu> <4ak88a$i6b@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30cfa187.1556438@news.dnai.com> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <30cfa187.1556438@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >On 12 Dec 1995 15:48:26 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) >wrote: >> Sigh. One more example of the objection "control of less than >>100% is not significant". This seems to be a real stumbling block in the >>discussion. I don't see how anyone can seriously argue that a major >>chain, especially one of Wal-Mart's influence, doesn't have market >>significance, but there you are. >> >The problem is that if you define "Will not carry" as "censorship" >then *every* retail outlet engages in censorship. Here in SF, we have But I didn't define it that way! I define it here as RESULT OF GOVERNMENT THREAT. Government, government, government. That just isn't being heard. I knew this was going to happen, that the impulse to ride the denounce-liberals hobbyhorse is so strong, so overwhelming, that the those in the grip of this compulsion cannot resist any opportunity. Even if one screams "This is about GOVERNMENT COERCION", they heard the words "business" and "labels" so they reflexively post the stock piece about "A business can carry what it wants", even in the face of trying to have a discussion about insuring that such practice remains legal. Go read the very first message I posted starting this threat (appended below), this is exactly what I predicted would happen. >> *IF* you can find it. That's the point. >> >The point is that there's lots of material which is hard to find, due ... >Censorship, or just a knowledge of the market? Irrelevant to this discussion. Lizard, you keep trying to have an argument with a position that is not being advocated in this thread. I know you love to post about this stuff, but I'm not going to indulge you. You can keep arguing with a strawman because it lets you pull out the standard criticisms of liberal thought, or you can join the discussion about the GOVERNMENT LAWS being considered RIGHT NOW, and the potential reactions and ultimate effects of them. Which is it going to be? From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 20 Nov 1995 09:50:31 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 113 Message-ID: <48pj17$a3n@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> [Background: PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection) is a system for ratings being sponsored by many companies, an undertaking with significant impact in the net censorship debate. See the web URL http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/PICS/ Also informative is the "labeling" section of the MIT Student Association for Freedom of Expression, URL http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/home.html This has items such as the Comics Code, mentioned below] The following is an outline of doubts I have about the uncritical support, even in the most vocal electronic civil-libertarian community, of the development of Internet labeling technology. I'm not attempting to refute every argument in favor of it here, which would require long and detailed article, or perhaps even a book to really do the topic justice. But I want to put forth a note of dissent for consideration. To sketch my concerns, I think civil-libertarians are being taken on this issue. There's all this wonderful technology being thrown around that's dazzling to people. It's similar to "voluntary" Clipper. There, the government came up with a fantastically detailed plan about how the keys are going to be kept by two separate agencies, and both would have to sign off, and even more safeguards to prevent abuses, etc. etc. Just about everybody saw through this in a second. What's all the infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. Sure, it'll remain "voluntary", r-i-i-g-h-t. Now comes PICS. More wonderful technology. A fantastically flexible standard that's going to prevent abuse by allowing diversity of ratings. Anyone can rate, anyone can make up a system, etc. etc. Just about everybody seems taken by this. But ... What's all the infrastructure for? If it can be used, it will be used. Sure, it'll remain "voluntary", r-i-i-g-h-t. I think this difference of reaction is because Clipper came with "government" tagged on it, and filtering/PICS with "anti-government" tagged to it (very good PR). Filtering as often advocated makes no logical sense. We keep hearing about all these parents who are stumped by the Internet, can't figure out the software, being outstripped by their cyberchildren. If that's so, how are they going to install and configure a complicated net filter tool? No, there's going to have to be a way it's "installed" for them, some default system. Maybe all accounts come with that default put on, and a specific form has to be sent in to change it or unlock it. In this way of thinking, the burden of figuring out how to unlock the system, not lock the system, has to be on those who can do it (this in itself might be enough to ensure a lot of control in practice). I believe the PICS effort is a government-industry collaboration to put in place the technology for a *private-IZED* censorship system, similar to Red Channels in McCarthyism, the MPAA for movies, and the Comics Code Authority for comics. But to discuss this, it's important to understand how all of that works and functions. Already I foresee a dozen uninformed replies yammering about "Conspiracy theory!" "It's PRIVATE, so IT'S NOT CENSORSHIP" "How dare you propose to interfere with the rights of a BUSINESS OWNER to make decisions on what to carry or not" etc. etc. Save it, please, if you don't know about any of the cases above. Basically, censorship discussion seems to run along a "toy" model where the only thing that is considered is government against creator. That's important, certainly, but it's the most crude form. Far more significant in my view is the complicated government-business-creator system that evolves and defines the market. There's also another big "toy" concept that if control is not 100%, it's considered as 0% especially if there's no *direct* government law against creators (somehow government laws against businesses don't seem to enter into people's minds in terms of censorship). There's a deep issue, one regarding which form the Internet provider service market will eventually assume. Perhaps it will be a "devil's bargain" where some businesses accept market regulation in return for near-monopoly control of the media. I think that's partially what's going on here. But more at large players driving out the independents, though. What will happen is that there will be a trade association that will publish a ratings system that Prodigy, Apple, Microsoft, etc. all agree on. They all subscribe to it, all netwatch software comes with it by default, and here's the kicker, anyone who doesn't support it runs the risk of being hauled into court on a Communications Decency Act-like "harmful to minors" or Memphis-like "community standards" charge. But it's not *certain* that latter will happen. More accurately, anyone who follows their standard is basically guaranteed not to be prosecuted - otherwise, do you care to risk dire consequences (jail/fine) for a Web page? Despite all the protestations of content-neutrality, there will probably be one rating system that "matters", and an unrated WWW page will then get about as far as an unrated movie. That is, not quite illegal, but *very* hard to distribute. Critically, the government coercion will be mostly done not at the *creator* level, but the *provider* level. This partly answers the questions that come up about "voluntary-ness". The government doesn't say "You must label your pages", your contract with your provider does. Don't like it, find another provider? Those won't be easy to find, because their legal risk is significant. And even if so, none of the subscribing providers will accept your unlabeled pages (yammer, yammer, yammer "THAT'S THEIR CHOICE ARE YOU PROPOSING TO FORCE THEM DOES A BOOKSTORE HAVE TO STOCK EVERYTHING ..." - save it, please!). Mislabel them? That's fraud, violation of contract, possible violation of the Communications Decency Act, and so on (someone will probably say it's THEFT, since it reduced the value of the system). The most basic question is this - has ANY labeling system that's put in place as a reaction to threatened government censorship not ended up being a censorship system itself? So why should PICS be any different? -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 17 Dec 1995 04:49:51 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 85 Message-ID: <4b07hf$u3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> <4akb13$j36@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >On 12 Dec 1995 16:35:47 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: >> N'th time - a ratings system is not 100% perfect. It's a >>government-imposed market distortion (sic'em, Lizard, sic'em). Thus, the >>effects are not necessarily 100% suppression, but warping of the free >>market demand. Considering how seriously this is typically regarded in >>Libertarian thought, I would hope there would be more vehement opposition. >I am vehemently opposed to government regulation or threat thereof. My >seeming vacillation on this issue is due to the fact that many of the >arguments against voluntary labelling veer too close to the "if no one >publishes my book, I'm being censored" school of thought -- the school This one is "If the government makes it harder to sell your book, you're being censored". That seems perfectly distinguishable from what you give above. It certainly has some similarity, but so do government social programs and private charity. Yet as far as I know you have no difficulty with arguments distinguishing those two. Do you have any trouble with arguments for voluntary charity because they sound too much like the justifications used for taxation? My aim here is to put forth a framework encompassing a common area of (traditional) Liberal and Libertarian theory, where both are in agreement. Indeed there are other areas where they disagree. We can argue that some other time, NOT IN THIS THREAD. >of thought which holds that freedom of speech mandates a right to the >means of distribution, private or public. If it is 'censorship' when >Tower Records won't stock 'Gangsta Rap' due to labelling, is it >censorship if their decision was made purely out of the >owners/managers own code of ethics? The end result is the same... The end result is also the same if a Salmon Rushdie decides not to publish a _Satanic Verses_ out of his own code of ethics, or out of fear for his life. Do you consider this a problem at all in your definition of censorship? >At what point does a voluntary labelling system become censorship? The >line isn't 100% clear. Oh, I agree. But it's blatantly obvious here, because there's a certified 100% government law in the works threating people with years in jail or hundred of thousands of dollars in fines. There will be tough cases in any theory, but this sure isn't one of them. I think the other cases such as the Comics Code and MPAA are similarly clear, but one would have to know the history and details to see that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that government/not government is an axiomatic distinction in Libertarian-ish theories. In fact, it has to be, since otherwise the whole structure collapses (if one can't tell if something is government or not, a philosophy based on being against government coercion is in pretty bad shape). So why is there such great difficulty with the idea of seeing if a labeling proposal falls into the government category? Anything of a "censor yourselves or we will censor you" seems obviously of that ilk. I can't make any sense of your objections. As far as I can see, the real difficulty is because the basic unit of thought they use for "freedom" is in fact NOT based on not government/government, but business wants/business doesn't want (the former is just the cover for the latter). Hence the question being asked above is not "Is there government threat here?" but "Does business want it or not want it?". And if business wants the system because it appeases the government, that actual definition of freedom ("what business wants") is completely overriding the heavy government coercion in this case, even thought naively one would think otherwise. Your vacillation makes a lot of sense if viewed as a dilemma of "If I admit that "what business wants" is not the same as "freedom", even in so blatant a case of business wanting to go along with government in making a restrictive-market system, then some liberal is going to come along and use that admission against me later in a case where government is not involved." Well, welcome to the wonderful world of ideological difficulties. Libertarian-types don't get enough of it, because their views are rarely tested on real-world problems. Deal with it, writing yet another go-around of the same what-if stuff doesn't help. See what it's like to have a problem of ideals, maybe it'll generate some insight useful in looking at the practice of other political philosophies. Maybe it'll even be a mellowing experience (naaah ...). -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 16:52:04 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 51 Message-ID: <30d433b9.1836491@news.dnai.com> References: <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> <4akb13$j36@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> <4b07hf$u3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> On 17 Dec 1995 04:49:51 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: The issue is this:Is the proposed PICS system the result of a grass-roots, market-based, demand for a system to allow those who wish to control their access to the net to have a consistent system for doing so, or is it more akin to the MPAA or Comics Code, an 'industry adopted' standard to head off a threat of government censorship? Another issue on 'voluntary' rating schemes, one I'm surprise no one (to my knowledge) has mentioned, is whether or not they are going to seriously crimp competition by shutting out niche markets. For example, the 'comics code' made it impossible for anyone to publish much other than bland superhero 4-colors, which meants they'd have to compete against Marvel&DC -- and fail. It wasn't until the rise of the independant comic shops and the virtual abolition of the CC that the comic book industry recovered its earlier vibrancy. Could this happen WRT the net? I'm not so certain, if only because the net is a virtually free medium -- the costs of publication and distribution are almost nil, and the IWW and Exxon can each have a web page for next-to-nothing. And because the net is non-geographical, it doesn't matter if you intimidate some or many providers, so long as there is one willing to host your site --and that one can be in England or France of Tasmania. But the PICS standard bears watching, nonetheless, because if widely adopted it could make it harder to find 'good' sites -- not impossible, but difficult enough people may not bother. (But again, in the information age, once one person has found a 'good' site, millions can be informed via a keystroke.) The rules are *different* here. The internet is truly a new medium, and *all* the old prejudices -- liberal and libertarian -- need to be reexamined in the face of this new technology. It's much, much harder to silence any one voice -- from Serdar Argic to Dan Gannon to Stephen Boursy to Canter&Siegal, shutting someone out from the net is impossible unless you put them in jail. Which is what the government is planning to do. But, at the least, they'll have to free all the drug dealers to let in all the netters. It's nice to know I'm more dangerous to the Religious Right than a crack pusher. *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard Christmas -- Bah! Humbug!:C. Dickens URL:http:\\www.dnai.com\~lizard. From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: 18 Dec 1995 08:29:43 GMT Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology Lines: 124 Message-ID: <4b38pn$19p@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> References: <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> <4b07hf$u3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30d433b9.1836491@news.dnai.com> Reply-To: sethf@mit.edu In article <30d433b9.1836491@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >On 17 Dec 1995 04:49:51 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) >wrote: > > >The issue is this:Is the proposed PICS system the result of a >grass-roots, market-based, demand for a system to allow those who wish >to control their access to the net to have a consistent system for >doing so, or is it more akin to the MPAA or Comics Code, an 'industry >adopted' standard to head off a threat of government censorship? After Rep. White's "open letter", I just don't see where there can be any argument that it's other than the latter. He said: "However, those who make good faith, reasonable efforts to label content and enable it to be blocked or filtered by parental control technologies (such as the PICS standards currently being developed by MIT and the World Wide Web Consortium) would be immune from prosecution." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How much more explicit can you get? >Another issue on 'voluntary' rating schemes, one I'm surprise no one >(to my knowledge) has mentioned, is whether or not they are going to >seriously crimp competition by shutting out niche markets. For >example, the 'comics code' made it impossible for anyone to publish >much other than bland superhero 4-colors, which meants they'd have to >compete against Marvel&DC -- and fail. It wasn't until the rise of the >independant comic shops and the virtual abolition of the CC that the >comic book industry recovered its earlier vibrancy. I touched on this earlier, in reposting some articles I wrote on labeling for rec.arts.comics.misc, they're in the discussion archives General: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/home.html Labeling: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/safe/labeling/summary.html File: http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/safe/safe/labeling/against-net-label >Could this happen WRT the net? I'm not so certain, if only because the >net is a virtually free medium -- the costs of publication and >distribution are almost nil, and the IWW and Exxon can each have a web >page for next-to-nothing. The details will be different. While the *cost* is low, the *legal risks* - to the creator or the provider - may not be. Even with the Comics Code or MPAA, the costs of creation are not the main factor. It's the restriction of the distribution channels (market) which was critical. I think that can happen very easily for the net, by making it legally risky for uncensored service providers to exist. There may be a tiny niche market, but material in this market won't be able to be distributed in the presumably overwhelmingly dominant "IPAA" market. >And because the net is non-geographical, it >doesn't matter if you intimidate some or many providers, so long as >there is one willing to host your site --and that one can be in >England or France of Tasmania. Nope. While the "net" may be non-geographical, each person on it and every service provider most decidedly is in a specific location and vulnerable to a specific District Attorney (maybe even many other District Attorneys ...). It doesn't do you much good to put your grand words outside the country if they are blocked on entry by default as being non-PICS/IPAA approved. Sure, there'll be a few people who can figure out how to get around the default block, but it'll probably be far more difficult than the average user will care to undertake. It's not about technology so much as burdens. I realize there's a widespread feeling in netland that people who aren't as smart and competent as all us cool people deserve whatever happens to them. But if we're going to be concerned with the development of the Internet as a mass medium, we have think of the masses, not just the technological elite. And lots of people have a hard time with their VCR's. >But the PICS standard bears watching, nonetheless, because if widely >adopted it could make it harder to find 'good' sites -- not >impossible, but difficult enough people may not bother. (But again, in >the information age, once one person has found a 'good' site, millions >can be informed via a keystroke.) They can be informed, but can they carry out the access instructions ("First, contact your provider to request the "pervert codes" to unlock the decency filter ...")? Working tech support can be a real eye-opener here. >The rules are *different* here. The internet is truly a new medium, The more things change, the more they remain the same. Radio was a new medium. TV was a new medium. They definitely changed things, but not at all the way the grand predictors imagined. The whole point of the recent laws was to control the Net in a way TV and radio have been controlled. New-ness is no guarantee of freedom from control. >and *all* the old prejudices -- liberal and libertarian -- need to be >reexamined in the face of this new technology. It's much, much harder I don't see why. Did they have to be re-examined for TV and radio? In fact, I think both Liberals and Libertarians *lost out* there. >to silence any one voice -- from Serdar Argic to Dan Gannon to Stephen >Boursy to Canter&Siegal, shutting someone out from the net is >impossible unless you put them in jail. No, just threatening with jail will suffice for a lot of people. Failing that, threaten to put *their service provider* in jail. I think that would work very well. >Which is what the government is planning to do. But, at the least, >they'll have to free all the drug dealers to let in all the netters. >It's nice to know I'm more dangerous to the Religious Right than a >crack pusher. I don't see where this follows either. Maybe they'll just go for the bankrupting fines (a new means of raising revenue!). Civil forfeiture of the computers (after all, it was property used in committing a felony ...). And so on. There's no inevitable victory of the Net here, folks. Anything we achieve is going to be hard-fought and hard-won. -- Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself. (and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone else). From: lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 06:50:19 GMT Organization: Ferengi School Of Business Ethics Lines: 199 Message-ID: <30d641bb.4115109@news.dnai.com> References: <30cfa371.2046530@news.dnai.com> <4b07hf$u3@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> <30d433b9.1836491@news.dnai.com> <4b38pn$19p@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> On 18 Dec 1995 08:29:43 GMT, sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein) wrote: >In article <30d433b9.1836491@news.dnai.com> lizard@dnai.com (Lizard) writes: >>The issue is this:Is the proposed PICS system the result of a >>grass-roots, market-based, demand for a system to allow those who wish >>to control their access to the net to have a consistent system for >>doing so, or is it more akin to the MPAA or Comics Code, an 'industry >>adopted' standard to head off a threat of government censorship? > > After Rep. White's "open letter", I just don't see where there >can be any argument that it's other than the latter. He said: > > "However, those who make good faith, reasonable efforts to label >content and enable it to be blocked or filtered by parental control >technologies (such as the PICS standards currently being developed by >MIT and the World Wide Web Consortium) would be immune from prosecution." > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > How much more explicit can you get? > Quite a bit more. There are a wide range of 'good faith' methods available. A simple "We won't let anyone under 18 sign on to this service", for example. But the fact that specific standard was mentioned by a Congresscritter is, you are correct, a dangerous sign. Once a voluntary standard is enshrined by the State, it becomes a de facto compulsory standard -- and hence censorship. >>Could this happen WRT the net? I'm not so certain, if only because the >>net is a virtually free medium -- the costs of publication and >>distribution are almost nil, and the IWW and Exxon can each have a web >>page for next-to-nothing. > > The details will be different. While the *cost* is low, the >*legal risks* - to the creator or the provider - may not be. Even with >the Comics Code or MPAA, the costs of creation are not the main factor. >It's the restriction of the distribution channels (market) which was >critical. I think that can happen very easily for the net, by making it >legally risky for uncensored service providers to exist. There may be a >tiny niche market, but material in this market won't be able to be >distributed in the presumably overwhelmingly dominant "IPAA" market. > But 'distribution' is simply access...there is no need to fight for space on a newsstand, or negotiate with a distributor. There is no limited frequency range for transmission. And the costs of storage and transmission are virtually nonexistent. You can check out everything the local TV station shows, everything the local movie theatre plays, even, with difficulty, every book in the local library. But you *can't* watch every packet of communication between every citizen in the country -- even without encryption. With it? Forget it. Remember, the internet doesn't exist. It's a *concept* -- a set of protocols, a set of unwritten agreements between tens of thousands of people. You can create a network anywhere there's two computers and a modem. Shut down "the internet", and something else will be created -- a totally peer-to-peer system, for example, with no central servers offering 'access'. Just call anyone else on the net, anywhere, and you're on it, too. Yes, there's some technological challenges, but it's feasible. >>And because the net is non-geographical, it >>doesn't matter if you intimidate some or many providers, so long as >>there is one willing to host your site --and that one can be in >>England or France of Tasmania. > > Nope. While the "net" may be non-geographical, each person on it >and every service provider most decidedly is in a specific location and >vulnerable to a specific District Attorney (maybe even many other >District Attorneys ...). It doesn't do you much good to put your grand >words outside the country if they are blocked on entry by default as >being non-PICS/IPAA approved. > So you put *yourself* outside the country by telnetting to a remote host and posting from there -- or encrypt your words so that they cannot be blocked. Is a site blocked? A new one will be there tomorrow. It's not like moving a radio transmitter or a TV station -- you don't need to do much more than change some numbers on your settings. And once one hacker has figured out how to subvert the system, the software to do it will be available to everyone. They may bust the inventor, but it won't stop the software from being used. Putting the creator of PGP in jail won't end its' use -- and so long as *one* copy remains on one unlabelled floppy in the bottom of a showbox somewhere, the world can have it again in a day. > Sure, there'll be a few people who can figure out how to get >around the default block, but it'll probably be far more difficult than >the average user will care to undertake. It's not about technology so >much as burdens. I realize there's a widespread feeling in netland that >people who aren't as smart and competent as all us cool people deserve >whatever happens to them. I agree this attitude is prevalent, and I've critiqed it. But the solution to that is to just write a simple shell. >But if we're going to be concerned with the >development of the Internet as a mass medium, we have think of the >masses, not just the technological elite. And lots of people have a hard >time with their VCR's. > Perhaps we should uplift the masses, rather than dumbing down the net? >>But the PICS standard bears watching, nonetheless, because if widely >>adopted it could make it harder to find 'good' sites -- not >>impossible, but difficult enough people may not bother. (But again, in >>the information age, once one person has found a 'good' site, millions >>can be informed via a keystroke.) > > They can be informed, but can they carry out the access >instructions ("First, contact your provider to request the "pervert codes" >to unlock the decency filter ...")? Working tech support can be a real >eye-opener here. > I've done it. Gods, the stories I could tell...("Nothing's happening!" "Did you hit 'Return'?" "Ohhhh.....") But you're also underestimating the market for "The Dummies Guide To Hot Sex On The Information Superhighway". People want sex. People will pay to look at dirty pictures. People will learn the ins and outs of PGP, TCP/IP, and a lot of other alphabet soup if it will get them a pair of massive hooters on their screen. And, in the process of getting to the nekkid wimmin, they just might decide to glance at my web page, or the neo-nazis, or the IWW, or any of a million other non-mainstream sites, and learn a thing or two. >>The rules are *different* here. The internet is truly a new medium, > > The more things change, the more they remain the same. Radio was >a new medium. TV was a new medium. They definitely changed things, but >not at all the way the grand predictors imagined. The whole point of the >recent laws was to control the Net in a way TV and radio have been >controlled. New-ness is no guarantee of freedom from control. > No, it isn't. But I'm not (totally) a wild-eyed idealist rapt in neophilia. The net *is* different, because it is simultaneously person-to-person and mass communication. It allows for the communication on every level from the most private (two lovers sending encrpyted email) to the most public (the Green Card lawyers) and everything in between. There are no costs associated with distance, and only in some places costs associated with time. This makes it a very new animal, not just old wine in new bottles. >>and *all* the old prejudices -- liberal and libertarian -- need to be >>reexamined in the face of this new technology. It's much, much harder > > I don't see why. Did they have to be re-examined for TV and radio? >In fact, I think both Liberals and Libertarians *lost out* there. > TV and Radio were just variants on the existing mode of communication -- speaker to audience. This hasn't changed since the days of bards and storytellers. But the net allows the audience to talk to each other without drowining out the speaker -- it allows every audience member to be a speaker, every speaker to be an audience. It is superior to speech in that it can be archived, superior to TV/radio in that there are no frequencies to fight over, and no continuing costs of any significance. (A broadcaster must pay a large staff just to keep operating;net access can be maintained by a single technician) >>to silence any one voice -- from Serdar Argic to Dan Gannon to Stephen >>Boursy to Canter&Siegal, shutting someone out from the net is >>impossible unless you put them in jail. > > No, just threatening with jail will suffice for a lot of people. >Failing that, threaten to put *their service provider* in jail. I think >that would work very well. > Based on recent court decisions, it is unlikely this will actually happen. >>Which is what the government is planning to do. But, at the least, >>they'll have to free all the drug dealers to let in all the netters. >>It's nice to know I'm more dangerous to the Religious Right than a >>crack pusher. > > I don't see where this follows either. Maybe they'll just go for >the bankrupting fines (a new means of raising revenue!). Civil >forfeiture of the computers (after all, it was property used in >committing a felony ...). And so on. > You can only fine someone with money. Lizard, despite all his arch-capitalist rantings, has never had more than a grand of savings in his life. > There's no inevitable victory of the Net here, folks. Anything >we achieve is going to be hard-fought and hard-won. > The victory is inevitable. How soon it occurs, and how much suffering there will be, depends on how hard we fight. *------------------------------------------------------------* Evolution doesn't take prisoners:Lizard Christmas -- Bah! Humbug!:C. Dickens URL:http://www.dnai.com/~lizard. From: bumbaugh@crl.com (Bruce Umbaugh) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Subject: Re: Against Internet ratings and PICS - censorship in disguise? Followup-To: comp.org.eff.talk,news.admin.censorship,alt.censorship,comp.org.cpsr.talk,alt.politics.datahighway Date: 19 Dec 1995 10:53:33 -0800 Organization: CRL Network Services (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest] Lines: 156 Message-ID: <4b71nd$51a@crl.crl.com> References: <4a30gs$pt4@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <30c9264e.5213778@news.dnai.com> <4akb13$j36@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> I've been following this discussion with much interest, while sitting out debate, since other pressing demands on my time would make full participation unlikely. But it's gotten to the point where I just *have* to stand up with Seth on these issues. Labelling *looks* like an easy out. Everyone thinks that at first look. Lord knows that many of my students find it attractive. Authoritarian sorts don't mind it, because it makes cracking down on supposed wickedness easier. Libertarian types don't mind it, because, hey, who can object to a bit more information, so long as it isn't fraudulent? There's the rub, some say. The labelling presumes that there is some *DANGER* inherent in the *expression* in question. But it is a dearly held political and legal principle in the USA--and one we frequently commend to all humankind--that damn few ideas are inherently dangerous, if indeed any. My thoughts turned, as they sometimes will, to John Stuart Mill's discussion of whether regulating the distribution of poisons would be permissible. I'm thinking to myself: Hmmmm, I seem to recall Mill favoring the labelling of poisons--'cause, hey, who can object to a bit more information--so that people won't inadvertently kill themselves. Labelling Web pages isn't so different, is it? So, if Mill says it is okay, maybe it's cool. But I've misremembered what Mill actually *said* and seem to have remembered instead some neo-Kantian reconstruction of his position. "Very interesting," I thought to myself, "to me anyway. Perhaps I should share this." So, what follows is a concise discursus on Mill, liberty, poisons, and Web pages. If you're already bored, hit "n" I won't mind. Heck, I won't know. In Chapter V, "Applications," of _On Liberty_, Mill discusses how trade is a social act, subject to the jurisdiction of society. He draws an analogy between "the so-called doctrine of Free Trade" and "the principle of individual liberty." [p. 88 in the fine Norton Critical Edition.] He distinguishes efforts to restrain trade that do not involve considerations of liberty--for instance, prohibiting fraudulent adulteration of one's products--from those that do involve considerations of liberty. He cites as examples prohibitions on the sale of liquor, the prohibition on importing opium into China, and restricting the sale of poisons. Of such cases, Mill notes: here the object of the interference is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. These interferences are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer. [88] I take it that what Mill says is correct, and that it will be assented to by most of the participants in this thread and other, similar threads. Now, consider the analogy between poisons and Web pages. Proponents of the labelling schemes urge us to accept labelling as we would for poisons, so they urge us to accept the analogy. But, on the analogy, note that Web page labelling infringes the liberty of Web *browsers*. So, what is at issue is *both* the liberty of *expression* of Web page publishers *and also* some liberty of Web browsers. Mill moves then to a discussion of the poisons case. He says that if we someone preparing to commit a cirme we are not obligated to stand aside until the person's acitivity actually becomes criminal but we may prevent it. He notes, though, that the *preventive* function of government is more likely to be abused so as to infringe on liberty than the *punitive* function. Almost any class of acts one might do could make possible "some form or other of delinquency," and that mere possibility of evil can't be enough to justify intervention. As for poisons, Mill writes first not about harm to self, but about harm to others: If poisons were never bought or used for any purpose except the commission of murder, it would be right to prohibit their manufacture and sale. They may, however, be wanted not only for innocent but for useful purposes, and restrictions cannot be imposed in the one case without operating in the other. [89] Back to the analogy: Surely any Web page may be wanted for some useful or innocent purpose. Surely no Web page is literally poisonous, so as to cause death if ingested in sufficient quantity. (If you think otherwise, I'd like to know of some examples of such *literally* (not metaphorically) poisonous ideas.) So, Mill does *not* condone restricting distribution of Web pages on the grounds that I, say, might set out to harm others with my pages. Mill continues on the subject of harm to self. Mill notes that, as a rule, people ought to be warned of dangers only, not prevented from exposing themselves to them. So: Such a precaution, for example, as that of labelling the drug with some word expressive of its dangerous character, may be enforced without violation of liberty: the buyer cannot wish not to know that the thing he possesses has poisonous qualities. But to require in all cases the certificate of a medical practitioner would make it sometimes impossible, always expensive, to obtain the article for legitimate uses. [89-90] This latter, Mill clearly believes to be an illicit infingement on individual liberty. So, Mill would reject labelling systems that raised barriers to obatining Web pages for legitimate uses. Would he warrant a labelling system to protect me from myself? Again, *ONLY IF WEB PAGES ARE SUFFICIENTLY AKIN TO POISONS*. Mill doesn't just say, "Hey, information is always good, so labelling would be cool." Poisons are a special case: consume a bunch and die. Web pages aren't like that. So, it looks as though Mill thinks I oughta be able to get at Web pages. It looks as though he would oppose requiring some special authorization for me to get at them and would also oppose labelling aimed at making a class of pages harder for me to get. So, even if some expression--some Web pages--are "bad," since they're not so bad as to harm me, I should be able to get em. And if I should be able to get em, others should be able to furnish them. If people must be allowed, in whatever concerns only themselves, to act as seems best to themselves, at their own peril, they must be equally free to consult with one another about what is fit to be so done; to exchange opinions, and give and receive suggestions. Whatever it is permitted to do, it must be permitted to advise to do. [91--see also his review, which follows, of prohibitions on pimping and public gaming houses, where someone has an interest in furthering "immorality," as against prohibitions on "fornication" or gambling.] So, I conclude, Mill's position does not support PICS or other, similar labelling plans. What, though, of the more general argument: More information is always better, labelling a Web page XXX furnishes more information, therefore it is better? Since such labelling is manifestly aimed at hindering the consumption of the information on that page, and, hence, at limiting the liberty of expression of its framer, I insist that the onus is on the proponent of labelling to defend the choice of categories for labelling. If the point is merely "more information," then why label for sexual content and depictions of violence, rather than, say, spelling, aesthetic appeal, political viewpoint, references to age, longwindedness, allusions to British philosophers, or any of the indefinitely many other categories there might be? If this were just about furnishing more information, a host of categories would be wanted. But it isn't just about furnishing more information. The truth is, that proponents of labelling believe that some Web pages are poisonous. I'm waiting for a defense of that proposition. Anybody willing? --Bruce Bruce Umbaugh Philosophy Department Webster University St. Louis, Missouri 63119 USA